Overview
The eventual extinction of the Dhamma is driven from within, not by external enemies. The Buddha detailed five specific internal behaviors within the monastic community that actively accelerate the decline and confusion of the dispensation, warning monks against these specific patterns of carelessness.
The List
- Mislearning the Text: He learns and memorizes the discourses incorrectly, utilizing faulty grammar and misinterpreting the actual Pāḷi phrasing.
- Unteachability: He is stubborn, proud, and difficult to correct, reacting with anger or evasion when senior monks try to instruct or discipline him.
- Neglecting Pupils: He is lazy in teaching, failing to properly train his own novices and students in the texts, leaving the next generation illiterate.
- Abandoning Scriptural Study: He stops memorizing, reciting, and discussing the Canon, letting the line of scriptural transmission (pariyatti) rot in silence.
- Indulgence and Luxury: He seeks worldly comfort, hoards material goods, and entirely abandons physical seclusion, meditation, and sensory restraint.
Textual References
- Canonical: Parihāni Sutta (AN 5.155) – The Buddha outlines these five destructive habits, identifying them as the true internal roots of dispensation collapse.