Past Unwholesome Actions Cannot Be Exhausted with the Performance of Piercing Austerities (Harshness)

Now, Mahanama, on one occasion I was living at Rajagaha on the mountain Vulture Peak. On that occasion a number of Niganthas living on the Black Rock on the slopes of Isigili were practicing continuous standing, rejecting seats, and were experiencing painful, agonizing, piercing feelings due to effort. Then, when it was evening, I rose from meditation and went to the Niganthas there.

I asked them: Friends, why do you practice continuous standing, rejecting seats, and experience painful, agonizing, piercing feelings due to effort?

When this was said, they replied: ‘Friend, the Nigantha Nataputta is omniscient and all-knowing and claims to have complete wisdom and vision thus: Whether I am walking or standing or asleep or awake, wisdom and vision are continuously and uninterruptedly present to me.

He says thus: ‘Niganthas, you have done unwholesome actions in the past; exhaust them with the performance of piercing austerities. And when you are here and now restrained in body, speech, and mind, that is doing no unwholesome actions for the future. So by obliterating them with Asceticism past actions and by doing no fresh actions, there will be no consequence in the future. With no consequence in the future, there is the destruction of action. With the destruction of action, there is the destruction of discontentedness. With the destruction of discontentedness, there is the destruction of feeling. With the destruction of feeling, all discontentedness will be exhausted. This is [the doctrine] we approve of and accept, and we are satisfied with it.’

When this was said, I told them: But, friends, do you know that you existed in the past, and that it is not the case that you did not exist?

‘No, friend.’

But, friends, do you know that you did unwholesome actions in the past and did not abstain from them?

‘No, friend.’

But, friends, do you know that you did such and such unwholesome actions?

‘No, friend.’

But, friends, do you know that so much discontentedness has already been exhausted, or that so much discontentedness has still to be exhausted, or that when so much discontentedness has been exhausted all discontentedness will have been exhausted?

‘No, friend.’

But, friends, do you know what the abandoning of unwholesome states is and what the cultivation of wholesome states is here and now?

‘No, friend.’

So, friends, it seems that you do not know that you existed in the past and that it is not the case that you did not exist; or that you did unwholesome actions in the past and did not abstain from them; or that you did such and such unwholesome actions; or that so much discontentedness has already been exhausted, or that so much discontentedness has still to be exhausted, or that when so much discontentedness has been exhausted all discontentedness will have been exhausted; or what the abandoning of unwholesome states is and what the cultivation of wholesome states is here and now. That being so, those who are murderers, bloody handed, evil-doers in the world, when they are reborn among human beings, go forth into homelessness as Niganthas.

(Reference: MN 14)

In this Teaching from Gotama Buddha, he shares that unwholesome actions that will produce unwholesome results cannot be extinguished through “experiencing painful, agonizing, piercing feelings”. Discontentedness of mind cannot be extinguished and eliminated through inflicting harm to the physical body.

Instead, it is training the mind to acquire wisdom that the mind is liberated from discontentedness. A Practitioner will need to understand and practice “the abandoning of unwholesome states is and what the cultivation of wholesome states is here and now”.