Lecture Notes on the Sūtra of the Collection of the Father and Son (209)

Supreme bodhi can eradicate all wrong views in the world

Supreme bodhi can eradicate all wrong views in the world. Where do wrong views come from? They also arise from the view of self (satkāya-dṛṣṭi). Before ordinary beings attain any fruit of realization, they all believe there is an "I" existing: the physical body is the self, the five aggregates (pañca-skandha) are the self. All kinds of views that take the self as their starting point belong to wrong views. Cultivating and realizing the Buddha-dharma can eradicate all wrong views and can eliminate all the evil deeds of sentient beings. When one attains the first fruit, srotāpanna, one breaks the three fetters, including the wrong view concerning the self, and the karma of the three evil destinies accumulated since beginningless kalpas is eliminated, so that in the future one will never fall into the three evil destinies again. The remaining karmic retribution will only manifest in the human realm, where one undergoes suffering; however severe the suffering in the human realm may be, it is still more pleasant than being in the three evil destinies, and the suffering is far lighter than that of the three evil destinies.