Is a major outflow (āsrava) determined according to the length of time it is pursued?

Some people say that eliminating craving for the desire realm requires a great deal of time and carries a heavy mark of contrivance, and that this constitutes a major leak. If a person with heavy greed gets married, the problem is solved—marriage takes little time, so it counts as a minor leak; pursuing something over a long time is a major leak, while pursuing it briefly is a minor leak. This person's teaching distorts the facts and violates the Buddhist principle of the Four Noble Truths and the principle of liberation.

If pursuing something over a long time is a major leak, then when ordinary beings spend three great asaṃkhyeya kalpas striving to attain buddhahood, is that not a major leak? If eliminating craving for the desire realm is a major leak, does it mean that holding on to craving for the desire realm for countless kalpas—committing immeasurable karma of greed, hatred, and delusion in the six realms since beginningless kalpas, and suffering immeasurable birth-and-death—is not a major leak? Is the method for resolving greed marriage, rather than contemplating suffering, emptiness, impermanence, and non-self to attain liberation? Is marriage really the method for eliminating craving for the desire realm? Then what should the method for resolving hatred be? Should one kill the person one hates in an instant, so that from then on there is no more hatred?

When an ordinary being spends an instant to kill someone, the time spent is extremely short—so is that not a major leak? Does yielding to the affliction of craving not count as a major leak? By this logic, was it meaningless for the Buddha to come to this Sahā world of heavy afflictions to teach the dharma of liberation—do beings attain liberation simply by yielding to their afflictions and desires?

Should the gravity of a leak be measured by the time spent, or by the weight of the affliction? If one indulges in greed for an extremely brief moment, is that not a major leak? Is marriage the method for resolving greed? Is killing the method for resolving hatred? Who does not know that marriage is precisely a manifestation of greed? Since beginningless kalpas, beings have married life after life in their human existences, and yet they have remained greedy all along. For the sake of this greed they have suffered immeasurably life after life—is this not an obvious fact?

It seems this person does not truly have faith in and accept the Buddha's dharma, yet sits on a high seat expounding the dharma, posing as a good teacher, teaching beings to simply yield to greed and desire, to yield to greed, hatred, and delusion, to indulge however they please, and not to cultivate and study suffering, its origin, its cessation, and the path, and not to eliminate greed and hatred—because that would take a great deal of time, the loss outweighing the gain, and it is better to enjoy pleasures in the moment. If this can be tolerated, what cannot be? If non-Buddhists said such things, it would be one thing—they are non-Buddhists after all—but this is someone who claims to be a good teacher, indeed a true good teacher, someone who expounds the principle of liberation. This is clearly an attempt to pin all beings down in the six realms to indulge in greed together with him. Every unwholesome karma a person commits is like picking up a stone only to drop it on one's own foot, or spitting at the sky only to have it fall back on one's own face. In ancient times, someone fell into the body of a wild fox over the difference of a single word; this person's errors are enormous and numerous, and the retribution will be terrifying.