Commentary on the Pitṛputrasamāgama Sūtra (181)

What are the Ten Unwholesome Deeds?

Ordinary beings, lacking in learning and wisdom, develop fondness and delight toward agreeable tactile sensations. Agreeable tactile sensations refer to bodily contact that is extremely pleasing and delightful to the consciousness, known as exquisite contact. Examples include the body touching soft clothing, warm sunlight, or a comfortable bed. The most significant among these is tactile contact between men and women, as the desire realm is primarily built upon this form of contact. What the body faculty (body consciousness) encounters is called tangible objects. For instance, warm and comfortable sunlight touching the body, cold or hot wind making contact, soft or hard clothing touching the skin – whenever the body consciousness has a sensation, it is called contact, and the object contacted is called a tangible object. Additionally, feelings like hunger or thirst, sensations in the stomach, are also contact; these are tangible objects. Furthermore, feeling fatigued after sitting for a long time is also a tangible object. During meditation, if the body feels light and at ease, experiencing extreme comfort, these too are tangible objects.

Ordinary beings are most attached to agreeable tactile sensations, primarily centered around contact between men and women. When men and women make contact, feelings of fondness, delight, and craving arise in the mind, thus defiling the mind. This craving is primarily centered on the mental consciousness, though it also involves the eye consciousness and body consciousness, with the sixth consciousness (mental consciousness) being the main locus. Once the mental consciousness gives rise to defilement, it creates karma. The next step after the mind gives rise to fondness and delight is inevitably to create karma, and karmic actions will manifest. Those who do not practice will manifest foolish actions of body, speech, and mind. Some practitioners may have defilement within their minds at times but refrain from committing physical or verbal karmic actions. The most accomplished practitioners do not even allow defilement to arise in the mind. The karmic actions created are: three of body – killing, stealing, sexual misconduct; four of speech – false speech, frivolous speech, divisive speech, harsh speech; and three of mind – greed, hatred, delusion.

The three of body, four of speech, and three of mind combine to form the ten deeds. Body, speech, and mind act in accordance with and follow each other. After these ten deeds are committed, the karmic actions perish moment by moment. The seeds of the karmic actions are projected, function, and then cease; the karmic action of that moment ceases to exist. Ultimately, the entire act of creating the karma disappears, but the karmic seeds remain, recorded. Who records them? They are recorded by the alaya consciousness, which is most intimately connected to us, because it projects the seeds and then retrieves them. The karmic actions created by the seeds are simultaneously stored within the alaya consciousness.