Characteristics of the First Fruit and the Karmic Offense of Grave False Speech

Question: When the srotāpanna fruit eradicates the view of the five aggregates as self and as belonging to self, does it also eradicate the view of the manas as self? 

Answer: The eradication of the view of self (satkāya-dṛṣṭi) at the first fruit is accomplished by both the manas and the mind consciousness; both have acknowledged that the five aggregates are suffering, empty, impermanent, and non-self. However, the eradication of the view of self at the first fruit is not thorough; at the second fruit it goes somewhat deeper, which is why the afflictions of greed, anger, and delusion become attenuated. At the third fruit the eradication of the view of self goes still deeper, so that the afflictions of greed, anger, and delusion can be severed. Only at the fourth fruit is the view of self completely eradicated, so that self-conceit and self-grasping can be exhausted, one is not tainted in the slightest by worldly dharmas, and one has the ability to attain Nirvāṇa without remainder (Anupadhiśeṣa-nirvāṇa). 

Although a first-fruit person still has greed, anger, and delusion, and is not one of attenuated greed, anger, and delusion, the merit of eradicating the view of self at the first fruit enables the afflictions of greed, anger, and delusion to be effectively subdued, so that, unlike ordinary beings, greed, anger, and delusion do not easily manifest and become conspicuous. In the course of cultivating the path, the first-fruit person has completed the cultivation of the thirty-seven aids to enlightenment and is endowed with the Eightfold Noble Path, which shows that the mind-ground is upright and wholesome and that one is walking on the correct path of practice. Having completed the Four Right Efforts shows that the afflictions and bad habits of the first-fruit person have been subdued and no longer appear easily, that wholesome dharmas have been established, and that one is endowed with the goodness of a first-fruit person. Through the merit of eradicating evil and cultivating goodness, one is endowed with the liberated merit and benefit of a first-fruit person. It is not the case, as some people who have not actually realized the fruit claim, that the first-fruit person has the same afflictions of greed, anger, and delusion as an ordinary being—such words and deeds are a grave slander of first-fruit people, and in reality it is not like that at all. 

If anyone encounters a supposed first-fruit person whose afflictions of greed, anger, and delusion are as heavy as those of an ordinary being, one can conclude that this person is a fake first-fruit person, an ordinary being pretending to be a first-fruit person. Nowadays deceptive tricks are rampant in the world, and there are many deceptive tricks in Buddhism too. A few individuals do it intentionally, but most people do it unintentionally—simply because their self-regard is heavy, they think too highly of themselves, their eyes do not turn inward to look at themselves, they do not know how to examine and introspect themselves, they crave prominence and like to compete with others for superiority, and as a result they end up harming themselves instead. After death, because of the great false speech, they automatically fall into hell. 

Why is the karma of great false speech so grave? As the Buddha said in the Śūraṅgama Sūtra, it is like a poor man falsely claiming to be the emperor: he is seized by the king, beheaded as a public example, and his entire family is exterminated. In Buddhism, for an ordinary being to impersonate a sage carries even greater karmic offense than impersonating an emperor in worldly affairs, for a sage is far superior to an emperor. Impersonating a sage disrupts Buddhism and confuses people's perception, making sentient beings unable to distinguish sages from ordinary beings, and thereby the sequence of cultivation and realization in Buddhism is thrown into disorder. Impersonating a sage is a pārājika offense, an offense of decapitation; after death one must enter hell to undergo punishment and atone for the offense.