The Seventh of Ten Wrong Paths – Speculating that No Aggregates Exist After Death
“Further, when the good practitioner’s mind is firm, clear, and proper in the cultivation of Samadhi, no demon can disturb him. He may then thoroughly investigate the origin of all categories of living beings, and he may contemplate the source of its subtle, clear, and constant movement. But if he begins to speculate about the skandhas of form, sense-perception, and cognition, all of which have already ended in his Samadhi, he could fall into the distorted belief that skandhas do not exist after death.
“As he sees in his Samadhi that his form skandha no longer functions, it seems as if his physical body is existing without a cause. Seeing that his cognition skandha is gone too, it seems as if his mind has nothing to connect to. Seeing that his sense-perception skandha has ceased to function, it seems as if his sense faculties have no involvements with the objects perceived. With the skandhas of form, sense-perception, and cognition being vanished, even though there are still other skandhas, he is just the same as a blade of grass or a piece of wood, without feeling and thinking. If those skandhas do not exist even now, how can there be any attributes of the skandhas after death? Therefore, after investigation and examination, he speculates that after death there is no form. Cycling through his speculation, he can come up with eight instances of the nonexistence of form, and he may further speculate that nirvana and causation are all empty, that they are empty names, which ultimately mean nothing.
“With such speculations about the nonexistence of forms after death, he takes a wrong path and becomes confused about the nature of Bodhi. This is the seventh wrong path, constituted by the wrongheaded theories on the nonexistence of the attributes of five skandhas after death.”
又三摩中诸善男子，坚凝正心，魔不得便。穷生类本，观彼幽清常扰动元。于先除灭色受想中生计度者，是人坠入死后无相，发心颠倒。见其色灭，形无所因；观其想灭，心无所系；知其受灭，无复连缀。阴性销散，纵有生理 ，而无受想，与草木同。此质现前犹不可得，死后云何更有诸相？因之勘校，死后相无，如是循环，有八无相。从此或计涅槃因果一切皆空，徒有名字，究竟断灭。由此计度 ，死后无故，堕落外道，惑菩提性。是则名为第七外道，立五阴中死后无相，心颠倒论。
Buddha Mind 