Introduction
Namo tassa bhagavato arahato sammāsambuddhassa
Introduction to 3.3.1 Vibhaṅgasuttaṃ, Part Three - What Is Right Thought (Sammāsaṅkappo)?
Although sammāsaṅkappo in this lesson is translated in its traditional rendering of right thought, it has to be understood as mental activity preceding actions, the intention, the drive or the base for succeeding deed, whether verbal or physical, which is paving the avenue one means to proceed on.
Whatever the quality of mental activity, the intention and the objective of formed thoughts, they precede and determine the result of physical and verbal activity by generating wholesome or unwholesome effects of matching and corresponding quality. Even more, those attached to wrong thoughts will perceive the objective world through the eyes of their intention and never realize any higher perspective in their lives:
Te sāraṃ nādhigacchanti, micchāsaṅkappagocarā
Thus attached to the wrong kind of thoughts they will never realize the essence.1
Those who foster right thoughts will thus develop a suitable base for wholesome and healthy livelihood and the realization of truth:
Te sāraṃ adhigacchanti, sammāsaṅkappagocarā
Thus attached to the right kind of thoughts they will realize the essence.2
This short exposition highlights sammāsaṅkappo from the Vibhaṅgasutta, the sutta that elucidates the Noble Eightfold Path, and is split into parts describing the respective links here.3 It presents the three characteristics that oppose and reverse their respective three opposites of micchāsaṅkappo: kāmasaṅkappo, byāpādasaṅkappo, vihiṃsāsaṅkappo – thoughts filled with desire, with ill will and cruelty. Thus driven by these thoughts and intentions, without giving consideration to moral behaviour and the potential harmful results that might derive from actions based on these thoughts, one may find it easy to legitimate even the most harmful outcome.
It is sammāsaṅkappo, if based on sammādiṭṭhi, which opposes, invalidates and corrects these unwholesome attitudes by slowly turning them into wholesome qualities. It needs sammāvāyāmo (right effort) to put into effect the zeal to abandon wrong, unwholesome thoughts however difficult it may be. It needs sammāvāyāmo to leave one’s attachments behind and to replace them with wholesome, beneficial thoughts and intentions.
So micchāsaṅkappassa pahānāya vāyamati, sammāsaṅkappassa upasampadāya, svāssa hoti sammāvāyāmo.
In this way he strives hard to avoid wrong thought, to get established in right thought, in this way he is one with right thought.4
Sammāsaṅkappo provides the bridge from the first link of the Noble Path (sammādiṭṭhi), on which it is based, and opens up the avenue to the three links of helpful and supportive moral behaviour connecting to wholesome conduct well-established in perfect sīla: sammāvācā, sammākammanto and sammā-ājīvo.5
1. 3.2.1 Yamakavaggo - Sārañca sārato ñatvā - Perceiving the essential
2. Te sāranti te pana taṃ micchādiṭṭhiggahaṇaṃ gahetvā ṭhitā kāmavitakkādīnaṃ vasena micchāsaṅkappagocarā hutvā sīlasāraṃ, samādhisāraṃ, paññāsāraṃ, vimuttisāraṃ, vimuttiñāṇadassanasāraṃ, paramatthasāraṃ, nibbānañca nādhigaccha’’ti — Those who thus having taken up wrong views and maintain wrong thoughts by upholding thoughts of sense desires and so on will not realize the essence of sīla, nor the essences of samādhi and paññā, nor of liberation nor the essence of the understanding of annihilation and will not come into the possession of the essence of the highest goal, which is Nibbāna.
3. 3.1.4 Vibhaṅgasutta, Part One - What Is the Eightfold Noble Path?, 3.2.2 Vibhaṅgasuttaṃ, Part Two - Sammādiṭṭhi - What Is Right View?, etc.
4. 3.2.7 Mahācattārīsakasuttaṃ - Discerning Wrong View and Developing Right View and 3.3.5 Mahācattārīsakasuttaṃ - Discerning Wrong Thought and Developing Right Thought.
5. For each of these links see chapter 3.4 Sammāvācā - Right Speech, 3.5 Sammākammanto - Right Actions and 3.6 Sammā-ājīvo - Right Livelihood.