Pa Auk meditation instructions are AGAINST the Buddha’s teachings

[Protect Dhamma]

Mistakes in Pa Auk Sayadaw’s Books - The Workings of Kamma and Knowing and Seeing



This video highlights mistakes in the two Pa Auk books called The Workings of Kamma and Knowing and Seeing.

The main mistake is that both books suggest the Patibhaga nimitta is made up of materiality and has spaces inside it.

The Visuddhimagga clearly states that the Patibhaga nimitta is a concept and therefore does not have rupa kalapas. We refer to passages in the Visuddhimagga for viewers to investigate and understand further.

Note: This is done with the sole intention that the correct Dhamma will prevail and wrong information of Dhamma will disappear from the world.

[Protect Dhamma]

A Serious Mistake in the meditation instructions given at Pa Auk when discerning Nama (Mentality).



This video highlights A Serious Mistake in the meditation instructions given at Pa Auk when discerning Nama (Mentality).

The instructors ask the meditator to produce Akusala (Unwholesome) minds by taking a hated person as object to produce dosa, a desired object like gold to produce greed, etc. Then the teacher tells the student to discern the akusala cetasikas of the minds produced.

These Pa Auk instructions are AGAINST the Buddha’s teachings. The Buddha never allowed a person to do Akusala under any circumstances. This will especially hold true for a person meditating and trying to attain Nibbana.

This is a harmful error that any ardent Buddhist would understand. This error can also result in the meditator accumulating akusala (unwholesome) kamma unnecessarily over long periods of time.

All Nama dhammas have to be known to attain Nibbana. This Does Not mean all Nama Dhammas have to be produced by the meditator.

Note: All this is done with the sole intention that the correct Dhamma will prevail and wrong information of Dhamma will disappear from the world.

[robertk]

The instructors ask the meditator to produce Akusala (Unwholesome) minds by taking a hated person as object to produce dosa, a desired object like gold to produce greed, etc. Then the teacher tells the student to discern the akusala cetasikas of the minds produced.

Another way to consider this is that:
1. all of us worldlings have plenty of dosa and lobha accumulated- it is very much daily life . Learning to see these elements as completely anatta is important (as with all elements). I think that might be the point of this exercise .
2. Because of the anattaness of elements we might find when thinking of the hated or loved object it doesn't produce the factors of dosa and lobha as much as we wanted (when doing this exercise).

Note I am not a follower of Pa Auk at all. Just my 2 cents.

[Ontheway]

If Pak Auk really taught that, I will disagree too. All I know in the Suttas and Atthakatha commentaries, it is about noting and letting go. When there is unwholesome mind quality arises, take note of it, aware of it, and letting it go away without grasping it. It is cittanupasanna.

http://www.buddhanet.net/e-learning/mahasati09.htm

But I am not Pak Auk's follower either, don't really study his works but just watching the video posted by OP.

[Eko Care]

Generally Pa Auk is praised among the modern meditative monks in terms of Sila, Samadhi-respect and Orthodoxy.

But some suspect that their Jhanas are pre-jhana levels.
And many including Burmese Sangha Council suspect their Vipassana and attainments claimed.

I heard Pa Auk people say that they see past lives in vipassana, light of wisdom is light of jhana ..etc
which was the reasons their book to be prohibited publishing inside the Burma (as I heard).

At the same time, some say that they stay close to Pa Auk circles, even though they are not sure about the method, because there are less places with good classical vinaya and meditation to be associated with.

(If anyone needs): A good investigation is a good way of revealing which party is correct.

[Protect Dhamma]

Another way to consider this is that:
1. all of us worldlings have plenty of dosa and lobha accumulated- it is very much daily life . Learning to see these elements as completely anatta is important (as with all elements). I think that might be the point of this exercise .
2. Because of the anattaness of elements we might find when thinking of the hated or loved object it doesn't produce the factors of dosa and lobha as much as we wanted (when doing this exercise).

Note I am not a follower of Pa Auk at all. Just my 2 cents.

Dear RobertK,

Some important points to understand.

The lack of ability to see anatta is based on the meditator's wisdom to penetrate and the concentration that accompanies it. Hence, anatta is not the limiting factor for the ability to see dhammas such as mentality which includes consciousness and cetasikas.

The limiting factor for penetrating the dhammas is Actually defilements, hindrances,etc. The more the defilements, the less a person can see.

At Pa Auk this part of the exercise is not a natural checking of defilements (such as daily life defilements, etc.), because the Teacher Instructs the student to generate and gives details on how to generate. Actually, if you ask the Teacher is this akusala?, he will say "yes, but not a lot". Ven. Kumara will advise to do this generation but not for a very long time continuously because the concentration drops BECAUSE of the akusala that is produced. BUT, they still believe it is ok to do this exercise.

Very surprising that there are students who have studied at Pa Auk for 30 years and still accept that this is in line with Buddha's teachings.

When Pa Auk Sayadaw taught this about 30 years ago, he told the students to do akusala by taking everyday objects. Then he modified it and taught how to take elements such as earth element, water element as akusala.

So basically he is entrenched in this.

The Burmese version has pages and pages of how to do this. The English version has fewer pages.

The students don't realize that if you BELIEVE IN THIS, THEN A PERSON CAN NEVER HAVE FAITH in the Buddha's teachings. Because the Buddha would never allow this.

Please spread and discuss this. Many Pa Auk students are imagining that they are powerful meditators. But, then they are actually spreading wrong views like this.

Only foreign monks and devotees can help us. The Myanmar Sangha council tried to stop Pa Auk, but they could not because foreign devotees poured in the money to print books.
If the foreigners can understand that a sham is taking place, then the meditators will be saved.

Please read and investigate Pa auk meditation manuals

Thank you for commenting.
Protect Dhamma

[Protect Dhamma]

If Pak Auk really taught that, I will disagree too.

Dear Ontheway,

I think this post will help answer your questions about whether this is actually done in Pa Auk:

Some important points to understand.

The lack of ability to see anatta is based on the meditator's wisdom to penetrate and the concentration that accompanies it. Hence, anatta is not the limiting factor for the ability to see dhammas such as mentality which includes consciousness and cetasikas.

The limiting factor for penetrating the dhammas is Actually defilements, hindrances,etc. The more the defilements, the less a person can see.

At Pa Auk this part of the exercise is not a natural checking of defilements (such as daily life defilements, etc.), because the Teacher Instructs the student to generate and gives details on how to generate. Actually, if you ask the Teacher is this akusala?, he will say "yes, but not a lot". Ven. Kumara will advise to do this generation but not for a very long time continuously because the concentration drops BECAUSE of the akusala that is produced. BUT, they still believe it is ok to do this exercise.

Very surprising that there are students who have studied at Pa Auk for 30 years and still accept that this is in line with Buddha's teachings.

When Pa Auk Sayadaw taught this about 30 years ago, he told the students to do akusala by taking everyday objects. Then he modified it and taught how to take elements such as earth element, water element as akusala.

So basically he is entrenched in this.

The Burmese version has pages and pages of how to do this. The English version has fewer pages.

The students don't realize that if you BELIEVE IN THIS, THEN A PERSON CAN NEVER HAVE FAITH in the Buddha's teachings. Because the Buddha would never allow this.

Please spread and discuss this. Many Pa Auk students are imagining that they are powerful meditators. But, then they are actually spreading wrong views like this.

Only foreign monks and devotees can help us. The Myanmar Sangha council tried to stop Pa Auk, but they could not because foreign devotees poured in the money to print books.
If the foreigners can understand that a sham is taking place, then the meditators will be saved.

Please read and investigate Pa auk meditation manuals

Thank you for commenting.
Protect Dhamma

[Protect Dhamma]

Generally Pa Auk is praised among the modern meditative monks in terms of Sila, Samadhi-respect and Orthodoxy.

Dear Eko Care,

Some important points to understand.

The lack of ability to see anatta is based on the meditator's wisdom to penetrate and the concentration that accompanies it. Hence, anatta is not the limiting factor for the ability to see dhammas such as mentality which includes consciousness and cetasikas.

The limiting factor for penetrating the dhammas is Actually defilements, hindrances,etc. The more the defilements, the less a person can see.

At Pa Auk this part of the exercise is not a natural checking of defilements (such as daily life defilements, etc.), because the Teacher Instructs the student to generate and gives details on how to generate. Actually, if you ask the Teacher is this akusala?, he will say "yes, but not a lot". Ven. Kumara will advise to do this generation but not for a very long time continuously because the concentration drops BECAUSE of the akusala that is produced. BUT, they still believe it is ok to do this exercise.

Very surprising that there are students who have studied at Pa Auk for 30 years and still accept that this is in line with Buddha's teachings.

When Pa Auk Sayadaw taught this about 30 years ago, he told the students to do akusala by taking everyday objects. Then he modified it and taught how to take elements such as earth element, water element as akusala.

So basically he is entrenched in this.

The Burmese version has pages and pages of how to do this. The English version has fewer pages.

The students don't realize that if you BELIEVE IN THIS, THEN A PERSON CAN NEVER HAVE FAITH in the Buddha's teachings. Because the Buddha would never allow this.

Please spread and discuss this. Many Pa Auk students are imagining that they are powerful meditators. But, then they are actually spreading wrong views like this.

Only foreign monks and devotees can help us. The Myanmar Sangha council tried to stop Pa Auk, but they could not because foreign devotees poured in the money to print books.
If the foreigners can understand that a sham is taking place, then the meditators will be saved.

Please read and investigate Pa auk meditation manuals

Thank you for commenting.
Protect Dhamma

Please see below more of our analytical videos on Mistakes of Pa Auk Meditaiton:

[Protect Dhamma]

Our Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/mistakesofpaaukmeditation) received a message from a Pa-Auk Meditation Centre student studying with Venerable Kumara. He send some quotations as a defence of their interpretations of the Visuddhimagga. We replied so they can gain some clarity. We pasted the respective quotes below so you can take a look. We also included our reply.

Our reply to Pa Auk student studying under Ven. Kumara:

Dear Mg Citta,

Your quotations from the Visuddhimagga and its sub-commentary are appreciated. But again, you and your teacher misunderstand the meanings. I will explain certain meanings. You can also discuss with some of the Sangha studying in Mandalay. You can also discuss with Ven. Kumara or anyone else. Or you can hide in your misinterpretations.

First you should understand concept. There are many types of concepts. There is name concept which is the name for a certain object or objects. Example of name concept is “Rupa Kalapa” which is the name for a group of 8 or more materialities. Now Patibhaga nimitta is also a concept. But it is NOT a name concept. It is nimitta concept. It is a Dhamma object that is born of perception because of meditative development.

The Visuddhimagga says the Patibhaga nimitta does not have individual essence. Also, the Visuddhimagga says that a person cannot attain Jhana with an object that has individual essence, except for the 2nd and 4th arupa jhanas and Nibbana.

Then you have to understand that the Patibhaga nimitta cannot have rupa kalapas. Because the rupa kalapa is a name for the group of materiality. Remember that there is nothing else for a rupa kalapa other than the materialities.

If the Patibhaga nimitta had rupa kalapas a person can only say "that the mind can only absorb into one of the 8 or more materialities". But this statement would be wrong.

Therefore, this means the Patibhaga nimitta cannot have rupa kalapas. But, because you also like Pali, we ask you to refer to Abhidhammattha Sangaha Sub-Commentary which also says the Patibhaga nimittas do not have any individual essence. So everywhere it is stated that the Patibhaga nimitta does not have individual essence.

Finally, one last point. Bhadantacariya Buddhagosa does not make mistakes and does not write contradictory statements. You have to accept this, otherwise you will not be able to understand his meanings and usage of the Pali text. Even famous Abhivamsas make mistakes because they do not follow this rule.

Now you have some understanding, so let us look at the Pali you have quoted for us:

First Section of our reply to the Pali you sent us.
Please refer to the Patibhaga nimitta section you sent us. The Visuddhimagga says “Then he should not give attention (manasi) to the sign as to its color, or review it as to its characteristics.”

If you look at the Sub-commentary carefully, you will understand that the color the Visuddhimagga is referring to is the lump of cotton, bright star, etc. It is NOT a reference to ultimate reality color. Why is it not a reference to ultimate reality color? Because then the sub-commentary would say it is ultimate reality color. But it refers to lump of cotton, bright star, etc. Also, if it was ultimate reality color a person cannot have Jhana, because then we have to say the patibhaga nimitta has individual essence. This will contradict Bhadantacariya Buddhagosa earlier text and therefore DOES NOT MATCH Visuddhimagga or Abhidhammattha Sangaha. The Sub-commentary mentions lump of cotton, bright star, etc. BUT it does not say ultimate reality color. Please understand this difference.

Then the Visuddhimagga also says do not “paccavekkhitabbam” the characteristics. Please note the difference in language. Earlier, it said do not “manasi” to color (which we explained above) and here it says do not “paccavekkhitabbam”. This last word means review or reflect. It does not mean “pay attention to”. You have to understand the difference, which is very important.

Then let us analyze the Pali and understand the meaning. Let us say your Teacher Thinks that the Patibhaga nimitta has characteristics such has hardness, and a person can “discern” anicca, dukkha, anatta. Then this contradicts the earlier text because the VISUDDHIMAGGA SAYS that a person cannot absorb into an object that has individual essences such as hardness, etc. Please also remember that the characteristics of anicca, dukkha and anatta are again associated with the aggregates. If there are aggregates in the Patibhaga nimitta, then again there is individual essence, and the person cannot attain Jhana. If we say your Teacher is correct, there is a problem, because it contradicts the Pali used by Bhadantacariya Buddhagosa in the earlier passages. So, your Teacher’s interpretation of these sentences is wrong and Cannot be correct.

Then what is the correct understanding of this sentence? The meditator should not “paccavekkhitabbam” the characteristics of hardness, etc. or anicca, dukkha, anatta, etc of the Patibhaga nimitta. This means he should not review or reflect on these characteristics in the Patibhaga nimitta he sees. He should not reflect this “star is impermanent or suffering or non-self”. Please understand this does not mean the Patibhaga nimitta is ultimate reality and has the characteristics of anicca, dukkha, anatta. If the Patibhaga nimitta had ultimate reality then we can do vipassana on it. This is a very subtle point, if you do not understand this clearly, then you and your Teacher will think that meditators can absorb into earth element, water element, etc. This means your meditation is not according to the Dhamma.

Second Section of our reply to the Pali you sent us.
Your first point and third point we answer together.

First thing to remember is when a person has Jhana, his mind takes the same object continuously. This object CANNOT change. Patibhaga nimitta DOES NOT Change. If the Patibhaga nimitta changes, then the mind is not taking the same object all the time. It is taking different objects at different times. Why? Because the object is changing! Remember, rupa kalapas always change. Sometimes they are bright. Sometimes they are dark. If a person takes this as object for Jhana, then his Jhana is very strange indeed! Sometimes it will be bright rupa kalapas and sometimes it will be darker rupa kalapas. So please do not be very foolish, and just understand this.

Then also refer to the Simile of the Saw in Mindfulness of Breathing section in Visuddhimagga. Then you will understand how to meditate Anapanasati.

We continue…
You referred to two points. In Anapanasati the breath is being observed at the touching point of the nostril or the upper lip. The Breath being made up of cittaja rupa kalapas. Of course, we accept the breath is made of cittaja rupa kalapas. This is one reason we said they cannot unify with Patibhaga nimitta (see our video). To answer you, please remember when we meditate Anapanasati we are actually meditating on the concept of breath. Not the cittaja rupa kalapas. Also, the mind is observing only one point. The meditator does not follow the breath inside or outside for even 1 finger breadth! When placing mindfulness at one spot, a visual or mental image of the breath going up and down cannot occur because we are observing one spot. Pa Auk’s belief that the breath unifies with the nimitta is usually based on this image of breath moving up and down and is wrong. Also, this Pa Auk understanding does not match the stanza where the meditator knows that there are 3 different consciousnesses for the 3 objects. One reason this stanza is actually there in the Visuddhimagga is to prevent the meditator from making mistakes. If you think about this stanza, it clearly says one consciousness cannot be seeing nimitta, in-breath and out-breath. So, one consciousness cannot see nimitta and breath together (unify).

We think the above answers should be enough for you to gain some clarity.

I do not know how much you have meditated but you can always check with the Dhamma. If you have grey nimitta you can check and see whether it has color. Then you can check your light and see whether it has color. Then you can check and see whether the breath that unifies with the light is it a mental image? You can check whether your patibhaga nimitta has color. Then you can decide whether you are absorbing into Patibhaga nimitta or absorbing into color. You can also check whether the Patibhaga nimitta changes while you are “in jhana”. If the Patibhaga nimitta changes, then it cannot be jhana, because in Jhana the mind takes the same object continuously. Which also means this object cannot change!

Mg Citta please study more Dhamma. A Sotapanna will not make a mistake about Patibhaga nimitta. The lack of knowledge of your Teacher is dangerous. We hope he can learn more.

Thanks for writing, Protect Dhamma



Message from Pa Auk student studying under Ven, Kumara:

nimittanti upanibandhanānimittaṃ, nāsikaggaṃ, mukhanimittaṃ vā.(Vimati.1.216-217)
(Visuddhimagga Mahāṭīkā-1; 331,2)
Dīghaṃ assāsapassāsā kāyoti dīghākārā assāsapassāsā cuṇṇavicuṇṇāpi samūhaṭṭhena kāyo. Assāsapassāse nissāya uppannanimittampettha assāsapassāsasamaññameva vuttaṃ. (Visuddhimagga Mahāṭīkā-1; 319)
ဒီဃံ အဿာသပဿာသာ ကာယောတိ ဒီဃာကာရာ အဿာသပဿာသာ စုဏ္ဏဝိစုဏ္ဏာပိ သမူဟဋ္ဌေန ကာယော။ အဿာသပဿာသေ နိဿာယ ဥပ္ပန္နနိမိတ္တမ္ပေတ္ထ အဿာသပဿာသသမညမေဝ ဝုတ္တံ။(Visuddhimagga Mahāṭīkā-1; 319)
========================
(2) Athānena taṃ nimittaṃ neva vaṇṇato manasi kātabbaṃ, na lakkhaṇato paccavekkhitabbaṃ.
(Visuddhimagga-1; 278)(paragraph. 232)
အထာနေန တံ နိမိတ္တံ နေဝ ဝဏ္ဏတော မနသိ ကာတဗ္ဗံ, န လက္ခဏတော ပစ္စဝေက္ခိတဗ္ဗံ။
Vaṇṇatoti picupiṇḍatārakarūpādīsu viya upaṭṭhitavaṇṇato. Lakkhaṇatoti kharabhāvādisabhāvato, aniccādilakkhaṇato vā.
(Visuddhimagga Mahāṭīkā-1; 337)
ဝဏ္ဏတောတိ ပိစုပိဏ္ဍတာရကရူပါဒီသု ဝိယ ဥပဋ္ဌိတဝဏ္ဏတော။ လက္ခဏတောတိ ခရဘာဝါဒိသဘာဝတော, အနိစ္စာဒိလက္ခဏတော ဝါ။
220.So as soon as the sign appears, his hindrances are suppressed, his defilements subside, his mindfulness is established, and his consciousness is concentrated in access concentration.
221.Then he should not give attention to the sign as to its colour, or review it
as to its [specific] characteristic.
=====================
(၃) ဧတ္ထ စ ပုရိမာ ပဉ္စ စတုသမုဋ္ဌာနာ။ အဿာသပဿာသာ စိတ္တသမုဋ္ဌာနာဝ။(ဝိသုဒ္ဓိမဂ္ဂ-၁၊ ၃၄၅, ၆)
(3)တထာ စိတ္တဇေ အဿာသပဿာသကောဋ္ဌာသေပိ ဩဇဋ္ဌမကဉ္စေဝ သဒ္ဒေါ စာတိ နဝ, သေသေသု စတုသမုဋ္ဌာနေသု အဋ္ဌသု ဇီဝိတနဝကဉ္စေဝ တီဏိ စ ဩဇဋ္ဌမကာနီတိ တေတ္တိံသ ရူပါနိ ပါကဋာနိ ဟောန္တိ။
(3) tathā cittaje assāsapassāsakoṭṭhāsepi ojaṭṭhamakañceva saddo cāti nava,
sesesu catusamuṭṭhānesu aṭṭhasu jīvitanavakañceva tīṇi ca ojaṭṭhamakānīti tettiṃsa rūpāni pākaṭāni honti.
(Visuddhimagga-2; 223)(paragraph. 664)
that is, the octad-with-nutritive-essence-as-eighth plus sound, in the case of the consciousness-born part [of airconsisting] of in-breaths and out-breaths;
====================

[Ontheway]

If Pak Auk really taught that, I will disagree too.

Dear Ontheway,

I think this post will help answer your questions about whether this is actually done in Pa Auk:

Some important points to understand.

The lack of ability to see anatta is based on the meditator's wisdom to penetrate and the concentration that accompanies it. Hence, anatta is not the limiting factor for the ability to see dhammas such as mentality which includes consciousness and cetasikas.

The limiting factor for penetrating the dhammas is Actually defilements, hindrances,etc. The more the defilements, the less a person can see.

At Pa Auk this part of the exercise is not a natural checking of defilements (such as daily life defilements, etc.), because the Teacher Instructs the student to generate and gives details on how to generate. Actually, if you ask the Teacher is this akusala?, he will say "yes, but not a lot". Ven. Kumara will advise to do this generation but not for a very long time continuously because the concentration drops BECAUSE of the akusala that is produced. BUT, they still believe it is ok to do this exercise.

Very surprising that there are students who have studied at Pa Auk for 30 years and still accept that this is in line with Buddha's teachings.

When Pa Auk Sayadaw taught this about 30 years ago, he told the students to do akusala by taking everyday objects. Then he modified it and taught how to take elements such as earth element, water element as akusala.

So basically he is entrenched in this.

The Burmese version has pages and pages of how to do this. The English version has fewer pages.

The students don't realize that if you BELIEVE IN THIS, THEN A PERSON CAN NEVER HAVE FAITH in the Buddha's teachings. Because the Buddha would never allow this.

Please spread and discuss this. Many Pa Auk students are imagining that they are powerful meditators. But, then they are actually spreading wrong views like this.

Only foreign monks and devotees can help us. The Myanmar Sangha council tried to stop Pa Auk, but they could not because foreign devotees poured in the money to print books.
If the foreigners can understand that a sham is taking place, then the meditators will be saved.

Please read and investigate Pa auk meditation manuals

Thank you for commenting.
Protect Dhamma

Are you a Burmese Buddhist?

May I know which group of Burmese monks now are considered orthodox according to your research?

[Protect Dhamma]

Are you a Burmese Buddhist?

May I know which group of Burmese monks now are considered orthodox according to your research?

I do not want to state whether one group is orthodox or not because each individual is different and I will have to know the individual. I would be at risk of generalization.

My belief is that one should practice meditation according to the Buddha's teaching. At that point, orthodox becomes irrelevant and one's own salvation becomes important. Because orthodox itself is a view. There is only Buddha's teachings. Everything else that is outside of it, is not Buddha's teaching, but something else. The word orthodox may sometimes imply that there is a bandwidth on Buddha's teachings which I want to avoid.

This probably does not answer your question, but I wanted to make sure I gave some valid reasons.
Thank you!

[Ontheway]

Are you a Burmese Buddhist?

May I know which group of Burmese monks now are considered orthodox according to your research?

I do not want to state whether one group is orthodox or not because each individual is different and I will have to know the individual. I would be at risk of generalization.

My belief is that one should practice meditation according to the Buddha's teaching. At that point, orthodox becomes irrelevant and one's own salvation becomes important. Because orthodox itself is a view. There is only Buddha's teachings. Everything else that is outside of it, is not Buddha's teaching, but something else. The word orthodox may sometimes imply that there is a bandwidth on Buddha's teachings which I want to avoid.

This probably does not answer your question, but I wanted to make sure I gave some valid reasons.
Thank you!

In that case, people have freedom to believe what they wanted to believe and treated it as truth too. For there is no real standard for anything.

In another way, other people may possibly have come to a conclusion that you are the one that practice wrongly too, since there is no standard of practice. To them, they are right and you are wrong.

There is no answer then.

[Protect Dhamma]

In that case, people have freedom to believe what they wanted to believe and treated it as truth too. For there is no real standard for anything.

In another way, other people may possibly have come to a conclusion that you are the one that practice wrongly too, since there is no standard of practice. To them, they are right and you are wrong.

There is no answer then.

People have freedom to believe whatever they want. In Buddhism, wrong view is considered extremely dangerous with severe repercussions. So that freedom can come with a price.

With respect to what we are publicizing; If a group of people is saying that they are teaching according to Visuddhimagga and Buddha's teachings, but they are not. Well, then they are wrong about their assumption. And it is fair to show that.

Remember, we are saying that they are not teaching according to Buddha's teaching. And we provide proof of that. That is all.

Furthermore, treating something as truth can be approaching with view. If that something is actually the truth, then there will be good results. If that is not the truth, there will be problems.

The right practitioner of Buddhism suppresses the 62 views at the "Purification by Overcoming Doubt" stage.
At that point, "treating something as truth" will either completely subside if it is not the truth. Or if it is the truth, the person will see it clearer and clearer with knowledge.

Thanks for commenting

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

It seems to me that harshly criticising other teachings may also produce akusala cittas.

Why not focus on one's own faults, rather than those of others?

We all have no shortage of akusala cittas to observe without the need to produce more by pointing out the faults of others.

“Here, monks, when ill-will is present a monk knows, ‘Ill-will is present.’ When ill-will is absent he knows, ‘Ill-will is absent.’ He also knows how the unarisen ill-will comes to arise, how the arisen ill-will comes to be abandoned, and how the abandoned ill-will does not arise again.

Everybody measures things with the yardstick of his own views.

[Sasha_A]

The instructors ask the meditator to produce Akusala (Unwholesome) minds by taking a hated person as object to produce dosa, a desired object like gold to produce greed, etc. Then the teacher tells the student to discern the akusala cetasikas of the minds produced.

Akusala - acting out of hatred. Taking an already hated person as an object for meditation to develop an understanding of hatred and eliminating its causes is not 'producing hatred', it is not acting out of hatred, but it is action out of wisdom and to develop wisdom, it is kusala.