Lesson 23 from A Comprehensive Commentary on the Words of My Perfect Teacher completes the teaching on the sixteen additional conditions, covering in full the eight incompatible propensities. These are described as more dangerous than the eight intrusive circumstances, since rather than merely disturbing practice they cut it off entirely.
The eight are: being bound by one's ties, flagrant depravity, lack of dissatisfaction with samsara, complete absence of faith, taking pleasure in bad actions, lack of interest in the Dharma, heedlessness of the vows, and heedlessness of the samayas. Each receives a vivid illustration — depraved persons untameable even in a forest retreat; faith-less disciples who leave when lightly criticised; samaya-breakers forbidden from entering the Vajrayana mandala. Remedies are assigned where possible: renunciation for worldly ties, bodhicitta and patience for lack of faith, repentance and re-taking of vows for broken precepts. For two — flagrant depravity and taking pleasure in bad actions — the teaching honestly concludes that no remedy exists.
The lesson closes by affirming that practitioners free from all sixteen propensities will find peace not only in this life but in all lives to come.
