[298] Therein, Sandaka, a sensible person reflects thus: 'This worthy teacher holds such a doctrine, such a view: "When one acts or makes others act, mutilates or makes others mutilate, tortures or makes others torture, inflicts sorrow or makes others inflict sorrow, wearies or makes others weary, intimidates or makes others intimidate; when one destroys life, takes what is not given, breaks into houses, carries off plunder, commits burglary upon a single house, waylays on the highway, goes to another's wife, speaks falsehood — for the doer no evil is done. Even if, with a wheel rimmed with razors, one were to make the living beings of this earth into one shambles of flesh, one heap of flesh, there would be no evil from that cause, no coming of evil. Even if one were to go along the south bank of the Ganges killing and making others kill, mutilating and making others mutilate, torturing and making others torture, there would be no evil from that cause, no coming of evil. Even if one were to go along the north bank of the Ganges giving and making others give, sacrificing and making others sacrifice, there would be no merit from that cause, no coming of merit. Through giving, through self-taming, through restraint, through speaking truth, there is no merit, no coming of merit."
If this worthy teacher's word is true, then in this matter what I have not done is as good as done; what I have not lived is as good as lived. Both of us here are exactly equal, having attained the same status — yet I am not one who says that when both of us act, no evil is done. But superfluous, then, is this worthy teacher's nakedness, shaven head, exertion in squatting, and tearing out of hair and beard — since I, dwelling at home in a bed crowded with children, enjoying sandalwood of Kāsi, wearing garlands, scents, and unguents, and accepting gold and silver, shall have exactly the same destination hereafter as this worthy teacher. So knowing what, seeing what, should I live the holy life (brahmacariya) under this teacher? This is a way that negates the holy life (abrahmacariyavāsa).' Knowing thus, he turns away disenchanted from that holy life and departs.
This, Sandaka, is the second way that negates the holy life, declared by that Blessed One who knows and sees, the Arahant, the Perfectly Enlightened One — one in which a sensible person would, so far as he is able, not live the holy life, and, if he lived it, would not accomplish the true way, the wholesome Dhamma.
English translation from the Pali (Siam Raṭṭha edition) — under review, not for citation.