SGI: "Evil friends who employ enticing words, deception and flattery and speak in a clever manner, thereby gaining control over the minds of ignorant and uninformed people and destroying the good minds that are in them."

"For this reason, the twenty-second volume of the Nirvana Sutra states: “Have no fear of mad elephants. What you should fear are evil friends! Why? Because a mad elephant can only destroy your body; it cannot destroy your mind. But an evil friend can destroy both body and mind. . . . Even if you are killed by a mad elephant, you will not fall into the three evil paths. But if you are killed by an evil friend, you are certain to fall into them.”

Regarding the meaning of this sutra passage, the Great Teacher Chang-an says: “Mad elephants merely inflict harm on others; they do not arouse evil in people’s minds. But evil friends employ enticing words, deception and flattery, clever speech and an affable manner, and in this way cause others to do evil. And in leading them to do evil, they are destroying the good minds that are in them. To destroy good minds is to kill people, that is, to cause them to fall into hell.”

This passage of commentary means that evil friends will employ enticing words, deception and flattery and speak in a clever manner, thereby gaining control over the minds of ignorant and uninformed people and destroying the good minds that are in them. And the passage from the Nirvana Sutra is meant to warn us that persons who slander the Law and are icchantikas are more to be feared than those who commit the ten evil acts or the five cardinal sins. The term “icchantika” refers to those who speak evil of the Lotus and Nirvana sutras."