Reading guide
The teaching in one sentence
Deeds rooted in the three poisons make more deeds; deeds rooted in their opposites bring deeds to an end.
Four verdicts, not three
Each set gets four judgments in a row, and they are of different kinds.
Unskillful is a judgment about competence — akusala, the word AN 3.54 pointed out is closer to incompetent than to evil. Blameworthy is social. Results in suffering is about consequences. And the fourth is structural: what the deed does to the production of further deeds.
Stacking the four is doing something. A reader who rejects one of the judgments still has three, and they are not derived from each other; an act can be criticized on any of these grounds independently.
The fourth clause
Kammasamudayāya saṁvattati, no kammanirodhāya — it leads to the arising of deeds, not their cessation.
This is a different order of claim from the other three and it is the one the discourse exists for. Deeds are being treated not only as things with results but as things that produce more of themselves, and the question asked of any deed is whether it feeds that production or stops it.
That reframes the good half considerably. Deeds from contentment, love, and understanding are not described as building up a better store; they are described as leading to kammanirodha, the cessation of deeds. The goal is not a larger positive balance but an end to the accounting.
This is the same asymmetry AN 3.34 built its two similes around, where good seed in a field was matched not against bad seed but against seed burned to ash. This discourse states it in one clause instead.
Read against AN 3.34
AN 3.34 shares this discourse’s title and its subject, and the two should be read together. There the mechanism was given — deeds ripen where the doer is reborn, at one of three times — along with the puzzling sentence about wholesome-rooted deeds being abandoned when greed is done away with.
This discourse says the same thing without the puzzle. Deeds from the good roots lead to the cessation of deeds, which is what AN 3.34’s difficult passage appears to be reaching for.
A reader who found AN 3.34 hard should be sent here, and a reader who found this one obvious should be sent there. Together they make the collection’s position clear: the point of good conduct is not accumulation.
Using it
The fourth clause is the whole teaching and it can be given to a class as a question about any action: does this make more of itself?
That question is unusually portable. A habit, an argument, a purchase, and a favor can all be asked it, and the answer is often more informative than asking whether the act was good. The discourse’s claim is that the three roots reliably produce actions that require more actions, and their opposites reliably do not.
Key terms
The text
Greed, hate, delusion
§1“Mendicants, there are these three sources that give rise to deeds. What three? Greed, hate, and delusion are sources that give rise to deeds. Any deed that emerges from greed, hate, or delusion—born, sourced, and originated from greed, hate, or delusion—is unskillful, blameworthy, results in suffering, and leads to the creation of more deeds, not their cessation. These are three sources that give rise to deeds.
Contentment, love, understanding
§2There are these three sources that give rise to deeds. What three? Contentment, love, and understanding are sources that give rise to deeds. Any deed that emerges from contentment, love, or understanding—born, sourced, and originated from contentment, love, or understanding—is skillful, blameless, results in happiness, and leads to the cessation of more deeds, not their creation. These are three sources that give rise to deeds.”
Self-check quiz
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