Reading guide
The teaching in one sentence
Doing a bad deed, encouraging someone else to do it, and approving of it when it is done are treated as three equally weighted ways of performing that deed, run across all ten courses of unwholesome and wholesome action.
The template, stated once and reused twenty times
“They themselves kill living creatures. They encourage others to kill living creatures. And they approve of killing living creatures” is the shape every single discourse in this chapter shares, with only the specific action changing. This is peyyāla at its most concentrated: twenty discourses collapse into one sentence template and a list of ten items run twice, once negatively and once positively.
Three modes, not one act
The insistence on three modes — doing, encouraging, approving — rather than one is a specific ethical claim worth drawing out for a class. A person who never personally kills but consistently encourages others to, or consistently approves when it happens, is placed under the identical formula as the person who kills directly. Complicity and approval are not treated as lesser versions of the act; they are named as the act, run through a different mode.
The ten courses, in their traditional order
Three bodily: killing living creatures, stealing, sexual misconduct. Four verbal: lying, divisive speech, harsh speech, idle chatter. Three mental: covetousness, ill will, wrong view. This is the canon’s standard taxonomy of the ten unwholesome courses of action, dasa akusala-kammapathā, and their ten wholesome opposites, and it recurs constantly across the Nikāyas as the basic ethical inventory beneath more elaborate teachings.
A fuller telling exists, elsewhere on this site
MN 41, the discourse with the brahmin householders of Sālā, teaches this identical taxonomy of ten courses of action at full length, with the Buddha explaining each course and its consequence in ordinary conversational prose rather than the abbreviated formula used here. A reader who wants the unabbreviated version, with its narrative frame intact, should read MN 41 alongside this chapter rather than in place of it — the two are the same content at two different levels of compression.
Why hell and heaven, and not a subtler consequence
This chapter states its consequences at the most stark possible resolution: hell or heaven, nothing graded in between. Read alongside AN 3.146–153, several chapters back, which apply a gentler and more socially observable consequence — blame from sensible people, in this very life — to a similar structure, this chapter’s starkness reads as one register among several the collection uses for the same underlying ethical claims, not the collection’s only way of stating them.
Key terms
The text
Killing living creatures (AN 3.163–164)
§1“Someone with three qualities is placed in hell as if delivered there. What three? They themselves kill living creatures. They encourage others to kill living creatures. And they approve of killing living creatures. Someone with these three qualities is placed in hell as if delivered there.
§2Someone with three qualities is placed in heaven as if delivered there. What three? They don’t themselves kill living creatures. They encourage others to not kill living creatures. And they approve of not killing living creatures. …
Stealing (AN 3.165–166)
§3They themselves steal. They encourage others to steal. And they approve of stealing. …
§4They don’t themselves steal. They encourage others to not steal. And they approve of not stealing. …
Sexual misconduct (AN 3.167–168)
§5They themselves commit sexual misconduct. They encourage others to commit sexual misconduct. And they approve of committing sexual misconduct. …
§6They don’t themselves commit sexual misconduct. They encourage others to not commit sexual misconduct. And they approve of not committing sexual misconduct. …
Lying (AN 3.169–170)
§7They themselves lie. They encourage others to lie. And they approve of lying. …
§8They don’t themselves lie. They encourage others to not lie. And they approve of not lying. …
Divisive speech (AN 3.171–172)
§9They themselves backbite. They encourage others to backbite. And they approve of backbiting. …
§10They don’t themselves backbite. They encourage others to not backbite. And they approve of not backbiting. …
Harsh speech (AN 3.173–174)
§11They themselves speak harshly. They encourage others to speak harshly. And they approve of speaking harshly. …
§12They don’t themselves speak harshly. They encourage others to not speak harshly. And they approve of not speaking harshly. …
Idle chatter (AN 3.175–176)
§13They themselves talk nonsense. They encourage others to talk nonsense. And they approve of talking nonsense. …
§14They don’t themselves talk nonsense. They encourage others to not talk nonsense. And they approve of not talking nonsense. …
Covetousness (AN 3.177–178)
§15They themselves are covetous. They encourage others to be covetous. And they approve of covetousness. …
§16They themselves are content. They encourage others to be contented. And they approve of being contented. …
Ill will (AN 3.179–180)
§17They themselves have ill will. They encourage others to have ill will. And they approve of having ill will. …
§18They themselves are kind-hearted. They encourage others to be kind-hearted. And they approve of kind-heartedness. …
Wrong view and right view (AN 3.181–182)
§19They themselves have wrong view. They encourage others to have wrong view. And they approve of wrong view. …
§20They themselves have right view. They encourage others to have right view. And they approve of right view. Someone with these three qualities is placed in heaven as if delivered there.”
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