Reading guide
The teaching in one sentence
Keep company with your equals and your betters in ethics, immersion, and wisdom — and go to your inferiors only out of kindness.
The exception in the first case
The instruction about the person inferior in ethics, immersion, and wisdom is: do not associate with, accompany, or attend them — except out of kindness and sympathy.
That clause changes the character of the whole discourse. Without it, the advice is about protecting one’s own development, and the person below you is simply a hazard. With it, there remains exactly one reason to seek them out, and it is the only reason the discourse allows: their benefit rather than yours.
So the rule is not avoid the worse. It is: do not go to them for what you would go to an equal or a better for. Company for your own sake goes upward or sideways; going downward is not company but help, and the discourse marks the difference by naming the motive.
Why equals
The reason given for keeping company with equals is unexpectedly concrete and has nothing to do with attainment. Since our ethical conduct is similar, we can discuss ethics, the conversation will flow, and we’ll both be at ease. And the same for immersion and for wisdom.
What is being valued is a conversation that works. Two people at the same level can actually talk about the thing — neither is explaining and neither is struggling to follow — and the discourse names the ease of it as the point. That is an unusually sociable reason to find in a list about spiritual company, and it is worth pointing out to students who expect the canon to recommend only vertical relationships.
It also implies something about peers that the tradition does not otherwise say much about. A teacher gives you what you lack; an equal gives you a conversation. Both are on the list.
Why betters, and what “with honor” adds
The person superior in the three is to be attended with honor and respect — the extra clause that distinguishes this case from the second. And the reason is stated as a first-person resolve: I will fulfill the ethics, immersion, and wisdom I have not yet fulfilled, or support with wisdom what I have.
Note that both halves are named. Association upward is not only for acquiring what one lacks but for consolidating what one has. That second half is easy to skip and it is the more realistic of the two: most of what a practitioner gets from someone further along is not new material but confirmation that what they already do is sound.
The closing verse
A man who associates with an inferior goes downhill, but associating with an equal, you’ll never decline; following the best, you’ll quickly rise up, so you should keep company with people better than you.
The verse compresses the prose and, in compressing it, drops the exception. Read alone it is the bare social advice; read after the prose it is a summary that assumes the qualification has already been made. That is a common relationship between a discourse’s prose and its closing verse, and it is worth knowing about, because these verses travel independently and get quoted without what preceded them.
The same verse closes AN 3.27, the next discourse. Both times it follows a fuller treatment that is more careful than the verse is.
Key terms
The text
Three individuals
§1“These three individuals are found in the world. What three? There is an individual you shouldn’t associate with, accompany, or attend. There is an individual you should associate with, accompany, and attend. There is an individual you should associate with, accompany, and attend with honor and respect. Who is the individual you shouldn’t associate with, accompany, or attend? It’s an individual who is inferior in terms of ethics, immersion, and wisdom. You shouldn’t associate with, accompany, or attend such an individual, except out of kindness and sympathy.
The equal
§2Who is the individual you should associate with, accompany, and attend? It’s an individual who is similar in terms of ethics, immersion, and wisdom. You should associate with, accompany, and attend such an individual. Why is that? Thinking, ‘Since our ethical conduct is similar, we can discuss ethics, the conversation will flow, and we’ll both be at ease. Since our immersion is similar, we can discuss immersion, the conversation will flow, and we’ll both be at ease. Since our wisdom is similar, we can discuss wisdom, the conversation will flow, and we’ll both be at ease.’ That’s why you should associate with, accompany, and attend such an individual.
The superior
§3Who is the individual you should associate with, accompany, and attend with honor and respect? It’s an individual who is superior in terms of ethics, immersion, and wisdom. You should associate with, accompany, and attend such an individual with honor and respect. Why is that? Thinking, ‘I’ll fulfill the entire spectrum of ethical conduct I haven’t yet fulfilled, or support with wisdom in every situation the ethical conduct I’ve already fulfilled. I’ll fulfill the entire spectrum of immersion I haven’t yet fulfilled, or support with wisdom in every situation the immersion I’ve already fulfilled. I’ll fulfill the entire spectrum of wisdom I haven’t yet fulfilled, or support with wisdom in every situation the wisdom I’ve already fulfilled.’ That’s why you should associate with, accompany, and attend this individual with honor and respect. These are the three individuals found in the world.
In verse
§4A man who associates with an inferior goes downhill, but associating with an equal, you’ll never decline; following the best, you’ll quickly rise up, so you should keep company with people better than you.”
Self-check quiz
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