Reading guide
The teaching in one sentence
The disasters people fear can sometimes be survived together; the three nobody names cannot be shared at all.
The same list, twice
The structure is unusual and worth explaining before a class gets impatient with the repetition. First: an unlearned ordinary person speaks of three perils that do tear mothers and children apart — a great fire burning villages and towns, a great storm bringing a flood that sweeps them away, and turmoil in the wilds that sends the countryfolk fleeing in every direction.
Then the identical three are given again as perils that do not tear them apart, with one word changed: sometimes a mother can find her child, and a child can find their mother.
The point of saying it twice is that both are true, and that is exactly what disqualifies the list. A peril that separates people sometimes is not a peril of separation; it is a disaster with a survival rate. Fires are terrible and some families walk out of them together.
Notice also who is credited with the list: the assutavā puthujjana, the unlearned ordinary person. Not a fool and not an opponent — just somebody who has not been trained to look further, and whose list of catastrophes is made of the things that arrive with smoke and noise.
The three that never fail
Old age, sickness, and death. And the demonstration is not an argument. It is a wish, stated six times with the parties reversed:
When a child is growing old, a mother doesn’t get her wish: ‘let me grow old, may my child not grow old!’ When a mother is growing old, a child doesn’t get their wish: ‘let me grow old, may my mother not grow old!’ The same for sickness. The same for death.
It is one of the few passages in the canon that works by putting a sentence in the reader’s mouth rather than by making a claim. The wish is not presented as foolish or as attachment to be given up. It is presented as universal, natural, and never granted.
And the reason it names a separation is precise. In a fire, two people can be in the same disaster; in illness, they cannot. One is sick and the other is not, and no amount of love transfers a single symptom. That is what makes aging, sickness, and death perils that separate: not that they kill, but that they cannot be shared.
What the discourse does not say
It does not say that a mother should not make that wish, or that making it is a defect. It does not say the love is the problem. Given how often Buddhism is presented as recommending detachment from family, this passage is worth reading carefully, because the wish it describes is exactly what a parent feels and the discourse treats it with no criticism at all.
What it says is that the wish is not granted. That is a factual claim about the world, not an instruction about how to feel, and a teacher should resist the temptation to turn it into one.
It also does not recommend distance as a solution. The remedy at the end is not less attachment to the child; it is the eightfold path, which is a different kind of answer and a longer one.
The ending, which is easy to skip
“There is a path and a practice that leads to giving up and going beyond the three perils that don’t tear mothers and children apart, and the three perils that do. … It is simply this noble eightfold path.”
Two things are notable. First, the path is offered against both lists — the fires and floods as well as the aging and dying. The discourse does not simply dismiss the ordinary person’s catastrophes as beneath consideration; it says the same practice goes beyond those too.
Second, the phrasing is giving up and going beyond, pahānāya samatikkamāya. Not preventing, and not enduring. Nothing here promises that a practitioner will not grow old or that their mother will not die.
The whole of the Threes offers this kind of ending rarely, and when it does the eightfold path is usually what is named. It is worth telling a class that the collection’s characteristic move is to analyze a situation in threes and then hand the reader a practice that has eight parts and belongs to a different scheme entirely.
Using it
This discourse works on any audience with a family, and it needs almost no framing. Read the first two sections quickly — the repetition is the argument and it makes its own case — and read the wish slowly.
It also pairs with AN 3.1, which opens the collection under the same title. There, all perils in the world come from the foolish; here, three perils come from nowhere and nobody is at fault. The Threes use the word bhaya for both, and the difference between the two discourses is a good short lesson in reading a term by its context rather than by a glossary.
Key terms
The text
Three perils that separate
§1“Mendicants, an unlearned ordinary person speaks of three perils that tear mothers and children apart. What three? There comes a time when a great fire flares up, and it burns villages, towns, and cities. When this happens, a mother can’t find her child, and a child can’t find their mother. This is the first peril that tears mothers and children apart.
§2Furthermore, there comes a time when a great storm gathers, and it unleashes a mighty flood that sweeps away villages, towns, and cities. When this happens, a mother can’t find her child, and a child can’t find their mother. This is the second peril that tears mothers and children apart.
§3Furthermore, there comes a time of peril due to turmoil in the wilds, so the countryfolk mount their vehicles and flee everywhere. When this happens, a mother can’t find her child, and a child can’t find their mother. This is the third peril that tears mothers and children apart. These are the three perils an unlearned ordinary person speaks of that tear mothers and children apart.
The same three, that do not
§4Mendicants, an unlearned ordinary person speaks of three perils that don’t tear mothers and children apart. What three? There comes a time when a great fire flares up, and it burns villages, towns, and cities. When this happens, sometimes a mother can find her child, and a child can find their mother. This is the first peril that doesn’t tear mothers and children apart.
§5Furthermore, there comes a time when a great storm gathers, and it unleashes a mighty flood that sweeps away villages, towns, and cities. When this happens, sometimes a mother can find her child, and a child can find their mother. This is the second peril that doesn’t tear mothers and children apart.
§6Furthermore, there comes a time of peril due to turmoil in the wilds, so the countryfolk mount their vehicles and flee everywhere. When this happens, sometimes a mother can find her child, and a child can find their mother. This is the third peril that doesn’t tear mothers and children apart. These are the three perils an unlearned ordinary person speaks of that don’t tear mothers and children apart.
Three that always do
§7There are three perils that tear mothers and children apart. What three? The perils of old age, sickness, and death. When a child is growing old, a mother doesn’t get her wish: ‘Let me grow old, may my child not grow old!’ When a mother is growing old, a child doesn’t get their wish: ‘Let me grow old, may my mother not grow old!’
§8When a child is sick, a mother doesn’t get her wish: ‘Let me be sick, may my child not be sick!’ When a mother is sick, a child doesn’t get their wish: ‘Let me be sick, may my mother not be sick!’
§9When a child is dying, a mother doesn’t get her wish: ‘Let me die, may my child not die!’ When a mother is dying, a child doesn’t get their wish: ‘Let me die, may my mother not die!’ These are the three perils that tear mothers and children apart.
The path beyond both
§10There is a path and a practice that leads to giving up and going beyond the three perils that don’t tear mothers and children apart, and the three perils that do tear mothers and children apart. What is that path and practice? It is simply this noble eightfold path, that is: right view, right purpose, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right immersion. This is the path, this is the practice that leads to giving up and going beyond the three perils that don’t tear mothers and children apart, and the three perils that do tear mothers and children apart.”
Self-check quiz
Ten questions. Click an answer to see immediate feedback. No score is recorded — this is for your own checking.