AN 3.8 — Hurtful | Ru-Yi Meditation Center

Reading guide

The teaching in one sentence

A fool is known by deeds that do damage; an astute person by deeds that are kind.

Hurtful, and its opposite

Sabyābajjha is with-affliction, from byābajjha, harm or vexation. Its grammatical opposite is abyābajjha, without-affliction, and that is the word one would expect on the positive side. It is a standard canonical term — the unafflicted is one of the epithets of the goal.

What the discourse gives instead, in Sujato’s rendering, is kind. The positive half is not the mere absence of the negative but something with content of its own. Whether that difference is in the Pāli or in the English is a question worth checking against the parallel text, and readers can do so on SuttaCentral; what is not in doubt is that the collection routinely does state its positives as absences, and here it is worth noticing when a translator judges otherwise.

The point is small and the habit it illustrates is not. This series has flagged several renderings that would have been made differently — situational awareness for sampajañña, aborigines for kiṁpurisā — on the principle set out in AN 1.140–149 that representing a text accurately is itself a practice. The principle applies to small choices as much as to large ones.

The full instruction restored

Unlike AN 3.7, this discourse writes out the closing formula and the training instruction in full: we will shun the three qualities by which a fool is known, and we will undertake and follow the three qualities by which an astute person is known.

That is how the canon usually handles a run of abbreviations: it compresses the middle and restores the frame at the end, so that a reciter working through the sequence gets the full pattern back before moving on. AN 3.6 was partly abbreviated, AN 3.7 almost entirely so, and AN 3.8 restores. Reading the three in order shows the mechanism.

It also means AN 3.8 is the natural place to stop and take stock of the run. Three predicates — unskillful, blameworthy, hurtful — and one unchanging set of three items. The chapter has now said that bad conduct of body, speech, and mind fails the competence test, the judgment test, and the harm test alike.

Where the chapter goes next

AN 3.9 and 3.10 close the chapter by changing the frame rather than the predicate. AN 3.9 returns to the broken-and-damaged formula met at AN 2.134 in the Twos: the fool keeps themselves broken and damaged, which relocates the injury from those around them to themselves. And AN 3.10 leaves the fool-and-astute pair entirely for three specific stains — immorality, jealousy, and stinginess — and a rebirth destination.

So the chapter’s shape is: a large claim about danger, a criterion, the criterion argued for, the criterion narrowed to two testable situations, the criterion run through three predicates, and then two discourses on what it costs the person themselves. Ten discourses that are much more tightly composed than their individual brevity suggests.

Key terms

sabyābajjha — “hurtful” — literally with-affliction, from byābajjha, harm or vexation.

abyābajjha — “without affliction” — the expected grammatical opposite, and one of the canonical epithets of the goal; not the word used on the positive side here.

byābajjha — “harm, vexation” — the root of the pair, and the third of the three predicates run across AN 3.6–3.8.

sikkhitabbaṁ — “you should train” — the closing instruction, restored in full here after being elided in the two discourses before.

dhamma — “quality” in the closing formula of this discourse, where the earlier ones said “thing” — the word’s range is wide enough to carry both.

The text

The discourse in full, with the closing instruction restored after two abbreviated discourses. Translation: Bhikkhu Sujato (CC0, SuttaCentral).

Hurtful deeds, and kind ones

§1“A fool is known by three things. What three? Hurtful deeds by way of body, speech, and mind. … An astute person is known by kind deeds by way of body, speech, and mind. These are the three things by which an astute person is known.

So you should train

§2So you should train like this: ‘We will shun the three qualities by which a fool is known, and we will undertake and follow the three qualities by which an astute person is known.’ That’s how you should train.”

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Self-check quiz

Ten questions. Click an answer to see immediate feedback. No score is recorded — this is for your own checking.

Question 1 of 10

What does sabyābajjha literally mean?

Correct: A. The third and last of the three predicates.

Question 2 of 10

What word would one grammatically expect on the positive side?

Correct: B. What the discourse gives instead is kind.

Question 3 of 10

What is notable about that substitution?

Correct: B. The only asymmetry in the whole run of three.

Question 4 of 10

How does the guide handle the question of whether the difference is in the Pāli or the English?

Correct: B. The English printed is Sujato's throughout, as it is on every page of this series.

Question 5 of 10

Which other renderings has this series flagged on the same principle?

Correct: A. On the principle of AN 1.140–149 that representing a text accurately is itself a practice.

Question 6 of 10

How does AN 3.8 differ from AN 3.7 in form?

Correct: B. AN 3.6 partly abbreviated, AN 3.7 almost entirely, AN 3.8 restores.

Question 7 of 10

What does that pattern show about how the canon handles a run of abbreviations?

Correct: B. Reading the three in order shows the mechanism.

Question 8 of 10

What has the chapter established by the end of AN 3.8?

Correct: A. Three predicates, one unchanging set of three items.

Question 9 of 10

What do AN 3.9 and 3.10 change?

Correct: B. The chapter closes by turning from what folly does to others to what it costs the person.

Question 10 of 10

How does the guide characterize the chapter’s composition?

Correct: B. Ten short discourses with a shape.

Answered 0 of 10 · Correct 0

Hurtful

Why this discourse