Reading guide
The teaching in one sentence
Knowing the texts and understanding the truths are independent, and there are four combinations.
What thunder becomes
An individual memorizes the teaching — statements, mixed prose and verse, discussions, verses, inspired exclamations, legends, stories of past lives, amazing stories, and elaborations.
That is the navaṅga, the ninefold division of the teaching by literary form, which AN 4.6 also used. It is the canon’s description of its own contents, and memorizing all nine is the maximum a person could have done by way of learning.
So the thunder cell is not a person who talks idly. It is a person who has learned everything there is to learn, in a tradition where that was the highest recognized qualification. The discourse gives them the top of one scale and nothing on the other.
What rain becomes
They truly understand: ‘This is suffering’ … ‘This is the origin’ … ‘This is the cessation’ … ‘This is the practice that leads to the cessation of suffering’.
Yathābhūtaṁ pajānāti, truly understands or understands as it is. The four truths in their standard formulation.
The gap between the two variables is the discourse’s whole point, and it is worth stating as plainly as the text does: a person can have the entire canon by heart and not understand the four truths, and a person can understand the four truths without having memorized anything.
The second cell
They don’t memorize the teaching … but they truly understand.
That cell is the more consequential of the two mixed ones, and it is easy to skip past. It says that the goal of the whole system is reachable by someone who has not learned the texts.
The collection says this in several places — AN 4.6 ranked little learning that lands above much learning that does not, and this goes further by making the second variable understanding of the truths rather than mere practice.
It should be said that the collection does not therefore disparage learning. AN 4.6 also praised the learned and ethical disciple as a pendant of finest gold, and the fourth cell here is both. What is denied is only that learning is necessary or sufficient.
Why this pairing recurs
AN 4.107, the mouse discourse of this same chapter, uses exactly this pair of variables again: memorizing the ninefold teaching against understanding the four truths.
So of the chapter’s nine similes, two carry this content and three others carry deportment against understanding. The pairing that gets repeated is the one about learning, which suggests the compilers considered it the most useful application of the grid.
That is a reasonable judgment. Of the four content-pairs in this chapter, this is the one that addresses a failure mode specific to a textual tradition, and the tradition compiling it was a textual one.
Reading the pair of cloud discourses
AN 4.101 and AN 4.102 are a matched set and should be read together: the general form and its application.
The general form is what makes the discourse memorable and portable; the application is what makes it a teaching about the path rather than an observation about human character.
This is a common relation between adjacent discourses in the collection, and it is worth watching for. AN 4.43 and 4.44 did the same with the four things valued above the teaching; AN 4.85 and 4.86 with the dark-and-light grid. The pair is the unit, and neither half is the whole.
Key terms
The text
Four clouds, four individuals
§1“Mendicants, there are these four kinds of clouds. What four? One thunders but doesn’t rain, one rains but doesn’t thunder, one neither thunders nor rains, and one both rains and thunders. These are the four kinds of clouds. In the same way, these four individuals similar to clouds are found in the world. What four? One thunders but doesn’t rain, one rains but doesn’t thunder, one neither thunders nor rains, and one both rains and thunders.
Thunders but does not rain
§2And how does an individual thunder but not rain? It’s when an individual memorizes the teaching—statements, mixed prose and verse, discussions, verses, inspired exclamations, legends, stories of past lives, amazing stories, and elaborations. But they don’t truly understand: ‘This is suffering’ … ‘This is the origin of suffering’ … ‘This is the cessation of suffering’ … ‘This is the practice that leads to the cessation of suffering’. That’s how an individual thunders but doesn’t rain. That individual is like a cloud that thunders but doesn’t rain, I say.
Rains but does not thunder
§3And how does an individual rain but not thunder? It’s when an individual doesn’t memorize the teaching … But they truly understand: ‘This is suffering’ …
Neither
§4And how does an individual neither thunder nor rain? It’s when an individual doesn’t memorize the teaching … Nor do they truly understand: ‘This is suffering’ …
Both
§5And how does an individual both thunder and rain? It’s when an individual memorizes the teaching … And they truly understand: ‘This is suffering’ … These four individuals similar to clouds are found in the world.”
Self-check quiz
Ten questions. Click an answer to see immediate feedback. No score is recorded — this is for your own checking.