Reading guide
The teaching in one sentence
There is a point past which a teacher stops teaching, and being no longer taught is described as being killed.
The three methods
Kesi trains sometimes gently, sometimes harshly, and sometimes both, and the Buddha reports the identical three. The correspondence is exact and the discourse spends no time on it.
The content is then specified. The gentle way is describing good conduct, its results, and life as a god or a human. The harsh way is describing bad conduct, its results, and life in hell, as an animal, or as a ghost. The mixed way is both.
So ‘harsh’ here does not mean cruelty or abuse. It means telling someone about consequences they will not like, and that is worth stating clearly because the word invites a worse reading. The Buddha’s harsh method is a description of outcomes.
It is also worth noticing what is absent from all three: nothing about technique, meditation, or doctrine. The whole of the training as described to Kesi is telling people what conduct leads to.
The line that stops readers
In that case, Kesi, I kill them. Kesi’s objection is immediate and correct: it’s not appropriate for the Buddha to kill living creatures.
The Buddha agrees with the objection before answering it — it’s true, Kesi — and then gives the sense in which the word was used: when a person will not respond to any form of training, the Realized One does not think them worth advising or instructing, and neither do their sensible spiritual companions. For it is killing in the training of the Noble One when that happens.
So the answer is that the word has a specialized sense within this training, and the specialized sense is being cut off from instruction. The discourse constructs its own shock and then dismantles it in four lines.
That is worth teaching as a method as much as a content. The exchange works because Kesi is allowed to object, the objection is granted, and the answer arrives as a clarification rather than as a rebuke.
What is actually being described
Two things happen, and they are stated separately: the Realized One stops thinking the person worth advising, and their sensible companions stop too.
The second half is the substantial one. Being given up on by a teacher is one thing; being given up on by everyone around you who has any judgment is another, and the discourse names both.
It should be said plainly that this is a description of exclusion, and a serious one. The collection is not usually in the business of writing people off — AN 4.93 gave the person with neither serenity nor discernment an instruction rather than a dismissal, and AN 4.85 said the corpse-worker who acts well goes to a heavenly realm.
What distinguishes this case is the condition: the person does not follow any of these forms of training. Not that they are failing at them, but that none of the three has any purchase. Gentle description of good outcomes, harsh description of bad ones, and both together have all been tried.
Kesi’s own answer
The discourse does not comment on what Kesi does to horses, and a modern reader will want it to. He kills them, and his reason is given: so that I don’t disgrace my tradition.
That reason is about professional reputation rather than about the animal, and the discourse lets it stand without remark. It is worth being honest that this is a text from a world in which killing a useless working animal was unremarkable, and that nothing in the exchange criticizes it.
What the discourse does do is take Kesi’s word and refuse his practice. The Buddha uses the same verb and means something that involves no violence at all, which is a more interesting move than a rebuke would have been. Kesi is not told he is wrong about horses; he is shown a different thing the word can name.
‘They’re definitely dead’
Kesi’s reply is the discourse’s last substantive line, and it is a good one: Well, they’re definitely dead when the Realized One doesn’t think they’re worth advising or instructing, and neither do their sensible spiritual companions.
He has accepted the redefinition and drawn the consequence himself, which is why the going for refuge that follows reads as earned rather than formulaic. He was not persuaded of a doctrine; he was shown that a word he uses professionally names something worse than what he does with it.
The Kesivagga takes its name from this discourse, and the chapter that follows is full of training similes — thoroughbreds, a goad, a royal elephant. This is the conversation that sets them up.
Key terms
The text
How Kesi trains a horse
§1Then Kesi the horse trainer went up to the Buddha, bowed, and sat down to one side. The Buddha said to him, “Kesi, you’re known as a horse trainer. Just how do you guide a horse in training?” “Sir, I guide a horse in training sometimes gently, sometimes harshly, and sometimes both gently and harshly.” “Kesi, what do you do with a horse in training that doesn’t follow these forms of training?” “In that case, sir, I kill it. Why is that? So that I don’t disgrace my tradition.
How the Buddha trains a person
§2But sir, the Buddha is the supreme guide for those fit for training. Just how do you guide a person in training?” “Kesi, I guide a person in training sometimes gently, sometimes harshly, and sometimes both gently and harshly. The gentle way is this: ‘This is good conduct by way of body, speech, and mind. This is the result of good conduct by way of body, speech, and mind. This is life as a god. This is life as a human.’ The harsh way is this: ‘This is bad conduct by way of body, speech, and mind. This is the result of bad conduct by way of body, speech, and mind. This is life in hell. This is life as an animal. This is life as a ghost.’
§3The both gentle and harsh way is this: ‘This is good conduct … this is bad conduct …’”
“I kill them”
§4“Sir, what do you do with a person in training who doesn’t follow these forms of training?” “In that case, Kesi, I kill them.” “Sir, it’s not appropriate for the Buddha to kill living creatures. And yet you say you kill them.” “It’s true, Kesi, it’s not appropriate for a Realized One to kill living creatures. But when a person in training doesn’t follow any of these forms of training, the Realized One doesn’t think they’re worth advising or instructing, and neither do their sensible spiritual companions. For it is killing in the training of the Noble One when the Realized One doesn’t think they’re worth advising or instructing, and neither do their sensible spiritual companions.”
Kesi takes refuge
§5“Well, they’re definitely dead when the Realized One doesn’t think they’re worth advising or instructing, and neither do their sensible spiritual companions. Excellent, sir! … From this day forth, may the Buddha remember me as a lay follower who has gone for refuge for life.”
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