Ru-Yi Meditation Center
Aṅguttara Nikāya · Discourse 4.26

Deceivers

Kuhasutta — Uruvelavagga — the third chapter of the Fours

Setting
None stated; the Uruvelavagga gives no location for this discourse, and it is addressed to the mendicants directly
Speakers
The Buddha alone, addressing the mendicants
Form
Five faults, their five opposites, and two verses repeating both
Length
~1 minute to read
Northern parallel
Lists of the deceitful monastic recur across the Chinese Āgamas and the Nikāya commentaries; this reading guide does not assert a specific matching sutra number
Difficulty
★★☆☆☆ — short and blunt, with one question worth raising about its severity

Why this discourse

“Those mendicants are no followers of mine.” The disavowal is unusually direct, and the faults that earn it are not moral catastrophes: deceit, flattery, pomposity, insolence, and a scattered mind. This is the personal counterpart to AN 4.25 — there the institution’s purposes, here the individual’s manner — and it is harsher than the discourse before it.

Reading guide

The teaching in one sentence

Five habits of self-presentation disqualify a person from the training, whatever else they are doing.

The five faults

Kuha, deceiver — specifically one who fakes attainments or virtues. Lapa, flatterer — one who talks people round, especially for support. Nemittika and nippesika, rendered pompous and fake, cover hinting for gifts and belittling others into giving. Unnaḷa, insolent — literally ‘with the reed raised’, a fine image for someone holding themselves up. Asamāhita, scattered — not composed, not in samādhi.

Four of the five are ways of managing other people’s opinion of you. The fifth is not: a scattered mind is a private condition. Its inclusion is what makes the list a spiritual diagnosis rather than a code of manners — and the ordering suggests why the two belong together, since a mind occupied with how it appears is not available to settle.

The disavowal

Those mendicants are no followers of mine — na me te bhikkhave bhikkhū māmakā. Māmaka is ‘mine’ used as a noun: my people.

It is the strongest formula of exclusion in the chapter and it is worth handling carefully. AN 4.2 said that someone lacking ethics, immersion, wisdom, and freedom has fallen from this teaching and training; that was a statement about a condition. This is a statement about a relationship, in the first person, and it is a disowning.

Read plainly, the discourse says that a person may be ordained, resident, and outwardly practising and still not be one of the teacher’s own. Whether that is meant as a sociological fact or as a warning designed to be overheard is not something the text settles.

Why these faults and not worse ones

A fair question: why is the disavowal reserved for pretension rather than for, say, cruelty or theft? The discourse does not answer, but the shape of the collection suggests one.

Gross misconduct is the Vinaya’s business and has formal procedures attached. What the discourses handle is the class of faults that no procedure catches — the ones that are entirely compatible with keeping every rule. A monk who hints for gifts and carries himself grandly has broken nothing formal, which is precisely why a discourse is needed to name it.

There is also a coherent reason internal to the fault. These five are the faults of someone using the training for standing. That is not a failure within the training; it is a substitution of something else for it, and a substitution is disqualifying in a way that a lapse is not.

The positive list

Genuine (amāya, without deceit), not flatterers, attentive, amenable, serene. Two of these are worth noting: amāya is the negation of illusion or trickery, and suvaca — here ‘amenable’ — means literally ‘easy to speak to’, that is, someone who takes correction.

Suvaca is a quietly demanding virtue and appears throughout the monastic literature. It names the quality that makes any of the rest of the training possible: if a person cannot be told, nothing anyone observes about them can reach them.

The verses

The verses repeat both halves almost word for word, adding only that these do or do not grow in the teaching that was taught by the perfected Buddha.

That verb is the discourse’s one addition. The prose said such mendicants achieve no growth, improvement, or maturity; the verse compresses it to growth alone. The image is organic and it fits the diagnosis: pretension does not damage the training so much as arrest it. Nothing goes wrong; nothing happens.

Key terms

kuha — “deceiver” — specifically one who fakes attainments or virtues; the discourse takes its name from this word.
unnaḷa — “insolent”, literally ‘with the reed raised’ — a fine image for someone holding themselves up.
asamāhita — “scattered, uncomposed” — the one private fault on the list, and what makes it a spiritual diagnosis rather than a code of manners.
māmaka — “mine, my people” — the noun in the disavowal. A statement about a relationship rather than about a condition.
suvaca — “amenable”, literally ‘easy to speak to’ — one who takes correction, and the quality that makes the rest of the training possible.

The text

The discourse in full: the five faults, their opposites, and the two verses. Translation: Bhikkhu Sujato (CC0, SuttaCentral).

No followers of mine

§1“Mendicants, those mendicants who are deceivers and flatterers, pompous and fake, insolent, and scattered: those mendicants are no followers of mine. They’ve left this teaching and training, and they don’t achieve growth, improvement, or maturity in this teaching and training. But those mendicants who are genuine, not flatterers, attentive, amenable, and serene: those mendicants are followers of mine. They haven’t left this teaching and training, and they achieve growth, improvement, or maturity in this teaching and training.

The verses

§2Those who are deceivers and flatterers, pompous and fake, insolent and scattered: these don’t grow in the teaching that was taught by the perfected Buddha.

§3But those who are genuine, not flatterers, attentive, amenable, and serene: these do grow in the teaching that was taught by the perfected Buddha.”

· · ·

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 the Buddha say of deceivers and flatterers?
Correct: B. The strongest formula of exclusion in the chapter.
Question 2 of 10
How does that differ from AN 4.2’s ‘fallen’?
Correct: B. Māmaka is ‘mine’ used as a noun: my people.
Question 3 of 10
Which of the five faults is not about managing others’ opinion?
Correct: B. Its inclusion makes the list a spiritual diagnosis rather than a code of manners.
Question 4 of 10
What does unnaḷa literally mean?
Correct: B. A fine image for insolence.
Question 5 of 10
Why does the guide say pretension and a scattered mind belong together?
Correct: B. Which is why the ordering makes sense.
Question 6 of 10
Why might the disavowal be reserved for pretension rather than gross misconduct?
Correct: B. A monk who hints for gifts and carries himself grandly has broken nothing formal.
Question 7 of 10
What internal reason does the guide give?
Correct: B. A substitution is disqualifying in a way that a lapse is not.
Question 8 of 10
What does suvaca mean?
Correct: B. If a person cannot be told, nothing anyone observes about them can reach them.
Question 9 of 10
What single verb do the verses add?
Correct: B. The prose said growth, improvement, or maturity; the verse compresses it.
Question 10 of 10
What does the guide draw from that image?
Correct: B. The image is organic and fits the diagnosis.
Answered 0 of 10 · Correct 0

Further reading

← PreviousAN 4.25 · The Spiritual Life