Reading guide
The teaching in one sentence
Each of the four conditions has its own next step, and none of them is to stay where one is.
‘Grounded on’
The instruction to the first two is the same in shape: grounded on serenity, they should practise meditation to get discernment, and grounded on discernment, they should practise meditation to get serenity.
The phrase is tasmiṁ patiṭṭhāya, having established themselves on that. The quality one already has is not something to be set aside while working on the missing one; it is the platform.
That is a specific and useful instruction. A person with strong concentration and no insight is not told to abandon concentration and take up analysis; they are told to develop discernment from the calm they have. The same in the other direction.
It also rules out a common misunderstanding of the grid, on which the two are competing and time spent on one is taken from the other. On this instruction the one you have is what makes the other reachable.
The head on fire
For the person with neither, the instruction is different in kind: apply extraordinary enthusiasm, effort, zeal, vigor, perseverance, mindfulness, and situational awareness — seven terms — and the simile is clothes or head on fire.
Ādittasīsa, head ablaze, is a standing image in the canon for urgency without deliberation. Nobody with their hair on fire weighs options; the response is immediate and total.
What makes the simile apt here is that the person with neither quality has nothing to stand on. The other two were told to build from a platform; this one has no platform, and what substitutes for it is intensity.
It is worth noticing that the discourse does not tell this person which of the two to develop first. The instruction is to go at both, hard, and the outcome stated is the same as for the others: after some time they have both.
The fourth instruction
For the person with both: grounded on those skillful qualities, they should practise meditation further to end the defilements.
That is the discourse’s quiet correction of an assumption the grid invites. Having both is the top cell, and it is not the destination. Serenity and discernment together are named as a platform for further work, in the same words — grounded on those — used for the partial cases.
So all four instructions have the same grammar. Everyone stands on what they have and goes further; the only difference is what they have to stand on and how far there is to go.
Why this matters for how the grid is used
Diagnostic schemes of this kind reliably become identities. A practitioner learns that they are a serenity person or a discernment person, and the label explains what they do and licenses not doing the rest.
This discourse forecloses that. Every cell has an instruction, every instruction is to develop what is missing, and every outcome is the same: after some time they have both.
The phrase recurs three times, once for each incomplete cell. It is the discourse’s answer to the grid, and a teacher using AN 4.92 without AN 4.93 is handing students a classification without the sentence that makes it temporary.
The seven terms
Chanda, vāyāma, ussāha, ussoḷhī, appaṭivānī, sati, sampajañña — enthusiasm, effort, zeal, vigor, perseverance, mindfulness, situational awareness.
Five of the seven are near-synonyms for effort, which is the collection’s way of marking intensity, as AN 4.11’s four verbs for getting rid of a thought did. The last two are not.
That mindfulness and situational awareness are on the list of what a desperate person should apply is worth pausing on. Urgency in this tradition is not the same as agitation. The person with their head on fire is asked for maximum effort and for awareness at the same time, which is a harder thing than either alone and is the difference between urgency and panic.
Key terms
The text
Four individuals
§1“Mendicants, these four individuals are found in the world. What four? One individual has internal serenity of heart, but not the higher wisdom of discernment of principles. One individual has the higher wisdom of discernment of principles, but not internal serenity of heart. One individual has neither internal serenity of heart, nor the higher wisdom of discernment of principles. One individual has both internal serenity of heart, and the higher wisdom of discernment of principles.
Serenity but not discernment
§2As for the individual who has serenity but not discernment: grounded on serenity, they should practice meditation to get discernment. After some time they have both serenity and discernment.
Discernment but not serenity
§3As for the individual who has discernment but not serenity: grounded on discernment, they should practice meditation to get serenity. After some time they have both discernment and serenity.
Neither
§4As for the individual who has neither serenity nor discernment: in order to get those skillful qualities, they should apply extraordinary enthusiasm, effort, zeal, vigor, perseverance, mindfulness, and situational awareness. Suppose your clothes or head were on fire. In order to extinguish it, you’d apply extraordinary enthusiasm, effort, zeal, vigor, perseverance, mindfulness, and situational awareness. In the same way, in order to get those skillful qualities, that individual should apply extraordinary enthusiasm … After some time they have both serenity and discernment.
Both
§5As for the individual who has both serenity and discernment: grounded on those skillful qualities, they should practice meditation further to end the defilements. These are the four individuals found in the world.”
Self-check quiz
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