Reading guide
The teaching in one sentence
Keeping the five precepts is benefiting oneself; getting others to keep them is benefiting others; and the two occur in all four combinations.
The five precepts as the variable
Not killing, not stealing, not committing sexual misconduct, not lying, not consuming beer, wine, and liquor intoxicants. The full five, including the fifth, which AN 4.64 and AN 4.81 both omitted.
Its presence here is worth noting. Those two discourses were about courses of action with destinations attached, and gave the four that directly harm someone. This is about training rules undertaken and recommended, and gives the five that a lay follower takes on.
That difference is consistent across the collection. When the subject is consequence, the list is four; when the subject is the training, the list is five. A reader who notices lists of four and five precepts alternating has noticed something real.
The second cell
It’s when an individual kills living creatures, steals, commits sexual misconduct, lies, and consumes beer, wine, and liquor intoxicants. But they encourage others to not do these things.
That is one of the more startling sentences in the Fours, and the startling part is that the discourse counts it as practising for the benefit of others.
It is worth taking at face value. The claim is that the encouragement has value independent of the encourager. If someone tells another person not to kill and that person does not kill, a benefit has occurred, and the discourse credits it to the advice.
That is a coherent position and it is not a comfortable one. It implies that hypocrisy is better than silence, at least in this respect, and the collection puts that in the third rank rather than the fourth.
Against AN 4.26 and AN 4.96
The collection is not of one mind about this figure and the tension is worth mapping.
AN 4.26 disowned the deceivers and flatterers — those mendicants are no followers of mine — for faults of self-presentation. AN 4.68 said gain and honor destroyed Devadatta. AN 4.96’s guide noted that a teacher who instructs without doing is ranked third of four.
This discourse says the same third-of-four thing, and says it about someone whose conduct is far worse than any of those. It does not disown them; it ranks them.
The reconcilable reading is that the collection is answering two different questions. Whether such a person is a follower of the Buddha, and whether their advice does anyone any good, are separate, and it answers no to the first and yes to the second.
The fourth cell as an ordinary description
For all the strangeness of the second cell, the fourth is entirely unremarkable: keeping the five precepts and encouraging others to do the same.
That is a description of an ordinary practising lay follower, and it is the top position of this discourse’s grid. Not an attainment, not a meditative state, not a monastic role — keeping five commitments and telling other people about them.
Placed at the end of a chapter that has run through titans, serenity and discernment, firebrands, and cream of ghee, that plainness is worth registering. The collection’s top cell in this version is available to anyone.
Closing the chapter
AN 4.100, the last discourse of the Asuravagga, returns to a named person and a conversation — Potaliya the wanderer, on whether it is better to have equanimity or to know the time for praise and criticism.
The chapter as a whole has been made of four-cell grids: the titan grid, the serenity-and-discernment grid given three times, and the self-and-other grid given five times. Nine of its ten discourses are the same instrument with different contents.
The tenth breaks the pattern and is the only one with a person in it. That is a common shape for these chapters and it is worth expecting: a run of schematic material, then one exchange that gives it a face.
Key terms
The text
Four individuals
§1“Mendicants, these four individuals are found in the world. What four? One who practices to benefit themselves, but not others; one who practices to benefit others, but not themselves; one who practices to benefit neither themselves nor others; and one who practices to benefit both themselves and others.
For themselves, not others
§2And how does an individual practice to benefit themselves, but not others? It’s when an individual doesn’t kill living creatures, steal, commit sexual misconduct, lie, or consume beer, wine, and liquor intoxicants. But they don’t encourage others to do the same. That’s how an individual practices to benefit themselves, but not others.
For others, not themselves
§3And how does an individual practice to benefit others, but not themselves? It’s when an individual kills living creatures, steals, commits sexual misconduct, lies, and consumes beer, wine, and liquor intoxicants. But they encourage others to not do these things. That’s how an individual practices to benefit others, but not themselves.
For neither
§4And how does a person practice to benefit neither themselves nor others? It’s when an individual kills, etc. … and doesn’t encourage others to not do these things. That’s how an individual practices to benefit neither themselves nor others.
For both
§5And how does an individual practice to benefit both themselves and others? It’s when an individual doesn’t kill, etc. … and encourages others to do the same. That’s how an individual practices to benefit both themselves and others. These are the four individuals found in the world.”
Self-check quiz
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