Reading guide
The teaching in one sentence
There are three kinds of individuals in the world with respect to giving — one like a rainless cloud who gives to no one at all, one who rains locally by giving to some but not others, and one who rains everywhere by giving to everyone who asks — and the verse closes by connecting the third kind explicitly to wealth “accumulated by legitimate means, through their own hard work.”
Not who you give to, but whether you give at all
The prose statement is specific about who might be asking: “ascetics and brahmins, paupers, vagrants, supplicants, or beggars” — a deliberately wide net covering both religious renunciants and people in ordinary material need. And the things that might be given are equally concrete: “food, drink, clothing, vehicles; garlands, fragrance, and makeup; and bed, house, and lighting.” The three-way division isn’t about generosity toward one group over another — it’s about whether giving happens at all, and how far its reach extends.
A weather metaphor that keeps going
Where the prose statement makes its three-part comparison in a single, compact sentence, the verse lingers over it at length — five separate stanzas, more than in almost any other discourse in this set of ten. It calls the withholding giver “the meanest of men,” then turns to an extended description of an actual rain cloud: “having thundered and roared, drenching the earth with water, soaking the uplands and valleys.” Only after building that image in full does the verse return to the human giver it is describing.
Earned wealth, freely given
The final stanza adds a detail the earlier prose never mentions: the generous person’s wealth has been “accumulated by legitimate means, through their own hard work.” Generosity here isn’t detached from how the wealth being given away was acquired in the first place — the verse takes care to specify both that the means were honest and that the effort was the giver’s own before describing how that wealth is shared out again.
Key terms
The text
§1This was said by the Buddha, the Perfected One: that is what I heard.
§2“Mendicants, these three individuals are found in the world. What three? One like a rainless cloud, one who rains locally, one who rains all over.
§3And how is an individual like a rainless cloud? It’s when an individual doesn’t give to anyone at all—whether ascetics and brahmins, paupers, vagrants, supplicants, or beggars—such things as food, drink, clothing, vehicles; garlands, fragrance, and makeup; and bed, house, and lighting. That’s how an individual is like a rainless cloud.
§4And how does an individual rain locally? It’s when an individual gives to some but not to others—whether ascetics and brahmins, paupers, vagrants, supplicants, or beggars—such things as food, drink, clothing, vehicles; garlands, fragrance, and makeup; and bed, house, and lighting. That’s how an individual rains locally.
§5And how does an individual rain all over? It’s when an individual gives to everyone—whether ascetics and brahmins, paupers, vagrants, supplicants, or beggars—such things as food, drink, clothing, vehicles; garlands, fragrance, and makeup; and bed, house, and lighting. That’s how an individual rains all over. These are the three individuals found in the world.” The Buddha spoke this matter. On this it is said:
§6“They don’t share the food and drink
they have acquired
with ascetics or brahmins,
with paupers, vagrants, or supplicants.
They’re like a rainless cloud,
they say, the meanest of men.
§7They don’t give to some,
to some they provide.
They rain locally,
so say the wise.
§8Compassionate for all beings,
that person distributes
abundant food upon request,
saying, “Give! Give!”
§9The rain cloud rains forth,
having thundered and roared,
drenching the earth with water,
soaking the uplands and valleys.
§10Even so, such an individual,
having accumulated wealth
by legitimate means,
through their own hard work,
rightly satisfies with food and drink
those who have become supplicants.”
§11This too is a matter that was spoken by the Blessed One: that is what I heard.
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