Reading guide
The teaching in one sentence
A mendicant “consummate, accomplished, a supreme person” is defined by exactly three qualities — good morals, good practice, and good wisdom — with each quality built on, and completing, the one before it.
Good morals
The discourse asks its own question and answers it directly: “how does a mendicant have good morals? It’s when a mendicant is ethical, restrained in the monastic code, conducting themselves well and resorting for alms in suitable places. Seeing danger in the slightest fault, they keep the rules they’ve undertaken.” This is presented as the foundation the other two qualities are built on.
Good practice
Good practice is defined more briefly: “it’s when a mendicant meditates pursuing the development of the seven qualities on the side of awakening.” It’s worth being honest that the discourse names this group only by its number — seven — without listing the individual qualities here, in keeping with this collection’s generally compressed style.
Good wisdom
The third quality: “it’s when a mendicant realizes the undefiled freedom of heart and freedom by wisdom in this very life. And they live having realized it with their own insight due to the ending of defilements.” This exact language — “freedom of heart and freedom by wisdom,” realized “due to the ending of defilements” — is a standard, recurring formula for full awakening, matched almost word for word by the climactic language used elsewhere for the Buddha’s own account of the night of his awakening.
One who has completed all three
Someone accomplished in good morals, good practice, and good wisdom together is called, in this teaching and training, “consummate, accomplished, a supreme person” — language the closing verse restates line by line: “who does nothing wrong by body, speech or mind” has good morals; who has “well developed the seven factors that lead to awakening” has good practice; and who “understands for themselves the end of suffering in this life” has good wisdom. “One accomplished in these three things,” the verse concludes, is “untroubled, with doubts cut off, unattached to anything in the world” — someone who “has given up everything.”
Key terms
The text
§1.1This was said by the Buddha, the Perfected One: that is what I heard.
§2.1“Mendicants, in this teaching and training a mendicant of good morals, good practice, and good wisdom is called consummate, accomplished, a supreme person.
§3.1–3.4And how does a mendicant have good morals? It’s when a mendicant is ethical, restrained in the monastic code, conducting themselves well and resorting for alms in suitable places. Seeing danger in the slightest fault, they keep the rules they’ve undertaken. That’s how a mendicant has good morals. Such is one of good morality.
§4.1–4.4And how does one have good practice? It’s when a mendicant meditates pursuing the development of the seven qualities on the side of awakening. That’s how a mendicant has good practice. Such is one of good morality and good practice.
§5.1–5.3And how does one have good wisdom? It’s when a mendicant realizes the undefiled freedom of heart and freedom by wisdom in this very life. And they live having realized it with their own insight due to the ending of defilements. That’s how a mendicant has good wisdom;
§6.1–6.3Such is one of good morals, good practice, and good wisdom, who in this teaching and training is called consummate, accomplished, a supreme person.” The Buddha spoke this matter. On this it is said:
§7.1–7.4“Who does nothing wrong
by body, speech or mind,
is said to be one of good morals,
a conscientious mendicant.
§8.1–8.4Who has well developed the seven
factors that lead to awakening
is said to be one good practice,
an unpretentious mendicant.
§9.1–9.4Who understands for themselves
the end of suffering in this life
is said to be one good wisdom,
an undefiled mendicant.
§10.1–10.4One accomplished in these three things,
untroubled, with doubts cut off,
unattached to anything in the world,
has given up everything, they say.”
§11.1This too is a matter that was spoken by the Blessed One: that is what I heard.
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