Four Qualities of an Unwholesome Person

Monks, one who possesses four qualities can be understood to be an unwholesome person.

What four?

(1) Here, Monks, an unwholesome person discloses the faults of others even when not asked about them, how much more then when asked. But when he is asked about them, then, led on by questions, he speaks about the faults of others without gaps or omissions, fully and in detail. It can be understood: This individual is an unwholesome person.

(2) Again, an unwholesome person does not disclose the virtues of others even when asked about them, how much less then when not asked. But when he is asked about them, then, led on by questions, he speaks about the virtues of others with gaps and omissions, not fully or in detail. It can be understood: This individual is an unwholesome person.

(3) Again, an unwholesome person does not disclose his own faults even when asked about them, how much less then when not asked. But when he is asked about them, then, led on by questions, he speaks about his own faults with gaps and omissions, not fully or in detail. It can be understood: This individual is an unwholesome person.

(4) Again, an unwholesome person discloses his own virtues even when not asked about them, how much more then when asked. But when he is asked about them, then, led on by questions, he speaks about his own virtues without gaps and omissions, fully and in detail. It can be understood: This individual is an unwholesome person

One who possesses these four qualities can be understood to be an unwholesome person.

(Reference: AN 4.73)

In this Teaching from Gotama Buddha, he shares “Four Qualities of an Unwholesome Person”. These are not the “only” four qualities that determine whether you are practicing in an unwholesome way, but are four of “the” qualities of an unwholesome person.

(1) First, an unwholesome person would speak of a person’s faults or mistakes. They would share those openly with a desire to harm others. To openly share the faults or mistakes of others would be to gossip and that will only lead to their harm, thus, this harm will come back to you. If you gossip about others, it is only a matter of time before people decide to gossip about you.

A wise Practitioner would see no benefit in gossiping and choose not to gossip. Even if what is potentially being shared is true, it is unbeneficial to share the faults and mistakes of others so, why share them?

The only situation one might choose to share faults and mistakes of others is “when he is asked about them, then, led on by questions”. This might occur in an employment or educational situation when you are asked for an assessment of someone’s performance.

If asked, an unwholesome person would “speak about the faults of others without gaps and omissions, fully and in detail”. An unwise Practitioner might choose to share others’ faults with harmful intent sharing every detail their mind can remember in an attempt to cause harm. This harm will only come back to harm you so a wise Practitioner would not choose to speak in this way. Faults and mistakes should not be shared with malicious intent or to harm the other person but only in an encouraging and positive way to help them continue to grow in their life.

Since you are not perfect, it is not wise to speak of others as if they should be perfect.

Instead, when asked and you are speaking with all the other factors of Right Speech, share areas for improvement, if any, so that the individual can continue to progress in life.

(2) Second, an unwholesome person would not speak of the “virtues of others even when asked about them” and “when not asked”. In doing so, an unwise Practitioner would speak about a person’s positive qualities “with gaps and omissions, not fully or in detail”.

An Enlightened mind can see the positive and beneficial qualities of everyone. While there may be areas for improvement, all people have positive qualities that can be shared.

When in a situation to share someone’s “virtues”, you can feel comfortable in sharing those as a way to bring people together and not separate people. An unwholesome person would be looking to separate people with harmful speech.

As described in the prior example, if asked to discuss a person’s faults or mistakes in an employment or educational situation, share those as needed in a positive way but also include the positive qualities or virtues of the individual as well. Be sure to provide a balanced and well rounded perspective that helps the individual continue to grow and progress in life.

If you feel that there is truly nothing good to say whatsoever, then, it is best to say nothing at all.

(3) Third, an unwholesome person would not speak of their own faults and mistakes, when appropriate and when asked “with gaps and omissions, not fully or in detail”.

You do not need to share this information unless it is appropriate in a given situation. Being unwilling to share your own faults or mistakes would tend to indicate there is ego present in the mind. To eliminate the ego, a Practitioner would need to be comfortable with understanding and sharing their faults and mistakes as appropriate in a given situation. An Enlightened being would need to eliminate the ego to attain Enlightenment and being willing and able to disclose your own faults and mistakes will help the mind practice being humble.

(4) Fourth, an unwholesome person does disclose his own “virtues even when not asked about them” and when asked about them. Should a Practitioner choose to speak glowingly of their own virtues when not asked about them, this would be arrogant, prideful, and boastful indicating that there is ego present in the mind. Doing so, an individual is typically rejected by others as arrogance, pride, and being boastful only serves to separate you from others making it difficult to have wholesome relationships.

When asked about your own virtues, The Buddha shares that an unwholesome person would speak “without gaps and omissions, fully and in detail”. Doing so, one is practicing being boastful and with craving to share their own virtues rather than being humble and “down to earth”.

If the mind is eager to speak of your own virtues, this is due to the ego and will only result in unwholesome results. A wise being only needs to walk with wisdom and a smile. A wise being does not have the desire for admiration of others with desire for others to acknowledge their wisdom. When you know the truth and have acquired wisdom, you know that for yourself and do not need others’ validation. A wise Practitioner has already independently verified the truth to acquire wisdom and have validated that wisdom on their own with guidance from a Teacher. But, if the mind projects arrogance, pride, and is boastful due to the acquired wisdom, it will only serve to push people away from you.

In summary, speak of others in positive ways and only share beneficial thoughts on improvements one might consider when asked while adding in a person’s virtues.

Never speak of another person’s faults or mistakes when not asked and when asked, only in appropriate settings like employment or educational settings.

Speak of your own positive qualities when asked and when appropriate never being arrogant, prideful, or boastful. There is no need to speak of your positive qualities at any other time unless asked and in doing so, one should practice being humble without a need to share every single detail unless needed for employment or educational settings. And even in those settings, you will find being humble will have the most beneficial outcome.

This Teaching is shared to help you develop your own wholesome qualities not to be used for you to judge if others are or are not wholesome. These Teachings are for your own personal growth on The Path to Enlightenment and at no time should a Practitioner judge others looking down on them with arrogance or pride. Doing so would only harm your own mind.

The Dangers of Gossip and Slander - Proceed with Caution

In order to attain Enlightenment, an individual would need to eliminate gossip and slander from their life practice.

As long as one is gossiping and slandering, the mind is still polluted with craving, anger, and ignorance (unknowing of true reality), which are described as The Three Poisons, The Three Unwholesome Roots, or The Three Fires and will lack the ability to experience Enlightenment.

As part of The Eight Fold Path, The Path to Enlightenment, The Buddha taught as part of Right Speech to eliminate gossip and slander in order to move the mind towards Enlightenment.

But why?

Let me help you understand…

1.) Choosing to Gossip and Slander: If one is choosing to gossip and slander, the mind has craving, anger, and ignorance (unknowing of true reality). These poisonous states of mind hinder one from experiencing the peace, calm, serenity, contentedness and joy of the Enlightened mind.

If you are choosing to gossip and slander, this means that the mind “wants” something specific (i.e. craving/desire/attachment), it has anger/hatred/ill will towards others, and this is due to the mind’s ignorance (unknowing of true reality) of The Natural Laws of Existence (i.e. The Natural Law of Kamma) and not being able to practice them in a way that would lead to your own Enlightenment. The mind is polluted and struggling in the world and will experience unwholesome results (i.e. unwholesome Kamma).

If you are choosing to gossip and slander, that means you are putting harm into the world, thus, harm will come to you due to The Natural Law of Kamma. As you choose to gossip and slander others, these harms will come back to you in multiple ways.

• It is only a matter of time before people will gossip and slander you.

• Hearing the gossip and slander, and knowing who it has come from, individuals might cause you bodily harm, injury, or death.

• You damage your own reputation through others understanding that you are choosing to speak in unwise, unwholesome, and harmful ways.

• You will find it difficult to maintain personal and professional relationships because people will not be interested in associating with individuals who are gossiping and slandering, knowing that it is only a matter of time before you do the same to them.

• The mind will be muddled and cluttered with negative content of others degrading your ability to have focus, concentration, clarity of mind, and a deep memory to benefit you in life.

• People will have a lack of trust and respect for you as they know that you gossip and slander, thus, hindering your ability to be successful in life.

• The mind will be judgmental of others and themselves, retaining its “conceit”, thus, one might find they have negative self-talk that degrades the way they view themselves and others hindering the mind from practicing loving-kindness and compassion with “all beings”.

These are just a handful of the challenges and difficulties one will experience when they choose to gossip and slander others, thus, it would be wise to never gossip and slander. If you have done this in the past, you can train your mind to eliminate this destructive conduct so that you are no longer choosing to gossip and slander helping you get closer to Enlightenment.

The Eight Fold Path will guide you in being able to train the mind to accomplish this goal. It is important to learn, reflect, and practice The Eight Fold Path to gradually develop your life practice and eliminate gossip/slander.

2.) Listening to Gossip and Slander: If you only listen to gossip and slander, this is still destructive to your own mind. You are taking in negative content that negatively effects the mind. Gossip and slander is most often untrue, thus, the mind will be forming perceptions and making decisions based on untruths leading to unwholesome results (i.e unwholesome Kamma).

Perceptions: a belief or opinion based on how things seem.

Listening to gossip and slander means that people around you will understand that you are open to receiving their unwise, unwholesome, and harmful speech. This means, that they will continue to come to you with gossip and slander.

Water flows in the path of least resistance. The same is true about unwise, unwholesome, and harmful speech to include gossip and slander. People will know your mind is open to gossip and slander and they will seek you out for a continuous bombardment of negative, unwise, unwholesome, and harmful speech putting yourself in a continuous position of destruction and erosion of the quality of your mind.

If you are listening to gossip and slander, that means you are accepting and receiving harmful speech from the world, thus, harm will come to you due to The Natural Law of Kamma. As you choose to listen to gossip and slander, these harms will be experienced.

• It is only a matter of time before people will gossip and slander you.

• The mind will continue to take in negative content about others and form a negative view of others further rooting anger/hatred/ill will into the mind hindering it from experiencing liberation, freedom from strong feelings, peace, and Enlightenment.

• You damage your own reputation through others understanding that you are choosing to listen to unwise, unwholesome, and harmful speech of others.

• You will find it difficult to maintain personal and professional relationships because people will not be interested in associating with individuals who are listening to gossip and slander, knowing that an individual circulates in unwise and unwholesome relationships.

• The mind will be muddled and cluttered with negative content of others degrading your ability to have focus, concentration, clarity of mind, and a deep memory to benefit you in life.

• People will have a lack of trust and respect for you as they know that you are a listener of gossip and slander, thus, hindering your ability to be successful in life.

3.) Telling Others Who Is Gossiping and Slandering Them: If you listen to gossip and slander and then carry that forward as a messenger to others, informing them of the gossip and slander you are listening to, you are now choosing to gossip and slander. People oftentimes shoot a messenger.

While you are putting yourself in the position of being a messenger, the individual who you are sharing this with is most likely going to get angered, frustrated, irritated, annoyed, etc. and potentially blame you for their painful feelings. You are going to be viewed as a “trouble maker” as you are putting yourself in a position of spreading the gossip and slander through gossiping and slandering.

While you may think that telling others who is gossiping and slandering them and what is being said as helping, what is truly happening is that you are helping to spread the gossip and slander through gossip and slander, creating opportunity for continued challenges and difficulties in relationships. You are ensuring that the problems only continue rather than allowing the gossip and slander to be buried and to die.

If you are sharing gossip and slander around your community thinking this is going to improve things, you are essentially throwing garbage around your community hoping that it will become more clean.

This is an unwise decision that would lead to unwholesome results (i.e. unwholesome Kamma).

If you are spreading gossip and slander, that means you are putting harm into the world, thus, harm will come to you due to The Natural Law of Kamma. As you choose to spread gossip and slander, these harms will come back to you in multiple ways.

• It is only a matter of time before people will gossip and slander you.

• Hearing the gossip and slander, and knowing who it has come from, individuals might cause you bodily harm, injury, or death.

• You damage your own reputation through others understanding that you are choosing to speak in unwise, unwholesome, and harmful ways.

• You will find it difficult to maintain personal and professional relationships because people will not be interested in associating with individuals who are gossiping and slandering, knowing that it is only a matter of time before you do the same to them.

• People will have a lack of trust and respect for you as they know that you gossip and slander, thus, hindering your ability to be successful in life.

• The mind will be muddled and cluttered with negative content of others degrading your ability to have focus, concentration, clarity of mind, and a deep memory to benefit you in life.

• The mind will be judgmental of others and themselves, retaining its “conceit”, thus, one might find they have negative self-talk that degrades the way they view themselves and others hindering the mind from practicing loving-kindness and compassion with “all beings”.

4.) Hearing Gossip and Slander: While it is wise to remove yourself from a situation where people are gossiping and slandering, thus, individuals will come to understand that you are not a receiver of unwise, unwholesome, and harmful speech, it is not possible to control others. Therefore, as you are making this transition away from gossip and slander, people might come to you and start gossiping and slandering others without you being able to readily and easily move away. Therefore, you might hear some gossip and slander for a period of time until you are determined, dedicated, and diligent enough that those around you understand you are not an outlet for their unwise, unwholesome, and harmful speech to include, gossip and slander.

Upon hearing gossip and slander it is important to do the following:

A.) Do not acknowledge or confirm the gossip and slander. Do not give any indication that the gossip or slander is welcomed, appreciated, or well received. There is no need to be harsh or hostile, just ensure there is no indication from you that the gossip and slander is well received.

B.) Take action to move away from the speaker by excusing yourself from the conversation and situation. Over time, people will come to know that you do not stay and listen to gossip and slander and they will be less and less likely to seek you out for their gossip and slander. This will take time and those individuals will most likely gossip and slander about your new choices. This is the results of your decisions of having existed in conversations, situations, and relationships with repeated gossip and slander. But, this is the only way to extinguish the unwholesome results of your decisions and you will need to experience the results of your past decisions that were unwise (i.e. old unwholesome Kamma).

You will need to move away and distance yourself from the gossip and slander, otherwise, it is only going to continue with significant results impacting your life. If others choose to gossip and slander you, be unaffected and choose to move forward in life understanding you need to extinguish the unwise decisions that have been leading to the unwholesome results you are experiencing and this may include, moving on from old relationships forming new and healthier relationships where gossip and slander does not exist. If you are clinging to relationships, this can be challenging. But, you will need to train the mind to “let go” and “move on” from these relationships, otherwise, you will be “stuck” in continuous harmful experiences producing unwholesome results.

C.) If you heard something from others that can negatively affect your relationships with people, it is possible to ask questions of others to inquire whether what you heard is true or false without exposing who you heard it from or that it is gossip/slander that you have been exposed to. You can skillfully ask questions of an individual that you heard the gossip and slander about, to understand what is true or false.

If needed and as another option, you can completely ignore the gossip/slander entirely, not allowing it to affect your personal and professional relationships which would be very wise. Put it out of the mind not allowing it to settle into the mind. But, if you have retained the gossip and slander and need a conversation to clarify what you understand, you could ask skillful questions to the individual who was gossiped/slandered rather than allow the mind to cling to its perceptions. You can discover the truth through asking questions and pursue understanding so that you are not clinging to perceptions, thus, eroding and destroying the quality of your mind.

Perceptions: a belief or opinion based on how things seem.

In effect, view gossip and slander as unwise, unwholesome, and untrue as the individual who is gossiping and slandering has destructive goals with ill will and is attempting to damage relationships. It would be unwise to associate with an individual who is looking to damage relationships as you will eventually find yourself on the receiving end of their efforts to separate people and damage reputations.

An Enlightened being would be interested in bringing people together, not creating division and separation. Enlightened beings are interested in harmony not division.

Who you choose to associate with as friends and colleagues has a direct effect on your ability to function in the world through wise decisions leading to wholesome results. If you continue to gossip/slander, listen to gossip/slander, spread gossip/slander, or associate with people who gossip/slander, you will experience continued struggles and difficulties in life as you are negatively impacted by this unwise, unwholesome, and harmful speech.

If you choose to swim in a dirty pool, you are going to get filthy while regretting your decision to not find a pool that has clean water. So empty the dirty pool and fill it up with clean water then, you will be able to enjoy a refreshing swim.

Borrow Some Salt But Not An Opinion

It is important that, more and more, you develop the ability to understand “true reality” and make wise decisions. This is how you will progress towards Enlightenment, were the mind is completely peaceful, calm, serene, and content with joy - permanently.

Everything taught by The Buddha is based in discernment, which is “wise decision making”.

With wise decisions, you will experience wholesome results (i.e. wholesome Kamma).

But, when you make decisions based on falsehoods, then it will produce unwholesome results (i.e. unwholesome Kamma), because you are not basing your decisions through an understanding of “true reality”.

Oftentimes in society, people will gossip or slander, attempting to make themselves look good by making others look bad.

In reality, this makes one’s own self look unwise but, the individual does not understand this due to the mind’s lack of wisdom. Through gossiping and slandering, it harms your own reputation as, more and more people will understand how unwise it is to gossip and slander.

If someone is unwise, they will listen to gossip and slander, then form opinions based on the gossip and slander.

This is a “borrowed opinion”.

Instead of making wise decisions based in “true reality”, an individual will form opinions of others based on a borrowed opinion from someone else. The mind does not actually know “true reality” for itself but instead, conforms to the thinking of another individual rather than, see the truth for themselves.

Someone who gossips and slanders is highly unwise, therefore, if you borrow someone else’s opinion about anything at all, you are not thinking for yourself and you are basing your opinion on someone’s lack of wisdom, who is choosing to gossip and slander.

You might decide to borrow salt but, it would be highly unwise to borrow an opinion.

Think for yourself, which may mean you listen to what others have to share but, when they are speaking unwisely with such things as gossip and slander, you would be wise to ignore what is being shared because…

…while you might borrow salt, it would be highly unwise to borrow an opinion.