Numbered Discourses 3.24

1. Individuals

Very Helpful

“Mendicants, these three individuals are very helpful to another.

What three?

The individual who has enabled you to go for refuge to the Buddha, the teaching, and the Saṅgha.

This individual is very helpful to another.

Furthermore, the individual who has enabled you to truly understand: ‘This is suffering’ … ‘This is the origin of suffering’ … ‘This is the cessation of suffering’ … ‘This is the practice that leads to the cessation of suffering’.

This individual is very helpful to another.

Furthermore, the individual who has enabled you to realize the undefiled freedom of heart and freedom by wisdom in this very life, and live having realized it with your own insight due to the ending of defilements.

This individual is very helpful to another.

These are the three individuals who are very helpful to another individual.

And I say that there is no-one more helpful to another than these three individuals.

And I also say that it’s not easy to repay these three individuals by bowing down to them, rising up for them, greeting them with cupped palms, and observing proper etiquette for them; or by providing them with robes, almsfood, lodgings, and medicines and supplies for the sick.”