If one finds a seer of one’s faults, a wise man who speaks rebukingly, one should associate with such a wise person as if he were a revealer of hidden treasure. For one associating with such a person [his growth in spiritually wholesome factors] is improved not worsened.

[A seer of faults] should advise and instruct. He should stop what is unsuitable. He is beloved to good people. He is unbeloved to bad people.

One should not associate with unvirtuous friends. One should not associate with spiritually inferior men. One should associate with virtuous friends. One should associate with the best of men.

One who drinks the teaching sleeps well, with a serene mind. The wise man always takes delight in the teaching explained by the Noble Ones.

Irrigators channel water. Fletchers straighten arrows. Carpenters shape wood. The wise tame themselves.

Wise men are unruffled amidst praise and criticism, just as a solid mass of rock is unmoved by the wind.

Having heard the teachings the wise become serene like a deep, limpid, and unturbid lake.

Spiritually outstanding people abandon [fondness and attachment] for all things. Good people do not speak out of desire for sensuous pleasure. Whether impinged on by pleasure or pain the wise show neither elation nor dejection.

Neither for one’s own sake nor for the sake of another should one wish for a son, or for wealth, or for an empire. Nor should one wish for one’s own success by unrighteous means. One should be virtuous, blessed with penetrative discernment, and righteous.

Few are those people amongst mankind who are making for the Far Shore. These other folk are just following the [Near] Shore.

But when the teaching has been rightly explained, those people who practise in accordance with the teaching will go beyond the realm of death which is so hard to get beyond.

Having gone from home to homelessness, having abandoned dark [spiritually unwholesome] factors, a wise person should develop bright [spiritually wholesome] factors in physical seclusion which is difficult to enjoy.

There [in physical seclusion] he should seek delight. Having abandoned sensuous pleasures, being possessionless, the wise man would cleanse himself of spiritual defilements.

Those whose minds are well developed in the factors of enlightenment, who through being without grasping find delight in the relinquishment of attachment: those glorious ones whose āsavas are destroyed have realised the Untroubled in the world.