When people criticize, slander, or speak harshly to me, what does Buddhism teach me to do?

Patience is only proven when you are offended

The Simile of the Saw (Kakacūpama Sutta, MN 21) begins with a very ordinary incident: a monk named Phagguna became angry, displeased, and even started disputes because others spoke ill of the nuns he associated with. Using this occasion, the Buddha turns the discussion to a more universal problem—how to hold the mind steady when someone's words make us uncomfortable.

The Buddha first points out a blind spot that is easily missed: a person "is very gentle, very humble, very peaceful only so long as disagreeable words do not touch him"; it is only when "disagreeable words actually touch him" that we can truly judge whether he is gentle, humble, and peaceful. In other words, anyone looks even-tempered when things go their way; the real test of patience appears only at the moment one is criticized or offended. This one line sets the key for the whole discourse: what matters is not what others say, but how your mind responds when you are touched.

The five ways others may speak

The Buddha lays out a clear list: when others speak to you, their speech may fall into five pairs—at the right time or the wrong time; with what is true or what is false; gently or harshly; with what is beneficial or what is harmful; with a mind of loving-kindness or with inner hate. These five pairs (timely/untimely, true/false, gentle/harsh, beneficial/harmful, loving/hateful) cover nearly every kind of words we might meet: well-meant advice, malicious slander, harsh insults to your face, defamation behind your back—all are included.

Notably, the Buddha does not ask his disciples to first work out "whether what the other person says is true or has a point" before deciding whether to get angry. The purpose of the list is precisely the opposite: whichever category the other person falls into—even the very worst end of it, untimely, false, harsh, harmful, and born of hate—the training you undertake is the same. The text then gives that training.

Whatever they say, train in this way

Facing these five kinds of speech, the response the Buddha teaches is a fixed training formula: "Our minds will remain unaffected, and we shall utter no evil words; we shall abide compassionate for their welfare, with a mind of loving-kindness, without inner hate." There are three layers here: first, the inner mind does not waver or turn sour because of the other's words; second, the outward speech does not return harshness with harshness; third, going further, one actively arouses care and goodwill toward that person.

And the Buddha opens the scope of the mind very wide: not only "abiding pervading that very person with a mind imbued with loving-kindness," but, taking him as the object, "abiding pervading the entire world with a mind imbued with loving-kindness—vast, exalted, measureless, without hostility, without ill-will." That is, the moment you are offended is not a moment to shrink into defensiveness, but to open the mind to boundless size—so large that the other's words raise no ripple within it. This formula recurs again and again in the discourse and is the core teaching of the whole Simile of the Saw.

A mind unshakeable as the earth

To make "an unwavering mind" concrete and tangible, the Buddha strings together several similes. The first is the great earth: suppose a man came with a hoe and a basket and declared, "I will make this great earth to be without earth," and then dug here and there, scattered here and there, spat and urinated here and there, saying, "Be without earth, be without earth!" The Buddha asks: could that man make the earth to be without earth? The monks reply: no—because the great earth is deep and immeasurable, not easily made without earth; that man "would only reap a share of weariness and disappointment."

The Buddha then applies the same point to the words of others, layering it higher and higher: train the mind to be like space on which nothing can be drawn, like the Ganges that cannot be dried up, like a well-kneaded, supple leather bag that cannot be made to rustle. What these similes share is this: the external condition (another's harsh words) is not that it does not exist, but that against a mind vast and steady enough, it can shake nothing; the one truly exhausted is rather the person set on provoking you. The direction of practice is to cultivate the mind's scope until it is "like the earth—vast, exalted, measureless, without hostility, without ill-will."

The simile of the saw: even if your limbs are severed

Here comes the most famous—and most striking—passage of the discourse. The Buddha says: "Even if bandits, low men, were to sever you limb by limb with a two-handled saw, one who gave rise to a corrupted mind on that account would not be a doer of my teaching." This is a hypothesis pushed to the very limit of the human situation—not being scolded a few times, but the body being sawn open; even so, the standard the Buddha states remains "let the mind not be corrupted by hate."

This is a teaching of tremendous weight and an exceptionally high standard, presented here as it stands, neither softened nor embellished. Note that what the Buddha then asks his disciples to train in is still the same formula: "Our minds will remain unaffected, and we shall utter no evil words; we shall abide compassionate for their welfare, with a mind of loving-kindness, without inner hate," and toward that aggressor too, "abiding pervading him... and the entire world with a mind imbued with loving-kindness." The simile of the saw is not about numbly enduring pain; it sets "not letting hate corrupt the mind, and meeting the other with loving-kindness instead" against the most extreme situation imaginable in order to set the benchmark—if it is to be kept even then, how much more so in the everyday matter of being criticized or slandered.

The "exhortation of the simile of the saw": recollect it often, for lasting welfare

Having given the simile of the saw, the Buddha names this teaching and gives a method of practice: "You should attend often to this exhortation of the simile of the saw." He then asks his disciples: once this exhortation is kept in mind, "do you see any course of speech, subtle or gross," that you could not endure, that you could not hold to? The monks answer: none—meaning that if the simile of the saw is truly kept in mind, even the heaviest words can be borne.

The Buddha closes with this charge: "Therefore, monks, you should attend often to this exhortation of the simile of the saw... that will be for your welfare and happiness for a long time." Two things stand out here: first, this teaching has a formal name—the "exhortation of the simile of the saw," and the discourse itself is titled the "Simile of the Saw"; second, it is not something merely heard once, but a daily practice to be "attended to often" and kept in mind again and again, because what it yields is lasting welfare and happiness. For anyone today whose mind churns at being criticized or slandered, this is precisely an anchor of steadiness to return to and remind oneself of, over and over.

Relation to Mahāyāna interpretation

The teaching of MN 21—that even while being sawn one does not let the mind give rise to hate, but abides in loving-kindness—became an important basis in later Mahāyāna Buddhism for the "perfection of patience" (kṣānti-pāramitā, one of the six perfections). Mahāyāna scriptures and treatises often describe the bodhisattva's patience as "having the body cut apart without giving rise to hate," strongly echoing this discourse's simile of the saw, and connect it to further doctrinal developments such as the "patient acceptance of the non-arising of phenomena" (anutpattika-dharma-kṣānti). These are later interpretations and developments; this page presents only the wording and teaching found in the Pali Simile of the Saw itself (an unchanged mind, no harsh words, abiding in loving-kindness, pervading with a mind of loving-kindness), and does not adjudicate among the various traditions' readings.