The Wise chapter opens with startling advice about criticism: treat the person who points out your faults as one who reveals hidden treasure — keep their company, for things become better, not worse, for you (6.1). Choose companions the same way: not the base, but the noble (6.3). What follows is a portrait of wisdom as self-craft, in the Dhammapada's most quoted craftsman verse: irrigators channel water, fletchers shape arrows, carpenters bend wood — the wise master themselves (6.5).
The marks of that mastery are stillness and evenness: as a solid rock is unshaken by wind, the wise are unmoved by praise and blame (6.6); like a deep, clear lake, they settle on hearing the teachings (6.7); touched by happiness or sorrow, they show neither elation nor dejection (6.8), and they refuse to win sons, wealth, or kingdom by wrong means (6.9). The chapter closes on the crossing image that runs through the whole book: few reach the far shore — most merely run up and down this bank (6.10) — but those who follow the well-taught Dhamma cross the realm of death, hard as it is to cross (6.11).
Key verses
Should you find a wise reprover who points out your faults as one who reveals hidden treasure, keep company with such a one. For one who keeps such company things become better, not worse.
Irrigators channel water; fletchers shape arrows; carpenters bend wood; the wise master themselves.
As a solid rock is not shaken by the wind, so the wise are unmoved amid praise and blame.
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