Association with people of integrity. Because the Dhamma consists primarily of qualities of the mind, any written account of the Dhamma is only a pale shadow of the real thing. Thus, to gain a sense of the Dhamma’s full dimensions, you need to find people who embody the Dhamma in their thoughts, words, and deeds, and associate with them in a way that enables you to absorb as much of that embodied Dhamma as possible. The passages explaining this factor thus offer advice in two areas: how to recognize people of integrity and how best to associate with them once you have found them.
The immediate sign of integrity is gratitude.
“A person of integrity is grateful & acknowledges the help given to him. This gratitude, this acknowledgment is second nature among admirable people. It is entirely on the level of people of integrity.”
—AN 2:31
Gratitude is a necessary sign of integrity in that people who don’t recognize and value the goodness and integrity in others are unlikely to make the effort to develop integrity within themselves. On its own, though, gratitude does not constitute integrity. The essence of integrity lies in three qualities: truth, harmlessness, and discernment.
“There is the case where a monk lives in dependence on a certain village or town. Then a householder or householder’s son goes to him and observes him with regard to three qualities— qualities based on greed, qualities based on aversion, qualities based on delusion: ‘Are there in this venerable one any such qualities based on greed … aversion… delusion that, with his mind overcome by these qualities, he might say, “I know, while not knowing, or say, “I see,” while not seeing; or that he might urge another to act in a way that was for his/her long-term harm & pain?’ As he observes him, he comes to know, ‘There are in this venerable one no such qualities based on greed… aversion… delusion…. His bodily behavior & verbal behavior are those of one not greedy… not aversive… not deluded. And the Dhamma he teaches is deep, hard to see, hard to realize, tranquil, refined, beyond the scope of conjecture, subtle, to-be-experienced by the wise.”
—MN 95
As this passage shows, knowledge of a person’s truthfulness requires that you be so observant of his/her behavior that you can confidently infer the quality of his/her mind. This level of confidence, in turn, requires that you not only be observant, but also discerning and willing to take time, for as another passage points out, the appearance of spiritual integrity is easy to fake.
https://www.dhammatalks.org/Archive/Writings/Ebooks/DighaNikaya210710.pdf