273 |
The eightfold path, of paths, is foremost;
Four truths are, of truths, the cream;
Dispassion is, of states, the greatest;
Buddhas are, of men, supreme.
|
274 |
The Path is this:
None else exists
To purify one’s vision.
If entered on
The Path effects
The Evil One’s confusion. |
275 |
The sting of the arrow I’ve known,
And, to you, the appeasement I’ve shown.(1)
If the path of the Dhamma
You’ll enter upon,
It will bring to your sorrows a close. |
276 |
Effort is your obligation;
Buddhas do but point the Way.
Those who practise, meditators,
Find release from Mara’s stays. |
277 |
Fleeting are configurations.
When, with wisdom, this one sees,
Disgust arising for affliction
Leads one on to purity. |
278 |
Distressing are configurations.
When, with wisdom, this one sees,
Disgust arising for affliction
Leads one on to purity. |
279 |
No-one’s are configurations.
When, with wisdom, this one sees,
Disgust arising for affliction
Leads one on to purity. |
280 |
Her body is young and she’s sturdy,
But dreary her mind, and she’s lazy.
When effort is called for she wastes away time:
The pathway to wisdom such idlers won’t find. |
281 |
In speaking be careful;
In thought be restrained;
From bodily conduct unskilful,
Refrain!
These three kinds of flawlessness,
May you attain!
And the Path that the sages have walked,
May you gain! |
282 |
Application’s wisdom’s rise;
Lack of which is its demise.
When this branching path’s cognised
That leads to progress or decline,
May you so yourselves incline
So, consequently, wisdom thrives! |
283 |
Cut down the whole jungle
Not just the odd tree:
From the jungle of passion
Does fear come to be.
When the jungle is felled,
Cut the brushwood as well,
Then of every luxuriant growth
You’ll be free. |
284 |
If any jungly growth remains,
The smallest bush, of man for maid,
So long his mind is shackled fast,
Like to its dam, a suckling calf. |
285 |
In your hand you might crush an exquisite carnation;(2)
So should you crumple your self-adoration.
The pathway to peace you should practise instead:
To Nibbana it leads, as the Buddha has said. |
286 |
“For the months of the rains I’ll stay here,
And in winter and summer stay there.”
With assurance do fools thus conceive.
What’s contingent they fail to perceive. |
287 |
The person whose mind is besotted,
With children and cattle obsessed,
Like a flood drowns a village asleep,
Will that fool be demolished by death. |
288
&289 |
When cornered by death one can’t hope for protection
From father or son or another relation.
The wise see this fact as imperative reason
To quickly lay open the pathway to freedom. |
| |
|
| |
Go to the next chapter |
