Dhammapada

Better than a thousand meaningless verses is a single meaningful verse, hearing which brings you peace.

Better than reciting a hundred meaningless verses is a single saying of Dhamma, hearing which brings you peace.

The supreme conqueror is not he who conquers a million men in battle, but he who conquers a single man: himself.

It is surely better to conquer oneself than all those other folk. When a person has tamed themselves, always living restrained,

no god nor centaur, nor Māra nor divinity, can undo the victory of such a personage.

Rather than a thousandfold sacrifice, every month for a full century, it’s better to honor for a single hour one who has developed themselves. That offering is better than the hundred year sacrifice.

Rather than serve the sacred flame in the forest for a hundred years, it’s better to honor for a single hour a personage who has developed themselves. That offering is better than the hundred year sacrifice.

Whatever sacrifice or offering in the world a seeker of merit may make for a year, none of it is worth a quarter of bowing to the sincere.

For one in the habit of bowing, always honoring the elders, four blessings grow: lifespan, beauty, happiness, and strength.

Better to live a single day ethical and absorbed in meditation than to live a hundred years unethical and lacking immersion.

Better to live a single day wise and absorbed in meditation than to live a hundred years witless and lacking immersion.

Better to live a single day energetic and strong, than to live a hundred years lazy and lacking energy.

Better to live a single day seeing rise and fall than to live a hundred years blind to rise and fall.

Better to live a single day seeing the state free of death than to live a hundred years blind to the state free of death.

Better to live a single day seeing the supreme teaching than to live a hundred years blind to the supreme teaching.

Rush to do good, shield your mind from evil; for when you’re slow to do good, your thoughts delight in wickedness.

If you do something bad, don’t do it again and again, don’t set your heart on it, for piling up evil is suffering.

If you do something good, do it again and again, set your heart on it, for piling up goodness is joyful.

Even the wicked see good things, so long as their wickedness has not ripened. But as soon as that wickedness ripens, then the wicked see wicked things.

Even the good see wicked things, so long as their goodness has not ripened. But as soon as that goodness ripens, then the good see good things.

Think not lightly of evil, that it won’t come back to you. The pot is filled with water falling drop by drop; the fool is filled with wickedness piled up bit by bit.

Think not lightly of goodness, that it won’t come back to you. The pot is filled with water falling drop by drop; the attentive one is filled with goodness piled up bit by bit.

Avoid wickedness, as a merchant with rich cargo and small escort would avoid a dangerous road, or one who loves life would avoid drinking poison.

You can carry poison in your hand if it has no wound, for poison does not infect without a wound; nothing bad happens unless you do bad.

Whoever wrongs a man who has done no wrong, a pure man who has not a blemish, the evil backfires on the fool, like fine dust thrown upwind.

Some are born in a womb; evildoers go to hell; the virtuous go to heaven; the undefiled are fully extinguished.

Not in midair, nor mid-ocean, nor hiding in a mountain cleft; you’ll find no place on the planet to escape your wicked deeds.

Not in midair, nor mid-ocean, nor hiding in a mountain cleft; you’ll find no place on the planet where you won’t be vanquished by death.

All tremble at the rod, all fear death. Treating others like oneself, neither kill nor incite to kill.

All tremble at the rod, all love life. Treating others like oneself, neither kill nor incite to kill.

Creatures love happiness, so if you harm them with a stick in search of your own happiness, after death you won’t find happiness.

Creatures love happiness, so if you don’t harm them with a stick in search of your own happiness, after death you will find happiness.

Don’t speak harshly, they may speak harshly back. For aggressive speech is painful, and the rod may spring back on you.

If you still yourself like a broken gong, you reach extinguishment and know no conflict.

As a cowherd drives the cows to pasture with the rod, so too old age and death drive life from living beings.

The fool does not understand the evil that they do. But because of those deeds, that simpleton is tormented as if burnt by fire.

One who violently attacks the peaceful and the innocent swiftly falls to one of ten bad states:

harsh pain; loss; the breakup of the body; serious illness; mental distress;

hazards from rulers; vicious slander; loss of kin; destruction of wealth;

or else their home is consumed by fire. When their body breaks up, that witless person is reborn in hell.

Not nudity, nor matted hair, nor mud, nor fasting, nor lying on bare ground, nor wearing dust and dirt, or squatting on the heels, will cleanse a mortal not free of doubt.

Dressed up they may be, but if they live well— peaceful, tamed, committed to the spiritual path, having laid aside violence toward all creatures— they are a brahmin, an ascetic, a mendicant.

Can a person constrained by conscience be found in the world? Who shies away from blame, like a fine horse from the whip?

Like a fine horse under the whip, be keen and full of urgency. With faith, ethics, and energy, immersion, and investigation of principles, accomplished in knowledge and conduct, mindful, give up this vast suffering.

While irrigators guide water, fletchers bend arrows straight, and carpenters bend timber straight, those true to their vows tame themselves.

What is joy, what is laughter, when the flames are ever burning? Swathed in darkness, would you not seek a light?

See this fancy puppet, a body built of sores, diseased, obsessed over, in which nothing lasts at all.

This body is decrepit and frail, a nest of disease. This foul carcass falls apart, for life ends in death.

These dove-grey bones are tossed away like dried gourds in the autumn— what joy is there in such a sight?

In this city built of bones, plastered with flesh and blood, old age and death are stashed away, along with conceit and contempt.

Fancy chariots of kings wear out, and even this body gets old. But the truth of the good never gets old— so the good proclaim to the good.

A person of little learning ages like an ox— their flesh grows, but not their wisdom.

Transmigrating through countless rebirths, I’ve journeyed without reward, searching for the house-builder; painful is birth again and again.

I’ve seen you, house-builder! You won’t build a house again! Your rafters are all broken, your roof-peak demolished. The mind, set on demolition, has reached the end of cravings.

When young they spurned the spiritual path and failed to earn any wealth. Now they brood like old cranes in a pond bereft of fish.

When young they spurned the spiritual path and failed to earn any wealth. Now they lie like spent arrows, bemoaning over things past.

If you knew your self as beloved, you’d look after it so well. In one of the night’s three watches, an astute person would remain alert.

The astute would avoid being corrupted by first grounding themselves in what is suitable, and then instructing others.

If one were to treat oneself as one instructs another, the well-tamed indeed would tame: for the self, it seems, is hard to tame.

One is indeed the lord of oneself, for who else would be one’s lord? By means of a well-tamed self, one gains a lord that’s rare indeed.

For the evil that is done by oneself, born and produced in oneself, grinds down a simpleton, as diamond grinds a lesser gem.

One choked by immorality, as a sal tree by a creeper, does to themselves what a foe only wishes.

It’s easy to do bad things harmful to oneself, but good things that are helpful are the hardest things to do.

On account of wicked views— scorning the guidance of the perfected ones, the noble ones living righteously— the idiot begets their own self’s demise, like the bamboo bearing fruit.

For it is by oneself that evil’s done, one is corrupted by oneself. It’s by oneself that evil’s not done, one is purified by oneself. Purity and impurity are personal matters, no one can purify another.

Never neglect what is good for yourself for the sake of another, however great. Knowing well what is good for yourself, be intent upon your heart’s goal.

Don’t resort to lowly things, don’t abide in negligence, don’t resort to wrong views, don’t perpetuate the world.

Get up, don’t be heedless, live by principle, with good conduct. For one of good conduct sleeps at ease, in this world and the next.

Live by principle, with good conduct, don’t conduct yourself badly. For one of good conduct sleeps at ease, in this world and the next.

Look upon the world as a bubble or a mirage, then the King of Death won’t see you.

Come, see this world decked out like a fancy royal chariot. Here fools founder, but the discerning are not chained.

He who once was heedless, but turned to heedfulness, shines upon this world like the moon freed from clouds.

Someone whose bad deed is supplanted by the good, shines upon this world, like the moon freed from clouds.

Blind is the world, few are those who clearly see. Only a handful go to heaven, like a bird freed from a net.

Swans fly by the sun’s path, psychic sages fly through space. The attentive leave the world, having vanquished Māra with his legions.

When a personage, spurning the hereafter, transgresses in just one thing— lying— there is no evil they would not do.

The miserly don’t ascend to heaven, it takes a fool to not praise giving. The attentive celebrate giving, and so find happiness in the hereafter.

The fruit of stream-entry is better than being the one king of the earth, than going to heaven, than lordship over all the world.

He whose victory may not be undone, a victory unrivaled in all the world; by what track would you trace that Buddha, who leaves no track in his infinite range?

Of craving, the weaver, the clinger, he has none: so where can he be traced? By what track would you trace that Buddha, who leaves no track in his infinite range?

The attentive intent on absorption, who love the peace of renunciation, the Buddhas, ever mindful, are envied by even the gods.

It’s hard to gain a human birth; the life of mortals is hard; it’s hard to hear the true teaching; the arising of Buddhas is hard.

Not to do any evil; to embrace the good; to purify one’s mind: this is the instruction of the Buddhas.

Patient acceptance is the ultimate fervor. Extinguishment is the ultimate, say the Buddhas. No true renunciate injures another, nor does an ascetic hurt another.

Not speaking ill nor doing harm; restraint in the monastic code; moderation in eating; staying in remote lodgings; commitment to the higher mind— this is the instruction of the Buddhas.

Even if it were raining money, you’d not be sated in sensual pleasures. An astute person understands that sensual pleasures offer little gratification and much suffering.

Thus they find no delight even in celestial pleasures. A disciple of the fully awakened Buddha delights in the ending of craving.

So many go for refuge to mountains and forest groves, to shrines in tended parks; those people are driven by fear.

But such refuge is no sanctuary, it is no supreme refuge. By going to that refuge, you’re not released from all suffering.

One gone for refuge to the Buddha, to his teaching and to the Saṅgha, sees the four noble truths with right understanding:

suffering, suffering’s origin, suffering’s transcendence, and the noble eightfold path that leads to the stilling of suffering.

Such refuge is a sanctuary, it is the supreme refuge. By going to that refuge, you’re released from all suffering.

It’s hard to find a thoroughbred man: they’re not born just anywhere. A family where that attentive one is born prospers in happiness.

Happy, the arising of Buddhas! Happy, the teaching of Dhamma! Happy is the harmony of the Saṅgha, and the striving of the harmonious is happy.

When a person venerates the worthy— the Buddha or his disciple, who have transcended proliferation, and have left behind grief and lamentation,

quenched, fearing nothing from any quarter— the merit of one venerating such as these, cannot be calculated by anyone, saying it is just this much.

Let us live so very happily, loving among the hostile. Among hostile humans, let us live with love.

Let us live so very happily, healthy among the ailing. Among ailing humans let us live healthily.

Let us live so very happily, content among the greedy. Among greedy humans, let us live content.

Let us live so very happily, we who have nothing. We shall feed on rapture, like the gods of sublime luminosity.