Theragāthā (Psalms of the Brethren)

Oh, when will I stay alone in the wood, fearless, discerning this body as impermanent, a nest of death and disease, harried by death and old age; when will it be?

Oh, when will I live, <j>having grasped the sharp sword of wisdom and cut the creeper of craving <j>that tangles around everything, the mother of fear, the bringer of suffering? When will it be?

Oh, when will I, seated on the lion’s throne, swiftly grasp the sword of the seers, forged by wisdom, of awesome might, and swiftly break Māra and his army? <j>When will it be?

Oh, when will I be seen in the assemblies with those who are virtuous, unaffected, <j>respecting the Dhamma, seeing things as they are, with faculties subdued? When will it be?

Oh, when will I focus on my heart’s goal <j>in the Mountainfold, free of oppression by laziness, hunger, thirst, wind, heat, bugs, and reptiles? When will it be?

Oh, when will I, serene and mindful, understand the four truths, that were realized by the great seer, and are so very hard to see? <j>When will it be?

Oh, when will I, devoted to serenity, see with understanding the infinite sights, sounds, smells, tastes, touches, and ideas as burning? <j>When will it be?

Oh, when will I not be distraught because of criticism, nor elated because of praise? When will it be?

Oh, when will I discern the aggregates and the infinite varieties of phenomena, those interior and exterior, as no more than wood, grass, and creepers? <j>When will it be?

Oh, when will the monsoon clouds in season freshly wet me in my robe in the forest, walking the path trodden by the seers? When will it be?

Oh, when will I rise up, <j>intent on attaining freedom from death, hearing, in the mountain cave, the cry of the crested peacock in the forest? When will it be?

Oh, when will I cross by psychic power unobstructed the Ganges, Yamunā, and Sarasvatī; and that place where one is thrown in the abyss, the horrifying Mare’s Mouth? When will it be?

Oh, when will I be devoted to absorption, shunning all the signs of beauty, splitting apart desire for sensual stimulation, like an elephant that wanders free of ties? <j>When will it be?

Oh, when will I realize the teaching of the great seer and be content, like a pauper in debt harassed by creditors, who finds a hidden treasure? When will it be?

For many years you begged me, “Enough of living in a house for you!” Why do you not urge me on, mind, now that I’ve gone forth as an ascetic?

Didn’t you entice me, mind: “In the Mountainfold, the birds with colorful wings, greeting the thunder, Mahinda’s voice, will delight you as you meditate in the forest?”

In my family circle, friends, loved ones, and relatives; and in the world, sports and play, <j>and sensual pleasures; all these I gave up when I entered this life: and even then you’re not content with me, mind!

This is mine alone, it doesn’t belong to others; when it is time to don your armor, why lament? Observing that all this is unstable, I went forth, seeking the state free of death.

He whose words are well-composed, <j>supreme among people, great physician, <j>guide for those fit to train, said: “The mind fidgets like a monkey, so it’s very hard to control if you are not free of lust.”

Sensual pleasures are diverse, sweet, delightful; an ignorant ordinary person is bound to them. Seeking to be reborn again, they wish for suffering; led on by their mind, they’re banished to hell.

“Staying in the grove resounding with cries of peacocks and herons, <j>and adorned by leopards and tigers, abandon concern for the body, without fail!” So you used to urge me, mind.

“Develop the absorptions and spiritual faculties, the powers, awakening factors, and immersion; realize the three knowledges <j>in the teaching of the Buddha!” So you used to urge me, mind.

“Develop the eightfold path <j>to realize freedom from death emancipating, its objective being <j>the end of all suffering, and cleansing all defilements!” So you used to urge me, mind.

“Reflect rationally on the aggregates as suffering, and abandon that from which suffering arises; make an end of suffering in this very life!” So you used to urge me, mind.

“Rationally discern that impermanence is suffering, that emptiness is non-self, and that gloom is death. Uproot the wandering mind!” So you used to urge me, mind.

“Bald, unsightly, accursed, seek alms amongst families, bowl in hand. Devote yourself to the word of the Teacher, <j>the great seer!” So you used to urge me, mind.

“Wander among the street markets well-restrained, mentally unchained to families and sensual pleasures, like the full moon on a bright night!” So you used to urge me, mind.

“Be a wilderness-dweller and an alms-eater, one who lives in charnel grounds, a rag-robe wearer, one who never lies down, <j>always delighting in ascetic practices.” So you used to urge me, mind.

Mind, when you urge me to <j>the impermanent and unstable, you’re acting like someone who plants trees, then, when they’re about to fruit, wishes to cut down the very same trees.

Incorporeal mind, far-traveler, lone-wanderer: I won’t do your bidding any more. Sensual pleasures are suffering, painful, <j>and very dangerous; I’ll wander with my mind <j>focused only on extinguishment.

I didn’t go forth due to bad luck or shamelessness, or due to a whim or banishment, nor for the sake of a livelihood; it was because I agreed <j>to the promise you made, mind.

“Having few wishes, abandoning disparagement, the settling of suffering: <j>these are praised by true persons.” So you used to urge me, mind, but now you keep on with your old habits!

Craving, ignorance, the loved and unloved, pretty sights, pleasant feelings, and the delightful kinds of sensual stimulation: I’ve vomited them up, I can’t swallow them back.

I’ve done your bidding everywhere, mind! For many births, I’ve done nothing to upset you. Yet the creation in myself <j>is because of your ingratitude— for a long time I’ve transmigrated <j>in the suffering you’ve made.

Only you, mind, make a brahmin; you make an aristocrat or a royal seer. Sometimes we become peasants or menials; and life as a god is also on account of you.

You alone make us titans; because of you we’re born in hell. Then sometimes we become animals, and life as a ghost is also on account of you.

Come what may, you won’t betray me again, dazzling me with your ever-changing display! You play with me like I’m mad— but how have I ever failed you, mind?

In the past my mind wandered how it wished, where it liked, as it pleased. Now I’ll carefully guide it, as a trainer with a hook guides a rutting elephant.

The teacher willed that this world appear to me as impermanent, unstable, insubstantial. Mind, let me leap into the victor’s teaching, carry me over the great flood, so hard to pass.

Things have changed, mind! Nothing could make me return to your control! I’ve gone forth in the teaching of the great seer, those like me don’t come to ruin.

Mountains, oceans, rivers, the earth; the four quarters, the intermediate directions, <j>below and in the sky; the three realms of existence <j>are all impermanent and harried— where can you go to find happiness, mind?

Mind, what will you do to someone <j>who has made the ultimate commitment? Nothing could make me a follower <j>under your control, mind; I’d never touch a bellows <j>with a mouth open at each end; curse this mortal frame flowing with nine streams!

You’ve ascended the mountain peak, <j>full of nature’s beauty, frequented by boars and antelopes, a grove sprinkled with fresh water in the monsoon; and there you’ll be happy in your cave-home.

Peacocks with beautiful necks and crests, colorful tail-feathers and wings, crying out at the resounding thunder: they’ll delight you as you meditate in the forest.

When the heavens have rained, <j>and the grass is four inches high, and the grove is full of flowers like a cloud, between the mountains, like the fork of a tree, I’ll lie; it will be as soft as cotton-buds.

I’ll act rather as a master does: let whatever I get be enough for me. And that’s why I’ll make you as supple as a tireless worker makes a cat-skin bag.

I’ll act rather as a master does: let whatever I get be enough for me. I’ll control you with my energy, as a skilled trainer controls an elephant with a hook.

Now that you’re well-tamed and reliable, I can use you, <j>like a trainer uses a straight-running horse, to practice the path of grace, cultivated by those who take care of their minds.

I shall strongly fasten you to a meditation subject, as an elephant is tied to a post with firm rope. You’ll be well-guarded by me, <j>well-developed by mindfulness, and unattached to rebirth in all states of existence.

With wisdom you’ll cut short <j>the one following the wrong path, curb them by meditation, <j>and settle them on the right path. Having seen arising and passing away <j>with respect to the cause of suffering, you’ll be an heir to the greatest teacher.

Under the sway of the four distortions, mind, you dragged me around like a bull in a pit; but now you won’t associate <j>with the great sage of compassion, the cutter of fetters and bonds?

Like a deer roaming free in the colorful forest, I’ll ascend the lovely mountain <j>wreathed in monsoon clouds, and rejoice to be on that hill, free of folk— there is no doubt you’ll perish, mind.

The men and women who live <j>under your will and command, whatever pleasure they experience, they are ignorant and fall under Māra’s control; loving life, they’re your disciples, mind.

“Living in the wilderness, eating only almsfood, happy with the scraps in our bowls, let us tear apart the army of death, while remaining serene within.

Living in the wilderness, eating only almsfood, happy with the scraps in our bowls, let us crush the army of death, as an elephant a hut of reeds.

Living at the foot of a tree, persistent, happy with the scraps in our bowls, let us tear apart the army of death, while remaining serene within.

Living at the foot of a tree, persistent, happy with the scraps in our bowls, let us crush the army of death, as an elephant a hut of reeds.”

“You hut, made of a chain of bones, sewn together with flesh and sinew; curse you mortal frame, you stink, you cherish the parts of others!

You sack of dung swathed in skin! You demoness with horns on your chest! O body, you have nine streams that are flowing all the time.

With its nine streams, your body stinks, full of dung. A monk seeking purity would avoid it like excrement.

If they knew you like I do, they’d keep far away, like a cesspit in the monsoon.”

“So it is, great hero! As you say, ascetic! But some founder here like an old bull stuck in a bog.”

“Whoever might think of making the sky yellow, or some other color, would only trouble themselves.

This mind is like the sky: serene inside itself. Evil-minded one, don’t attack me, you’ll end up like a moth in a mass of fire.”

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

See this fancy figure, with its gems and earrings; it is bones swathed in skin, made pretty by its clothes.

Rouged feet and powdered face may be enough to beguile a fool, but not a seeker of the far shore.

Hair in eight braids and eyeshadow may be enough to beguile a fool, but not a seeker of the far shore.

A rotting body all adorned like a freshly painted makeup box may be enough to beguile a fool, but not a seeker of the far shore.

The hunter laid his snare, but the deer didn’t spring the trap. I’ve eaten the bait and now I go, leaving the trapper to lament.

The hunter’s snare is broken, but the deer didn’t spring the trap. I’ve eaten the bait and now I go, leaving the deer-hunter to grieve.”

“Then there was terror! Then they had goosebumps! When Sāriputta, <j>endowed with many fine qualities, became quenched.

Oh! Conditions are impermanent, their nature is to rise and fall; having arisen, they cease; their settling is such bliss.”

“Those who see the five aggregates as other, not as self, penetrate a subtle thing, like a hair-tip with an arrow.

Those who see conditions as alien, not as self, pierce a fine thing, like a hair-tip with an arrow.”

“Like they’re struck by a sword, like their head was on fire, a mendicant should wander mindful, to give up sensual desire.

Like they’re struck by a sword, like their head was on fire, a mendicant should wander mindful, to give up desire for rebirth.”

“Urged by the developed one, who bore his final body, I shook the stilt longhouse of Migāra’s mother with my big toe.”

“Not by being slack, or with little strength may this be realized—extinguishment, the release from all ties.”

“This young monk, this best of men, bears his final body, having vanquished Māra and his legions.”

“Lightning flashes down on the cleft of Vebhāra and Paṇḍava. But in the mountain cleft he is absorbed in jhāna— the son of the Buddha, inimitable and unaffected.”

“Calm and still, the sage in his remote lodging, the heir to the best of Buddhas, is honored even by the Divinity.

Calm and still, the sage in his remote lodging, is heir to the best of Buddhas: Brahmin, you should honor Kassapa!

Even if someone were to be born again and again a hundred times in the human realm, and always as a brahmin, a student accomplished in the Vedas;

and if he were to become a reciter, a master of the three Vedas: honoring such a person isn’t worth a sixteenth of that.

One who attains the eight liberations forwards and backwards before breakfast, and then goes on almsround—

don’t attack such a mendicant! Don’t ruin yourself, brahmin! Let your heart have trust in the perfected one, the unaffected; quickly venerate him with cupped palms: don’t let your head explode!”

“If you prioritize transmigration, you don’t see the true teaching. You’re following a twisted path, a bad path that will lead you down.

Like a worm smeared with dung, he is besotted with conditions. Consumed by gain and honor, Poṭṭhila goes on, hollow.”

“See Sāriputta coming! It is good to see him; he is freed in both ways, serene inside himself;

free of thorns, with yoking ended, master of the three knowledges, <j>conqueror of death; worthy of offerings, a supreme field of merit for the people.”

“These many gods, powerful and glorious, all 10,000 of them, are priests of Divinity. They stand with cupped palms honoring Moggallāna:

‘Homage to you, O thoroughbred! Homage to you, supreme among men! Since your defilements are ended, you, good fellow, are worthy of teacher’s offerings.’

Venerated by the lordly god, he has arisen, the master of death. He is unsmeared by conditions, as a lotus-flower by water.”

“The mendicant by whom the galaxy with the age of the Divinity are known in an hour— that master of psychic ability sees the gods at the time they pass away and are reborn.”

“Sāriputta is full of wisdom, ethics, and peace. Even a mendicant who has crossed over might at best equal him.

But in a moment I can create the likenesses of ten million times 100,000 people! I’m skilled in transformations; I’m a master of psychic powers.

A member of the Moggallāna clan, <j>attained to perfection and mastery in immersion and knowledge, <j>wise in the teachings of the unattached, with serene faculties, has burst his bonds like an elephant bursts a vine.

I’ve served the Teacher and fulfilled the Buddha’s instructions. The heavy burden is laid down, the leash to existence is eradicated.

I’ve attained the goal for the sake of which I went forth from the lay life to homelessness— the ending of all fetters.”