Therīgāthā (Psalms of the Sisters)

Thus sensual pleasures have been explained to be obstructions, so full of suffering. Please leave! As for me, I have no trust in any state of life.

What can someone else do for me when their own head is burning? When stalked by old age and death, you should strive to destroy them.”

She opened the door and saw her parents with Anīkaratta, sitting crying on the floor. And so she said this:

“Transmigration is long for fools, crying again and again <j>at that with no known beginning— the death of a father, the killing of a brother or of themselves.

Remember the ocean of tears, of milk, of blood— transmigration with no known beginning. Remember the bones piled up by beings transmigrating.

Remember the four oceans compared with tears, milk, and blood. Remember bones piled up high as Mount Vepulla in the course of a single eon.

Transmigration with no known beginning is compared to this broad Black Plum Tree Land; if divided into lumps the size of jujube seeds, they’d still be fewer than his mother’s mothers.

Remember the grass, sticks, and leaves, compare that with no known beginning: if split into chips four inches in size, they’d still be fewer than his father’s fathers.

Remember the one-eyed turtle <j>and the yoke with a hole blown in the ocean from east to west— sticking the head in the hole is a metaphor for gaining a human birth.

Remember the form of this unlucky body, insubstantial as a lump of foam. See the aggregates as impermanent, remember the hells so full of distress.

Remember those swelling the charnel grounds again and again in life after life. Remember the danger of gharials! Remember the four truths!

When freedom from death is there to be found, why would you drink the five bitter poisons? For all erotic delights are so much more bitter than them.

When freedom from death is there to be found, why would you burn for sensual pleasures? For all erotic delights are burning, boiling, bubbling, seething.

When there is freedom from enmity, why would you want your enemy, sensual pleasures? Many enemies take a share of your sensual pleasures: kings, fire, robbers, flood, and unloved heirs.

When liberation is there to be found, what good are sensual pleasures that kill and bind? For though unwilling, <j>when sensual pleasures are there, they are subject to the pain of killing and binding.

As a blazing grass torch burns one who grasps it without letting go, sensual pleasures are like a grass torch, burning those who do not let go.

Don’t give up abundant happiness for the trivial joys of sensual pleasure. Don’t fret later, like a catfish on a hook.

Deliberately control yourself <j>among sensual pleasures! You’re like a hound fixed to a chain: sensual pleasures will surely devour you as hungry corpse-workers would a hound.

Harnessed to sensual pleasure, you undergo endless pain, along with much mental anguish: relinquish sensual pleasures, they don’t last!

When the unaging is there to be found, what good are sensual pleasures in which is old age? All rebirths everywhere are bonded to death and sickness.

This is freedom from old age, freedom from death! This is freedom from old age and death, the sorrowless state! Free of enmity, unconstricted, faultless, fearless, without tribulations.

This freedom from death has been realized by many; even today it can be obtained by those who rationally apply themselves; but it’s impossible if you don’t try.”

So said Sumedhā, lacking delight in conditioned things. Soothing Anīkaratta, Sumedhā cast her hair on the ground.

Standing up, Anīkaratta raised his cupped palms to her father and begged: “Let go of Sumedhā, so that she may go forth! She will see the truth of liberation.”

Released by her mother and father, she went forth, afraid of grief and fear. While still a trainee nun <j>she realized the six direct knowledges, along with the highest fruit.

The extinguishment of the princess was incredible and amazing; on her deathbed, she declared her several past lives.

“In the time of the Buddha Koṇāgamana, we three friends gave the gift of a newly-built dwelling in the Saṅgha’s monastery.

Ten times, a hundred times, a thousand times, ten thousand times, we were reborn among the gods, let alone among humans.

We were mighty among the gods, let alone among humans! I was queen to a king with the seven treasures— I was the treasure of a wife.

That was the cause, that the origin, that the root, that was the acceptance of the dispensation; that first meeting culminated in extinguishment for one delighting in the teaching.

So say those who have faith in the words of the one unrivaled in wisdom. They’re disillusioned with any state of life, and being disillusioned they become dispassionate.”

That is how these verses were recited by the senior nun Sumedhā.

The Verses of the Senior Nuns are finished.