The Dhammapada Chapter 10-15 With Silence For Contemplation

Chapters ten through fifteen of the original 1928 translation of the Dhammapadathat Silas had recorded to not only be used for contemplation and entertainment but to deepen your understanding of the original Buddhist communities perspective and see the way our translations have gotten better and grown, though this translation still has merit.

Transcript

All tremble at violence.

All fear death.

Putting oneself in the place of another,

One should not kill,

Nor cause another to kill.

All tremble at violence.

Life is dear to all.

Putting oneself in the place of another,

One should not kill,

Nor cause another to kill.

One who,

While himself seeking happiness,

Oppresses with violence other beings who also desire happiness,

Will not attain happiness hereafter.

One who,

While himself seeking happiness,

Does not oppress with violence other beings who also desire happiness,

Will find happiness hereafter.

Speak not harshly to anyone,

For those spoken to might retort.

Indeed,

Angry speech hurts,

And retaliation may overtake you.

If,

Like a broken gong,

You silence yourself,

You may have approached awakening,

For vindictiveness is no longer in you.

Just as a cowherd drives the cattle to pasture with a staff,

So do old age and death drive the life-force of beings from existence to existence.

When the fool commits evil deeds,

He does not realize their evil nature.

The witless man is tormented by his own deeds,

Like one burnt by fire.

He who inflicts violence on those who are unarmed,

And offends those who are inoffensive,

Will soon come upon one of the ten states.

Sharp pain or disaster,

Bodily injury,

Serious illness or derangement of mind,

Trouble from the government or grave charges,

Loss of relatives or loss of wealth,

Or houses destroyed by ravaging fire,

Upon the dissolution of the body,

That ignorant person is reborn in a negative way.

Neither going about naked,

Nor matted locks,

Nor filth,

Nor fasting,

Nor lying on the ground,

Nor smearing oneself with ashes and dust,

Nor sitting on the heels in penance can purify one,

Who has not overcome doubt.

Even though he will be well attired,

Yet if he is posed,

Calm,

Controlled,

And established in life,

Having set aside violence,

He truly is a holy person,

A renunciate,

A monk.

Only rarely is there a man in this world who,

Restrained by modesty,

Avoids reproach,

As a thoroughbred horse avoids the whip.

Like a thoroughbred horse touched by the whip,

Be strenuous,

Be filled with spiritual yearning,

By faith and moral purity,

By effort and meditation,

By investigation of the truth,

By being rich in knowledge and virtue,

And by being mindful,

Destroy this unlimited suffering.

Irrigators regulate the waters,

Fletchers straighten arrow shafts,

Carpenters shape wood,

And the good control themselves.

When this world is ever ablaze,

Why this laughter,

Why this jubilation?

Shrouded in darkness,

Will you not see the light?

Behold this body,

A painted image,

A mass of heaped up sores,

Infirm,

Full of hankering,

Of which nothing is lasting or stable.

Fully worn out is this body,

A nest of disease and fragile.

This foul mass breaks up,

For death is the end of life.

These dove-colored bones are like gourds that lie scattered about in autumn.

Having seen them,

How can one seek delight?

This body is built of bones,

Plastered with flesh and blood.

Within are decay and death,

Pride and jealousy.

Even gorgeous royal chariots wear out,

And indeed this body wears out too.

But the Dhamma of the good does not age.

Thus the good make it known to the good.

The man of little learning grows old like a bull.

He grows only in bulk,

But his wisdom does not grow.

Through many a birth and some sorrow have I wandered in vain,

Seeking in the builder of this house of life.

Repeated birth is indeed suffering.

O house-builder,

You are seen.

You will not build this house again,

For your rafters are broken and your ridge-pole shattered.

My mind has reached the unconditioned.

I have attained the destruction of craving.

Those who in youth have not led the holy life or have failed to acquire wealth languish like old cranes in the pond without fish.

Those who in youth have not led the holy life or have failed to acquire wealth lie sighing over the past like worn-out arrows shot from a bow.

If one holds oneself dear,

One should diligently watch oneself.

Let the wise man keep vigil during any of the three watches of the night.

One should first establish oneself in what is proper.

Then only should one instruct others.

Thus the wise man will not be reproached.

One should do what one teaches others to do.

If one would train others,

One should be well controlled in oneself.

Difficult indeed is self-control.

One truly is the protector of oneself.

Who else could the protector be?

With oneself fully controlled,

One gains a mastery that is hard to gain.

The evil a witless man does by himself,

Born of himself and produced by himself,

Grinds him as a diamond grinds a hard gem,

Just as a single vine strangles the tree on which it grows,

Even so a man who is exceedingly depraved harms himself as only an enemy might wish.

Easy to do are things that are bad and harmful to oneself,

But exceedingly difficult to do are things that are good and beneficial.

Whoever,

On account of perverted views,

Scorns the teaching of the Dharma,

The wise ones.

That fool,

Like the bamboo,

Produces fruits only for self-destruction.

By oneself is evil done.

By oneself is one defiled.

By oneself is evil left undone.

By oneself is one made pure.

Purity and impurity depend on oneself.

No one can purify another.

Let one not neglect one's own welfare for the sake of another,

However great.

Clearly understanding one's own welfare,

Let one be intent upon the good.

Follow not the vulgar way.

Live not in the heedlessness.

Hold not false views and linger not in worldly craving.

Arise,

Do not be heedless.

Lead a righteous life.

The righteous live happily both in this world and the next.

Lead a righteous life.

Lead not a basic life.

The righteous live happily both in this world and the next.

One who looks upon the world as a bubble and a mirage,

Him the king of death sees not.

Come,

Behold this world which is like a decorated royal chariot.

Here fools flounder,

But the wise have no attachment to it.

He who has been heedless is heedless no more,

Illuminates this world like the moon freed from the clouds.

He who by good deeds covers the evil he has done,

Illuminates this world like the moon freed from the clouds.

Blind is the world.

Here only a few possess insight.

Only a few,

Like birds escaping from the net,

Go to the realms of bliss.

Swans fly on the path of the sun.

Men pass through the air by psychic powers.

The wise are led away from the world after vanquishing Mara and its host.

For a liar who has violated the law of truthfulness,

Who holds in scorn the hereafter,

There is no evil that he cannot do.

Truly,

Misers fare not to heavenly realms,

Nor indeed do fools praise generously.

But the wise man rejoices in giving,

And by that alone does he become happy hereafter.

Better than sole sovereignty over the earth,

Better than going to heaven,

Better even than lordship over all the worlds,

Is the supermundane awakening of stream-entry.

By what track can you trace the trackless,

Udda of limitless range,

Whose victory nothing can undo,

Whom none of the vanquished defilements can ever pursue?

By what track can you trace that trackless Buddha of limitless range,

In whom exists no longer the entangling and embroiling craving that perpetuates becoming,

Those wise ones who are devoted to meditation and who delight in the calm of renunciation?

Such mindful ones,

Buddhas,

Even the gods hold dear,

Hard is it to be born a man or a woman.

Hard is the life of a mortal.

Hard is it to gain the opportunity of hearing the sublime truth.

And hard to encounter is the arising of a Buddha.

To avoid all evil,

To cultivate good,

And to cleanse one's mind,

This is the teaching of the Buddhas.

Enduring patience is the highest austerity.

Awakening is supreme,

Say the Buddhas.

He is not a true monk who harms another,

Nor a true renunciate who oppresses another.

Not despising,

Not harming,

Restraint according to the code of monastic discipline,

Moderation in food,

Dwelling in solitude,

Devotion to meditation,

This is the teaching of the Buddhas.

There is no satisfying sensual desires,

Even with the rain of gold coins,

For sensual pleasures give little satisfaction and much pain.

Having understood this,

The wise man finds no delight,

Even in the highest of pleasures.

The disciple of the Buddha delights in the destruction of craving.

Even only by fear do men go for refuge to many places,

To hills,

Woods,

Groves,

Trees,

And shrines.

Such indeed is no safe refuge.

Such is not the refuge supreme.

Not by resorting to such a refuge is one released from all suffering.

He who has gone for refuge to the Buddha,

The teaching and his order,

Penetrates with transcendental wisdom the four noble truths,

Suffering,

The cessation of suffering,

And the noble eightfold path leading to the cessation of suffering.

This indeed is the safe refuge,

This the refuge supreme.

Having gone to such a refuge,

One is released from all suffering.

Hard to find is the thoroughbred man,

The Buddha.

He is not born every day or everywhere.

Where such a wise person is born,

Those people thrive happily.

Blessed is the birth of the Buddhas.

Blessed is the enunciation of the sacred teaching.

Blessed is the harmony in the order.

And blessed is the spiritual pursuit of the united truth seeker.

He who reveres those worthy of reverence,

The Buddha and their disciples,

Who have transcended all obstacles and passed beyond the reach of sorrow and lamentation,

He who reveres such peaceful and fearless ones,

His merit none can compute by any measure.

Happy indeed we live,

Friendly amidst the hostile.

Amidst hostile people we dwell free from hatred.

Happy indeed we live,

Friendly amidst the afflicted by craving.

Amidst afflicted people we dwell free from affliction.

Happy indeed we live free from avarice,

Amidst the avariciousness.

Amidst the avarish men we dwell free from it.

Happy indeed we live,

We who possess nothing.

Feeders on joy we shall be,

Like the radiant gods.

Victory begets enmity.

The defeated dwell in pain.

Happily the peaceful live,

Discarding both victory and defeat.

There is no fire like lust,

And no crime like hatred.

There is no ill like the aggregates of existence,

And there is no bliss higher than the peace of awakening.

Hunger is the worst disease,

Conditioned things the worst suffering.

Knowing this as it really is,

The wise realize awakening.

Health is the most precious gain,

And contentment the greatest wealth.

A trustworthy purser is the best friend,

And awakening the highest bliss.

Having savored the taste of solitude and peace,

Pain-free and stainless they become,

Drinking deep the taste of the bliss of truth.

Good is it to see the noble ones.

To live with them is ever blissful.

One will always be happy by not encountering fools.

Indeed he who moves in the company of fools grieves for longing.

Association with fools is ever painful,

Like partnership with an enemy.

But association with the wise is happy,

Like meeting one's own friends.

Therefore follow the noble one,

Who is steadfast,

Wise,

Learned,

Dutiful and devout.

One should follow only such a person who is truly good and discerning,

Even as the moon follows the path of the stars.

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Love the Dhammapada!!