Dhammapada Chapter 2: Heedfulness

According to tradition, the Dhammapada's verses were spoken by the Buddha on various occasions."By distilling the complex models, theories, rhetorical style and sheer volume of the Buddha's teachings into concise, crystalline verses, the Dhammapada makes the Buddhist way of life available to anyone...In fact, it is possible that the very source of the Dhammapada in the third century B.C.E. is traceable to the need of the early Buddhist communities in India to laicize the ascetic impetus of the Buddha's original words.

The text is part of the Khuddaka Nikaya of the Sutta Pitaka, although over half of the verses exist in other parts of the Pali Canon. A 4th or 5th century CE commentary attributed to Buddhaghosa includes 305 stories which give context to the verses.

The title, "Dhammapada," is a compound term composed of dhamma and pada, each word having a number of denotations and connotations.

Music by Vittorio Bianco, reading by Kevin Cameron.

Transcript

Dhammapada Chapter 2 Awareness Appreciative awareness leads to life.

Heedless avoidance is the path to death.

Those who are aware are fully alive,

While those who are heedless are as if already dead.

The wise,

Being fully alive,

Rejoice in appreciative awareness and abide delighting in this capacity.

The awakened ones,

Firm in their resolve,

Vigorously apply themselves,

And know freedom from bondage,

Liberation,

True security.

Those who are energetically committed to the way,

Who are pure and considerate in effort,

Composed and virtuous in conduct,

Steadily increase in radiance.

By endeavor,

Vigilance,

Restraint,

And self-control,

Let the wise make islands of themselves which no flood can overwhelm.

Those who are foolish and confused betray themselves to heedlessness.

The wise treasure the awareness they have cultivated as their most precious possession.

Do not become lost in negligence.

Do not become lost in sensuality.

Heeding such counsel,

The contemplative discovers profound release.

Those awakened ones who have tasted freedom from all destruction by cultivating awareness view all who are suffering with compassionate perspective,

As one on a mountaintop is able to view the plane.

Aware among those who are heedless,

Awake among those who sleep,

The wise go forward like strong young horses,

Leaving the exhausted behind.

By way of diligent awareness,

The god Maga won his realm.

Diligence is ever rewarded.

Negligence is ever schooled.

The renunciate who delights in vigilance and shuns heedlessness advances like a grass fire,

Consuming obstructions great and small.

The renunciate who delights in vigilance and shuns heedlessness is protected from regression.

Such a one approaches liberation.

Reviews

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Sure would like more chapters in English!

thank you for this✨🙏🏾🌎

Nice words to live by

So good I forgot to review tyre first chapter. What a meditation. What a teaching!. Very well produced.

Thank you!

Thank you so very much 🙏

Should be called truth mediation

Great advice - although perhaps a little harsh for millennial sensibilities!

Love this! It's different, but wonderful.

Very different for me. Liked it much. Bookmarked!