Theragāthā 213

Verses of the Senior Monks 6.4

The Book of the Sixes

Chapter One

Kulla

1 I, Kulla, went to a charnel ground

and saw a woman’s body abandoned there,

dumped in a cemetery,

full of worms that devoured.

2 “See this bag of bones, Kulla—

diseased, filthy, rotten,

oozing and trickling,

a fool’s delight.”

3 Taking the teaching as a mirror

for realizing knowledge and vision,

I examined this body,

hollow, inside and out.

4 As this is, so is that;

as that is, so is this.

As below, so above;

as above, so below.

5 As by day, so by night;

as by night, so by day.

As before, so behind;

as behind, so before.

6 Even the music of a five-piece band

can never give such pleasure

as when, with unified mind,

you rightly discern the Dhamma.