Theragāthā 218

Verses of the Senior Monks 6.9

The Book of the Sixes

Chapter One

1 I was drunk with the pride of birth

and wealth and authority.

I wandered about intoxicated

with my own gorgeous body.

2 No one was my equal or my better—

or so I thought.

I was such an arrogant fool,

stuck up, waving my own flag.

3 I never paid homage to anyone:

not even my mother or father,

nor others esteemed as respectable.

I was stiff with pride, lacking regard for others.

4 When I saw the foremost leader,

the most excellent of charioteers,

shining like the sun

at the fore of the mendicant Saṅgha,

5 I discarded conceit and vanity,

and, with a clear and confident heart,

I bowed down with my head

to the supreme among all beings.

6 The conceit of superiority

and the conceit of inferiority

have been given up and eradicated.

The conceit “I am” is cut off,

and every kind of conceit is destroyed.