Dhammapada 18
Minor Collection
Sayings of the Dhamma 235–255
18. Stains
235 Today you’re like a withered leaf,
Yama’s men await you.
You stand at the departure gates,
yet you have no supplies for the road.
236 Make an island of yourself!
Swiftly strive, learn to be wise!
Purged of stains, flawless,
you’ll go to the heavenly realm of the noble ones.
237 You’ve journeyed the stages of life,
and now you set out to meet Yama.
Along the way there’s nowhere to stay,
yet you have no supplies for the road.
238 Make an island of yourself!
Swiftly strive, learn to be wise!
Purged of stains, flawless,
you’ll not come again to rebirth and old age.
239 A smart person would purge
their own stains gradually,
bit by bit, moment by moment,
like a smith smelting silver.
240 It is the rust born on the iron
that eats away the place it arose.
And so it is their own deeds
that lead the overly-ascetic to a bad place.
241 Not rehearsing is the stain of hymns.
The stain of houses is neglect.
Laziness is the stain of beauty.
A guard’s stain is negligence.
242 Misconduct is a woman’s stain.
A giver’s stain is stinginess.
Bad qualities are a stain
in this world and the next.
243 But a worse stain than these
is ignorance, the worst stain of all.
Having given up that stain,
be without stains, mendicants!
244 Life is easy for the shameless.
With all the rude courage of a crow,
they live pushy,
rude, and corrupt.
245 Life is hard for the conscientious,
always seeking purity,
neither clinging nor rude,
pure of livelihood and discerning.
246 Take anyone in this world
who kills living creatures,
speaks falsely, steals,
commits adultery,
247 and indulges in drinking
beer and wine.
Right here they dig up
the root of their own self.
248 Know this, my man:
they are unrestrained and wicked.
Don’t let that greed and unrighteousness
inflict pain on you for long.
249 The people give according to their faith,
according to their confidence.
If you get upset over that,
over others’ food and drink,
you’ll not, by day or by night,
become immersed in samādhi.
250 Those who have cut that out,
dug it up at the root, eradicated it,
they will, by day or by night,
become immersed in samādhi.
251 There is no fire like greed,
no crime like hate,
no net like delusion,
no river like craving.
252 It’s easy to see the faults of others,
hard to see one’s own.
For the faults of others
are tossed high like hay,
while one’s own are hidden,
as a cheat hides a bad hand.
253 When you look for the flaws of others,
always finding fault,
your defilements only grow,
you’re far from ending defilements.
254 In the atmosphere there is no track,
there’s no true ascetic outside here.
People enjoy proliferation,
the Realized Ones are free of proliferation.
255 In the atmosphere there is no track,
there’s no true ascetic outside here.
No conditions last forever,
the Awakened Ones are not shaken.