“ Heedlessness the foolish follow, men of small intelligence;
As the best of treasures wise men guard the prize of Heedfulness.
27.
Cleave not thou to Heedlessness, cleave not thou to Passion's snares;
Strenuous and meditative, wisdom winneth widespread bliss.
28.
Lo! the sage that drives away the cloud of sloth by Heedfulness,
Climbing up the heights of wisdom, sorrowless looks down upon
All the miserable beings, as a hillman on the plains. [4]
29. ”

“ He gaineth peace of mind by night and day.
251.
There is no fire that burneth like desire;
No beast like hatred can devour;
No snare like folly to entrap hath power;
No river-flood can carry off like greed.
252.
'Tis easy to perceive another's faults;
Hard are one's own faults to descry;
A man will winnow others' faults like chaff;
But as the cheating gambler hides the die,
His own faults he conceals right carefully. ”

“ Falls to decay, so grows this body old;
But Truth and Norm old age cannot assail,
The holy ones indeed know no decay.
152.
Just like an ox, the witless man grows old;
His flesh grows, but his wits do not increase.
153-4.
Thro' many a round of birth and death I ran,
Nor found the builder that I sought. Life's stream
Is birth and death and birth, with sorrow filled.
Now, housebuilder, thou'rt seen! No more shalt build!
Broken are all thy rafters, split thy beam!
All that made up this mortal self is gone;
Mind hath slain craving; I have crossed the stream! [1]
155. ”

“ By the slaying of desire
I have ended craving's fire.
Who could then my teacher be?
I have now forsaken all,
I myself, by mine own knowledge.
Whom should I my teacher call? [9]
354.
To give The Norm all gifts transcends;
To taste The Norm is sweetest far;
No joy can with its joy compare;
Who raving slays all sorrow ends.
355.
Wealth harms the fool; not him who runs
To win the goal intent;
By lust of wealth the fool harms self
With harm for others meant.
356.
Weeds are the ruin of the fields;
This world by lust is spoiled ”

“ When he seeks bliss for self he shall not find it.
132.
Whoso treats pleasure-loving creatures well,
When he seeks happiness for self shall find it.
133.
Use not harsh speech; when harshly spoken to
Men may retort; painful are quarrellings,
And punishment may follow thy harsh words.
134.
If thou can'st keep thy tongue from wagging oft,
Silent as some cracked gong, thou hast thereby
Nibbāna won; no brawling is in thee.
135.
As with a stick the herdsman drives his kine,
So death and age compel the lives of men.
136.
The fool in doing ill knows not his folly ”

“ In Ceylon, which claims to belong to the purer faith, Buddhism is interwoven with the worship of, the popular gods of the Hindus and with animism and demonology. Under Mahāyānist influence Buddha has become a God, greater than others, but worshipped less fervently, for (as Robert Knox [5] found during his twenty years' residence in the island in the seventeenth century) the popular mind looks to Buddha for the soul, to the gods for the things of this world. His own doctrine remains a dream of philosophers. ”

“ Buddha failed to make allowance for the weakness of humanity. His stoic agnosticism and self-reliant courage ignored God, denied the soul, repudiated worship and prayer and made man the master of his fate. ”

“ I teach you, I preach the Norm. If ye walk according to my teaching, ye shall be partakers, in a short time, of that for which noble youths leave their homes and go into homelessness, the highest end of religious effort: ye shall even in the present life apprehend the Truth itself and see it face to face. ”

“ All states arising have mind for their causing,
Mind for their master, of mind are the offspring.
He who with pure mind speaks or does action—
Him bliss pursues, to him clings like his shadow.
3.
"This man abused me: he beat me and conquered,
Conquered and plundered." Cherishing in such thoughts,
Never appeased is the hatred of such men.
4.
"This man abused me, he beat me and conquered,
Conquered and plundered." Not having such thoughts,
Quickly appeased is the hatred of such men.
5.
Never by hatred is hatred appeaséd
Nay! but by kindness; that's the old-time Norm. [1]
6. ”

“ If he doff all his faults and be versed in the virtues,
In the training and truth firm, he merits the monk's robe.
11-12.
In the false seeing truth, and in truth seeing falsehood,
Men touch not the truth, but are fed on illusion.
But in truth seeing truth and falsehood in falsehood,
Men touch the truth ever, feeding on right thoughts.
13-14.
As the rain through the roof of a house that is ill-thatched,
Lust leaks through the mind not composed by the training:
As rain never leaks through the roof that is well-thatched,
So through the mind well-trained lust leaketh never. ”

“ Heedful men's good name increaseth, if they strive with mind subdued
Pure in deed, with thoughts well-guarded, well-controlled of lawful lives.
25.
Let the wise man, striving, heedful, well-controlled and temperate,
Make himself an island which the flood shall never sweep away. ”

“ Such an institution can have no place in Buddhism. Bhikkhu, (literally, a "beggar" and etymologically the same word) is one of a brotherhood of men trying to live as Buddha lived, to purify and discipline themselves, earnest pilgrims on the road reaching unto deliverance (Nirvāna) . The layman demands from the bhikkhu no assistance in heavenly, no interference in worldly, affairs, but only that he should live as becomes a follower of the great Teacher. The nearest English equivalent of bhikkhu is "mendicant friar". ”

“ Doth a foe, whatever the grudge he may owe.
Greater by far will he find
The ill that is done by an ill-trained mind.
43.
Nay, not a father or mother
Could do so much; not a kinsman or other;
Greater by far will he find
The good that is done by a well-trained mind.
[1] The tank is earthly existence. The watery home is the world of desires.
[2] Māra—death, the personification of evil, rules the six highest desire-heaven-worlds: other great Gods are Mahābrahma and Sakka (Indra) . Yama also, death, is the lord of the under-world. ”

“ Taming self alone, rejoice thee
In the ending of desire.
[1] Kiccam "minding one's own business."
[2] The Brahmins used to claim that a "twice-born" saint was blameless, whatever his bodiless actions might be. The Buddha here speaks mystically. Father is ignorance, Mother is craving; the two kings are the great heresies of non-causation and nihilism. The Kingdom and its subjects are the six organs of sense (mind being the sixth) ; and the six objects of sense (form, sound, sight, smell, taste, thoughts) , conquest of all these brings liberation from embodied existence. ”

“ The Dhammapada is a part of the Khuddaka Nikāya of the Buddhistic Canon and consists of about 420 stanzas in the sloka metre. Every fully ordained bhikkhu [1] is expected to know the book by heart, and its verses are often on the lips of pious laymen. The beginner of Buddhist studies can have no better introduction to Buddhism and must go back to it again and again to enter into the spirit of Buddha and his apostles. ”

“ The meaning of buddha.
[13] One who knows earth, heaven and hell, and can range them at will, is called ñānatilōka, "knower of the three worlds". Such a one is born no more, as he has learned the lessons of these worlds. ”

“ A man is Worthy called.
271-2
Not by mere goodness nor by ceremonies,
Not by vast knowledge nor by ecstasy,
Nor by a life retired,
Nor sleeping lonely, do I touch the Bliss
Of freedom which no worldly one can know.
By killing all desire, the mendicant [7]
Attaineth confidence.
[1] Kāyena, bodily action, may mean all the faculties combined.
[2] Thero, a "mendicant" of ten years standing in ordination is so called in the Buddhist "church".
[3] Samana, "ascetic," a title originally contemptuously applied to the Buddha and His disciples by the Brāhmaṇas. ”

“ Delight in freedom's bliss, with mind controlled,
Gods envy Them, Those All-Awakened Ones. [2]
182.
To gain a birth as man is hard indeed;
'Tis hard to get one's living in the world;
Hard is the hearing of the doctrine true; [3]
Hardest to be an All-Awakened One.
183.
"Refrain thyself from every evil deed;
Stablish thyself in good; cleanse thine own thoughts"—
This is the message of the Awakened Ones.
184.
Long-sufferance is the best austerity;
Nibbāna, say the Awakened Ones, is best. ”

“ If such be the thoughts of the fool,
His pride and his longing increase in him still.
75.
"Success here is one thing, Nibbāna another:"
When a monk, the Buddha's disciple, is sure
Of this truth, he delights not in honour, eschews
The ways of the world and lives a recluse.
[1] An ascetic way of eating, supposed to be meritorious.
[2] Cf. N.T. "chief seats in the synagogue."
CHAPTER SIX. THE WISE.
76.
If thou see a man of wisdom,
Like a guide to treasure-trove,
Pointing out thy faults and failings,
Follow him; such company
Brings prosperity, not woe. ”

“ Doth to himself what e'en his foes would have him do.
163.
Easy is ill to do and harmful to oneself;
But what is good and wholesome, that is hard to do.
164.
Whose rejects the words of noble righteous saints
On his own head brings ruin by his perversity,
As bamboo trees put forth their fruit and die away.
165.
By self is evil done; by self is one defiled;
Ill deeds not done by self to self bring purity;
Each for himself is pure; each for himself impure;
Thou can'st not cleanse another man's impurity.
166.
Mind thy affairs, not others', however great they be ”

“ All existence, he declares, is suffering, its origin is desire, its end is the extinction of desire, to be attained by the Eightfold Path (aṭṭhangiko maggo) of right belief, right resolve, right speech, right act, right occupation, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration and tranquillity. [4] The exposition and illustration of the Truths and the Way fill numerous tomes of the Buddhist scriptures. ”

“ Woodward is one of the noble band of Theosophists who have carried on Colonel Olcott's mission in Ceylon, and is perhaps the greatest of them all. Not being a Theosophist or Buddhist, I can speak of him more freely. Self-sacrificing zeal and devotion are commonplace words to use of him. They are often said of men, good and zealous in their way, who have had the compensations of good incomes and creature comforts, congenial friends and efficient fellow-workers. ”

“ They who in youth have never trod the way
Of righteousness, nor garnered wisdom's store.
Like herons in a fishless pool decay.
156.
They who in youth have never trod the way
Of righteousness, nor garnered wisdom's store.
Like broken bows, lie weeping their lost day.
[1] The triumphant words of the Buddha, when at last He attained enlightenment, Nibbāna, beneath the Bo-tree.
CHAPTER TWELVE. The Self.
157.
Hast thou regard for self? Then keep thyself well guarded.
Be wise and keep good watch for one of the three watches. [1]
158. ”

“ Sweet to gain the prize of wisdom when desire for sin is dead.
[1] Nibbāna.
[2] A favourite beast of the king of Benares. The elephant, to the East, typifies wisdom, strength and endurance.
The Buddha is called Mahā-nāga, "mighty elephant"; The nāga-grove is Nibbāna. Those who wander in the jungle are those still bound by the fetters of rebirth.
[3] Cf. verse 61.
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR. CRAVING.
334.
Even as a creeper groweth,
Creatures that are indolent
Find their craving ever grow;
Like a monkey in the forest
Seeking fruit from bough to bough,
So they wander to and fro. [1]
335. ”

“ Delighting the mind with its fragrance pure:
So, lit by the wisdom of those who know,
'mid those who on the dung-hill grow [4]
A disciple shines out in the darkened world.
[1] "Disciple," sekho, one who has entered the Path, but has not become Arahat, who is asekho, Master.
[2] Tagara, an aromatic shrub.
[3] An Arahat at death leaves no skandhas or basis for another birth. Death, Māra, is pictured as hunting for a man's "rebirth consciousness". Cf. The Book of the Kindred Sayings p. 152 (Pali Text Translation Series) . ”

“ But the calm live blissfully,
Renouncing conquest and defeat.
202.
There is no fire like lust;
No sin brings such ill-luck [3] as hate;
No pains so great as body's pains;
No bliss is like the perfect Calm. [4] ”