Dhp XX : The Path

Of paths, the eightfold is best.

Of truths, the four sayings.

Of qualities, dispassion.

Of two-footed beings,

the one with the eyes

to see.

Just this

is the path

–there is no other–

to purify vision.

Follow it,

and that will be Mara’s

bewilderment.

Following it,

you put an end

to suffering & stress.

I have taught you this path

having known

–for your knowing–

the extraction of arrows.

It’s for you to strive

ardently.

Tathagatas simply

point out the way.

Those who practice,

absorbed in jhana:

from Mara’s bonds

they’ll be freed.

When you see with discernment,

‘All fabrications are inconstant’–

you grow disenchanted with stress.

This is the path

to purity.

When you see with discernment,

‘All fabrications are stressful’–

you grow disenchanted with stress.

This is the path

to purity.

When you see with discernment,

‘All phenomena are not-self’–

you grow disenchanted with stress.

This is the path

to purity.

At the time for initiative

he takes no initiative.

Young, strong, but lethargic,

the resolves of his heart

exhausted,

the lazy, lethargic one

loses the path

to discernment.

Guarded

in speech,

well-restrained

in mind,

you should do nothing unskillful

in body.

Purify

these three courses of action.

Bring to fruition

the path that seers have proclaimed.

From striving comes wisdom;

from not, wisdom’s end.

Knowing these two courses

–to

development,

decline–

conduct yourself

so that wisdom will grow.

Cut down

the forest of desire,

not the forest of trees.

From the forest of desire

come danger & fear.

Having cut down this forest

& its underbrush, monks,

be deforested.

For as long as the least

bit of underbrush

of a man for women

is not cleared away,

the heart is fixated

like a suckling calf

on its mother.

Crush

your sense of self-allure

like an autumn lily

in the hand.

Nurture only the path to peace

–Unbinding–

as taught by the One Well Gone.

‘Here I’ll stay for the rains.

Here, for the summer & winter.’

So imagines the fool,

unaware of obstructions.

That drunk-on-his-sons-&-cattle man,

all tangled up in the mind:

death sweeps him away–

as a great flood,

a village asleep.

There are

no sons

to give shelter,

no father,

no family

for one seized by the Ender,

no shelter among kin.

Realizing

this force of reasoning,

the wise man, restrained by virtue,

should make the path pure

–right away–

that goes all the way to Unbinding.