T I T L E (1) :
Best of paths is the Eightfold Path.
Best of truths is the Four Noble Truths.
Best of conditions is Passionlessness.
Best of men is the Seeing One.
T I T L E (2) :
This is the only way;
None other is there for the purity of vision.
Do you enter upon this path,
Which is the bewilderment of Mara.
T I T L E (3) :
When walking along this path,
You shall make an end of suffering
This is the Way made known by me
When I had learnt to remove all darts.
T I T L E (4) :
You yourselves should make an effort,
The Tathagatas can but show the Way.
The meditative ones who walk this path
Are released from the bonds of Mara.
T I T L E (5) :
'Impermanent are all conditioned things',
When thus one sees with wisdom,
Then is one disgusted with ill.
This is the path to purity.
T I T L E (6) :
'Full of Ill are conditioned things',
When thus one sees with wisdom,
Then is one disgusted with Ill.
This is the path to purity.
T I T L E (7) :
'Lacking permanent entity are all events',
When thus one sees with wisdom,
Then is one disgusted with Ill.
This is the path to purity.
T I T L E (8) :
The idler who strives not when he should strive,
Who though young and strong is slothful,
Who is feeble in maintaing right-mindedness,
And who is sluggish and inert-
Such a one finds not the way to wisdom.
T I T L E (9) :
Ever watchful in speech,
Restrained in mind let him be,
Let him commit no evil in deed.
These three ways of action let him purify,
And so win the way proclaimed by the Buddhas.
T I T L E (10) :
Indeed from concentration springs wisdom,
Without concentration wisdom wanes.
Knowing this twofold way of loss and gain,
Let him so conduct himself
That wisdom may grow well.
T I T L E (11) :
Cut down the forest (of passion) but not real trees,
In the forest (of passion) is danger.
Cut the forest and brushwood (of passion),
Be forestless, O bhikkhus.
T I T L E (12) :
As long as the brushwood of lust, however small,
Of a man towards a woman is not destroyed,
So long is his mind attached (to existence)
As a sucking calf to its mother-cow.
T I T L E (13) :
Root out your affection
As an autumn lily is plucked.
Cultivate the Path of Peace
Made known by the Blessed One.
T I T L E (14) :
'Here shall I live in the rains,
Here in the autumn and in the summer',
Thus thinks the fool, and does not realize
The danger of his own life.
T I T L E (15) :
On children and flocks
Whose mind is attached and set,
Him Death carries away
As a great flood a sleeping village.
T I T L E (16) :
No sons are there for protection,
Neither father nor even kinsmen.
For one who is assailed by death
No protection is there found among kinsmen.
T I T L E (17) :
Thoroughly knowing this fact,
The wise man, restrained in the rules,
Delays not to clear the way
That leads to Nibbana.
