The Dhammapada | Page 8

punishes or kills beings who also long for happiness, will not find happiness after death.
132. He who seeking his own happiness does not punish or kill beings who also long for happiness, will find happiness after death.
133. Do not speak harshly to anybody; those who are spoken to will answer thee in the same way. Angry speech is painful, blows for blows will touch thee.
134. If, like a shattered metal plate (gong), thou utter not, then thou hast reached Nirvana; contention is not known to thee.
135. As a cowherd with his staff drives his cows into the stable, so do Age and Death drive the life of men.
136. A fool does not know when he commits his evil deeds: but the wicked man burns by his own deeds, as if burnt by fire.
137. He who inflicts pain on innocent and harmless persons, will soon come to one of these ten states:
138. He will have cruel suffering, loss, injury of the body, heavy affliction, or loss of mind,
139. Or a misfortune coming from the king, or a fearful accusation, or loss of relations, or destruction of treasures,
140. Or lightning-fire will burn his houses; and when his body is destroyed, the fool will go to hell.
141. Not nakedness, not platted hair, not dirt, not fasting, or lying on the earth, not rubbing with dust, not sitting motionless, can purify a mortal who has not overcome desires.
142. He who, though dressed in fine apparel, exercises tranquillity, is quiet, subdued, restrained, chaste, and has ceased to find fault with all other beings, he indeed is a Brahmana, an ascetic (sramana), a friar (bhikshu).
143. Is there in this world any man so restrained by humility that he does not mind reproof, as a well-trained horse the whip?
144. Like a well-trained horse when touched by the whip, be ye active and lively, and by faith, by virtue, by energy, by meditation, by discernment of the law you will overcome this great pain (of reproof), perfect in knowledge and in behaviour, and never forgetful.
145. Well-makers lead the water (wherever they like); fletchers bend the arrow; carpenters bend a log of wood; good people fashion themselves.
Chapter XI
Old Age
146. How is there laughter, how is there joy, as this world is always burning? Why do you not seek a light, ye who are surrounded by darkness?
147. Look at this dressed-up lump, covered with wounds, joined together, sickly, full of many thoughts, which has no strength, no hold!
148. This body is wasted, full of sickness, and frail; this heap of corruption breaks to pieces, life indeed ends in death.
149. Those white bones, like gourds thrown away in the autumn, what pleasure is there in looking at them?
150. After a stronghold has been made of the bones, it is covered with flesh and blood, and there dwell in it old age and death, pride and deceit.
151. The brilliant chariots of kings are destroyed, the body also approaches destruction, but the virtue of good people never approaches destruction,--thus do the good say to the good.
152. A man who has learnt little, grows old like an ox; his flesh grows, but his knowledge does not grow.
153, 154. Looking for the maker of this tabernacle, I shall have to run through a course of many births, so long as I do not find (him); and painful is birth again and again. But now, maker of the tabernacle, thou hast been seen; thou shalt not make up this tabernacle again. All thy rafters are broken, thy ridge-pole is sundered; the mind, approaching the Eternal (visankhara, nirvana), has attained to the extinction of all desires.
155. Men who have not observed proper discipline, and have not gained treasure in their youth, perish like old herons in a lake without fish.
156. Men who have not observed proper discipline, and have not gained treasure in their youth, lie, like broken bows, sighing after the past.
Chapter XII
Self
157. If a man hold himself dear, let him watch himself carefully; during one at least out of the three watches a wise man should be watchful.
158. Let each man direct himself first to what is proper, then let him teach others; thus a wise man will not suffer.
159. If a man make himself as he teaches others to be, then, being himself well subdued, he may subdue (others); one's own self is indeed difficult to subdue.
160. Self is the lord of self, who else could be the lord? With self well subdued, a man finds a lord such as few can find.
161. The evil done by oneself, self-begotten, self-bred, crushes the foolish, as a diamond breaks a precious stone.
162. He whose wickedness is very great brings himself down to that state where his enemy wishes him to be, as a creeper does with the tree which it surrounds.
163. Bad deeds, and deeds hurtful