Pupphavagga

Tipitaka » Sutta Pitaka » Khuddaka Nikaya » Dhammapada

PTS: Dhp 44-59

Source: Adapted from the original translation by Thanissaro Bhikkhu.

Pupphavagga: Flowers
44-45. Who will penetrate this earth & this realm of death with all its gods? Who will ferret out the well-taught Dhamma-saying, as the skillful flower-arranger the flower?

The learner-on-the-path will penetrate this earth & this realm of death with all its gods. The learner-on-the-path will ferret out the well-taught Dhamma-saying, as the skillful flower-arranger the flower.

46. Knowing this body is like foam, realizing its nature -- a mirage -- cutting out the blossoms of Mara, you go where the King of Death can't see.

47-48. The man immersed in gathering blossoms, his heart distracted: death sweeps him away -- as a great flood, a village asleep.

The man immersed in gathering blossoms, his heart distracted, insatiable in sensual pleasures: the End-Maker holds him under his sway.

49. As a bee -- without harming the blossom, its color, its fragrance -- takes its nectar & flies away: so should the sage go through a village.

50. Focus, not on the rudenesses of others, not on what they've done or left undone, but on what you have & haven't done yourself.

51-52. Just like a blossom, bright colored but scentless: a well-spoken word is fruitless when not carried out.

Just like a blossom, bright colored & full of scent: a well-spoken word is fruitful when well carried out.

53. Just as from a heap of flowers many garland strands can be made, even so one born & mortal should do -- with what's born & is mortal -- many a skillful thing.

54-56. No flower's scent goes against the wind -- not sandalwood, jasmine, tagara. But the scent of the good does go against the wind. The person of integrity wafts a scent in every direction.

Sandalwood, tagara, lotus, & jasmine: Among these scents, the scent of virtue is unsurpassed.

Next to nothing, this fragrance -- sandalwood, tagara -- while the scent of the virtuous wafts to the gods, supreme.

57. Those consummate in virtue, dwelling in heedfulness, released through right knowing: Mara can't follow their tracks.

58-59. As in a pile of rubbish cast by the side of a highway a lotus might grow clean-smelling pleasing the heart, so in the midst of the rubbish-like, people run-of-the-mill & blind, there dazzles with discernment the disciple of the Rightly Self-Awakened One.

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Copyright © 1997 Thanissaro Bhikkhu.

Buddhism Today edition © 1997

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