SUTTA-NIPATA 1.11

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Adapted From the Translation by V. Fausboll(1881)

A reflection on the worthlessness of the human body; a follower of Buddha only sees the body as it really is, and consequently goes to Nibbana.

1. If either walking or standing, sitting or lying, any one contracts (or) stretches (his body, then) this is the motion of the body. (195)

2. The body which is put together with bones and sinews, plastered with membrane and flesh, and covered with skin, is not seen as it really is. (196)

3. It is filled with the intestines, the stomach, the lump of the liver, the abdomen, the heart, the lungs, the kidneys, the spleen. (197)

4. With mucus, saliva, perspiration, lymph, blood, the fluid that lubricates the joints, bile, and fat. (198)

5. Then in nine streams impurity flows always from it; from the eye the eye-excrement, from the ear the ear-excrement, (199)

6. Mucus from the nose, through the mouth it ejects at one time bile and (at other times) it ejects phlegm, and from (all) the body come sweat and dirt. (200)

7. Then its hollow head is filled with the brain. A fool led by ignorance thinks it a fine thing. (201)

8. And when it lies dead, swollen and livid, discarded in the cemetery, relatives do not care (for it). (202)

9. Dogs eat it and jackals, wolves and worms; crows and vultures eat it, and what other living creatures there are. (203)

10. Having listened to Buddha's words(and following the path), the Bhikkhu(Monk) gains panna(direct understanding) in this world, he certainly knows it (i.e. the body) thoroughly in every way, for he sees(passati, in meditation ) it as it really is. (204)

11. "As this (living body is) so is that (dead one), as this is so that (will be); let one put away desire for the body, both as to its interior and as to its exterior." (205)

12. Such a Bhikkhu(Monk) who has turned away from desire and attachment, and gaining panna(direct experiential understanding) in this world, has (already) gone to the immortal sainthood, the unchangeable state of Nibbana(nirvana,salvation,immortality). (206)

13. This (body) with two feet is cherished (although) impure, ill-smelling, filled with various kinds of stench, and trickling here and there. (207)

14. He who with such a body thinks to exalt himself or despises others--what else (is this) but blindness? (208)

Vijayasutta is ended.