Chapter 18

You are now like a withered leaf; the messengers of death have drawn near to you; you stand at the threshold of your departure, and you have nothing prepared for the journey.

Make yourself an island, work hard, be wise! When your impurities are blown away and you are free from guilt, you will enter the heavenly world of the noble ones (Ariya).

Your life has run out, you have come close to death, there is no resting place for you along the road, and you have no provisions for the journey.

Make yourself an island, work hard, be wise! When your impurities are blown away and you are free from guilt, you will not enter again into birth and decay.

Let a wise person blow away the impurities of the self, just as a smith blows away the impurities of silver—one by one, little by little, from time to time.

As rust, springing from iron, then eats away the very iron that produced it, so a wrongdoer’s own actions lead him to the evil path.

The taint of prayers is failing to repeat them; the taint of houses, failing to repair them; the taint of the body is laziness; the taint of a watchman, carelessness.

Bad conduct is the taint of a woman; stinginess is the taint of a benefactor; all evil ways are taints in this world and the next.

But there is a taint worse than all of these—ignorance is the greatest taint. Mendicants, cast off that taint and become taintless!

Life is easy to live for someone without shame—bold as a crow, a troublemaker, insulting, brazen, and wretched.

But life is hard to live for a modest person who always seeks what is pure, who is unattached, quiet, spotless, and wise.

The one who destroys life, who tells lies, who takes in this world what has not been given to him, who goes to another man’s wife;

And the one who gives himself over to drinking intoxicating liquors—even in this world, he digs up his own root.

Know this, my friend: those without self-restraint are in a bad state; be careful that greed and vice do not bring you long-lasting grief!

People give according to their faith or their pleasure; if someone broods over the food and drink given to others, he will find no rest by day or by night.

The one in whom that feeling is destroyed, uprooted entirely, finds rest by day and by night.

There is no fire like passion, no shark like hatred, no snare like folly, no torrent like greed.

The faults of others are easily seen, but one’s own are hard to see; a person winnows his neighbor’s faults like chaff, but hides his own, as a cheater hides a loaded die from the gambler.

If someone fixates on the faults of others and is always ready to take offense, his own passions will grow, and he is far from putting an end to them.

There is no path through the air; a person does not become a samana by outward acts. The world delights in vanity, but the Tathagatas (the Buddhas) are free from vanity.

There is no path through the air; a person does not become a samana by outward acts. No created things are eternal; but the awakened ones (the Buddhas) are never shaken.