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129. All are frightened of the rod.
Of death all are afraid.
Having made oneself the example,
One should neither slay nor cause to slay.
130. All are frightened of the rod.
For all, life is dear.
Having made oneself the example,
One should neither slay nor cause to slay.
131. Who with a rod does hurt
Beings who desire ease,
While himself looking for ease –
He, having departed, ease does not get.
132. Who with a road does not hurt
Beings who desire ease,
While himself looking for ease –
Having departed, ease he will get.
133. To none speak harshly.
Those thus addressed would retort to you.
Miserable indeed is contentious talk.
Retaliatory rods would touch you.
134. If, like a flattened out metal pot,
You yourself do not move,
Why, Nibbana you have attained!
No contention is found in you.
135. As with a rod a cowherd
To the pasture goads his cows,
So does old age and death
Goad the life of living beings.
136. The childish one knows it not,
Even while doing bad deeds.
The one deficient in wisdom, by his own deeds
Suffers like one burnt by fire.
137. Who with a road harms the offenceless, the harmless,
To one of ten places quite quickly one goes down:
138. [1] Harshly painful feelings, [2] destitution, and [3] fracturing of the body,
[4] Grave illness too, [5] even disarrayed mind, one would attain.
139. [6] Trouble from the king or [7] severe slander,
[8] Even loss of relatives or [9] dissolution of possessions.
140. And also [10] fire, the purifier, burns his houses.
And upon the breaking of his body, the unwise one falls into hell.
141. Neither wandering about naked, nor matted hair, nor mud,
Neither fasting, nor sleeping on hard ground,
Nor dust and dirt, nor austere acts in the crouching posture,
Cleanses a mortal who has not transcended doubts.
142. Thought well adorned, if one would move with tranquility,
At peace, restrained, assured, living the higher life,
Having put down the rod toward all beings,
He is a brahmana, he, a recluse, he, a bhikkhu.
143. [Rarely] in the world is found
A person restrained by shame,
Who awakens to insult
As a good horse to the whip.
144. Like a good horse struck by a whip,
Be ardent and deeply moved.
With faith and virtue and enterprise,
With concentration and dhamma-discernment,
With understanding and conduct endowed, mindful,
You will leave behind this weighty misery.
145. Irrigators guide the water,
Fletchers bend the arrow shaft,
Wood the carpenters bend;
Themselves the amenable ones tame.