27. Sight (UV-KG27)

It is easier to see the faults of others than those of oneself; the faults of others are easily seen, for they are sifted like chaff, but one's own faults are difficult to see. It is like the cheat who shows the dice (of his adversary) and hides his own, calling attention to the shortcomings of the other (player), and continually thinking of accusing him; he is far from seeing what is right (dharma), and greatly increases his unhappy lot.

Life is easy for an impudent, thieving, boasting fellow, with filthy (instincts?) like a crow, who leads a life of sinfulness and impudicity.

Life is hard for the man who is always seeking what is pure, who is disinterested, temperate, chaste, and modest.

This world is in darkness; few there are who have spiritual insight, and who, like birds escaped from a net, go to enjoy the heavens.

The fool who is held in bondage by his body is wrapped in darkness; they who covet worldly goods consider all other things in this same (sinful) way.

Some think sentient beings are their own creators, some think that another (Isvara, etc.) made them; they who take as the truth what is not the truth can see nothing at all; not seeing that they are not even unanimous on this point, they cannot perceive misery.

It enters not the mind of those beings who seek the pleasures of the senses that the misery they have until then seen (brought on themselves) is their own work; they do not understand that other like deeds will bring (misery also with them).

Those beings who are selfish, fond of selfishness, held in the bonds of selfishness, who are given to controversial opinions, will not escape from the orb of transmigration.

Know that the (births) that one has been subject to, and those that he will be subject to, all of these are wrapped in sinfulness (rāga); they are subject to decay.

There are those who practise morality, the precepts, good behaviour, who lead a life of holiness (brahmachariya), and there is an extreme which is to devote oneself to asceticism.

And there is another extreme in which they say: “Desires are pure; though one has desires he is virtuous; desires are to be indulged in; desires have nothing sinful in them.” These men are swallowed up by their desires. (The followers of) both these extreme (theories), frequenting mostly burial-places, are called “frequenters of burial-places” (sosāniko).

Neither of these extremes see (the cause of suffering), so part of them are filled with desires, and part of them are wildly running about; they who can see perceive how full of desires they are, and how they run about.

They who can see, perceive that if these two extremes could but see, they would give up desires and cease running (after them); so they have no desires, and do not run about (after them). As they do not thus, as they think not thus (i.e., as the two extremes), as they are not held in this way, they have found the end of suffering.

He who looks on the world as a bubble, who considers it as a mirage, the king of death will not see him.

He who looks on the body as a bubble, who considers it as a mirage, the king of death will not see him.

Look always at this body as at a beautiful royal chariot; the fool delights in it, the wise man has no fondness for it.

Look always at this body as at a beautiful royal chariot; the fool is deceived by it, the wise man is not deceived by it.

Look always at this body as at a beautiful royal chariot; the fool is brought low through it, like an old elephant sunk in the mud.

Look always at this body as sick and subject to decay, as a wounded man, as changing and impermanent.

Look at this body, ornamented with jewels, bracelets, and earrings, as diseased and subject to decay, as hanging and impermanent.

The fool in his stupidity adorns his curls, paints his eyes with collyr, and seeks not after the other world.

The fool in his stupidity paints (his body) with colours, covers with jewels this corrupt body, and seeks not after the other world.

The fool in his stupidity anoints this body with perfumes, rubs his feet with gerika, and seeks not after the other world.

He who is entirely devoted to desires, and who sees not the sinfulness of his devotion, is unable through his devotion to desires to cross the wide and eternal stream.

He who has commenced by casting off the principal desires, and finally all of them, who looks neither to the I or the mine, crosses the until then impassable stream, and finishes with existence.

He who having freed himself of the forest, being without the forest, runs to the forest, though he has freed himself of it ; look at that miserable man who gives up freedom for bondage!

Look at that sinless being, agreeable (to look at) in every limb, with a chariot well made (down to) the spokes, (see her) clothed in a white gown, and free yourself of the stream of bondage.

The common of men, driven by fear, seek a refuge in mountains, forests, groves, sacrificial places, and in great trees.

These are not the best of refuges, these are not the chief refuges, for a man who goes to them for a refuse is not freed from all suffering.

He who seeks a refuge in the Buddha, the law (dharma), and the church (sangha), (he who sees with understanding) suffering, the production of suffering, the destruction of suffering:

He who sees with understanding happiness, the way to nirvāṇa, the eightfold holy way and the four blessed truths:

This is the chief refuge, this is the holy refuge; he who goes to this refuge, becomes freed from all suffering.

He who perceives (mentally) what he sees, can perceive also the unseen with his sight; he who sees not the unseen does not perceive what he ought to see; ordinary sight and spiritual insight (vipassanā) are by their nature as different as day and night, which never are at the same time.

With ordinary sight one cannot perceive (suffering, etc.); if one sees, he loses sight of form (rūpa); with this sight (i.e., vipassanā) one perceives not form; with ordinary sight one is without perceiving anything.

He who perceives nothing, sees (but), form; he who perceives sees not form; thus they who perceive not form have freed themselves of ordinary sight (i.e., have obtained vipassanā).

When one perceives not suffering, then he considers but the self (i.e., he has ordinary sight); but when one distinguishes suffering, then he perceives not form.

He who is in the midst of darkness of repeated regeneration perceives not the suffering of the sanskāra, consequently he has but ordinary sight, and does not perceive how to put an end to form.

Chapter on Sight, the Twenty-seventh.

Translated by Woodville Rockhill.

1975, Udânavarga: a collection of verses from the Buddhist canon compiled by Dharmatrâta, Oriental Press, Amsterdam (reprint of original from 1883).

Translated (into Tibetan) by the Indian Pandit Vidyaprabhakara and the Lotsāva Bande-rin-tchen-mtchog; revised and arranged by the corrector, the Lotsāva Bande-dpal-brtsegs.

Original taken from University of Oslo, faculty of humanities.

Prepared for SuttaCentral by Yasoj and Ayya Vimala.