The Buddha (DHP179-196)

He whose victory cannot be undone,
A conquest no one in the world can pursue:
This is the Buddha, trackless in an endless field.
By what path would you guide him?

The one who has no snare,
No craving, no thirst to carry him anywhere:
This is the Buddha, trackless in an endless field.
By what path would you guide him?

The wise, intent on meditation,
Delighting in renunciation and calm,
Wholly awakened and mindful:
Even the gods envy them.

Difficult it is to gain a human birth;
Difficult is the life of mortals;
Difficult is the chance to hear the true Dhamma;
Difficult is the arising of Buddhas.

Doing no evil,
Undertaking the good,
Purifying one’s mind:
This is the teaching of the Buddhas.

One who hurts another is no monk.
One who harms another is no renunciant.
Patience and endurance make the highest asceticism.
The Buddhas teach that Nibbāna is supreme.

Not disparaging or hurting others,
Restrained by the precepts, moderate in food,
Dwelling in solitude, pursuing high states of mind:
This is the teaching of the Buddhas.

Not even by a rain of coins would people have their
fill of sense pleasures.
The wise one knows they satisfy little and cause
pain.

He does not even delight in heavenly pleasures.
The disciple of the Wholly Awakened One is
devoted to craving’s destruction.

People driven by fear seek many refuges,
Whether mountains, forests, or shrine parks.

But such a refuge is not safe, surely not supreme.
Arriving at such a refuge, one is not free from all
suffering.

But one who has gone for refuge to the Buddha, the
Dhamma, and the Sangha,
Sees, with true wisdom, the Four Noble Truths:

Suffering, the origin of suffering, the overcoming of
suffering,
And the Eightfold Path leading to the cessation of
suffering.

Truly, this refuge is safe, this refuge is supreme.
Having come to this refuge, one is truly freed from
all suffering.

A remarkable man is hard to find;
He is not born everywhere.
Where such a wise one is born
His family happily flourishes.

Happy the birth of the Buddhas;
Happy the teaching of the true Dhamma;
Happy the harmony of the Sangha;
Happy the austere practice of those in harmony.

If one venerates those worthy of veneration,
Buddhas or their disciples,
Beings who have transcended proliferations
And passed beyond grief and sorrow,

Beings who are free and fear nothing—
If one venerates such beings, the merit cannot be
measured.

© Peter Feldmeier, 2013.

First published in Dhammapada — The Way of Truth : A Fresh Translation and Commentary on Buddhism’s Most Beloved Text by Buddhist Publication Society.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

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