The Chapter about Stains (DHP235-255)

You are now like a withered leaf,
Yama’s men stand waiting for you,
you stand at decay’s door,
with no provisions for the journey found.

One should make an island for oneself,
soon the wise one should endeavour,
removing the stain, blemishless,
you will go to the divine and noble realm.

You are now advanced in age,
you have come to Yama’s presence,
there is nowhere to dwell in between,
with no provisions for the journey found.

One should make an island for oneself,
soon the wise one should endeavour,
removing the stain, blemishless,
you will not come to birth and old age again.

The sage gradually, little by little, moment by moment,
should remove the stain from himself, like a smith removes the stain from silver.

As a rust stain arises from iron,
and arisen from that, it eats it away,
so with one who is overindulgent –
his deeds lead him to a bad destiny.

Lack of repetition is the ruin of chants, a lack of maintenance is the ruin of homes,
indolence is the ruin of one’s appearance, heedlessness is the ruin of the one on guard.

Bad conduct is a woman’s stain, stinginess is a giver’s stain,
wicked actions are indeed stains both in this world and in the next.
A stain that is worse than that stain, ignorance is the supreme stain,
after abandoning that stain, be without stains, O monastics!

Life is light for one without shame, with the bold courage of a crow,
living a life with backbiting, recklessness, and defilements.

Life is hard when endowed with shame, for the one constantly seeking purity,
for one sincere, and not reckless, looking for purity of life.

Whoever kills a living being, and speaks a word that is not true,
takes what is not given here, and goes to another’s wife,
that person who is devoted to a drink of liquor and wine,
digs up his own root right here in the world.

Know it thus, dear sir, a lack of restraint is a bad thing,
let not greed and corruption oppress you with suffering for a long time.

The people give according to faith, according to their confidence,
herein the one who becomes dejected because of food and drink given to others
he does not, either by day or nigh attain to good concentration.

For the one in whom this dejection is cut off, destroyed at the root, dug up,
does, by day and night, attain to good concentration.

There is no fire that is like passion, there is nothing that takes a hold like hatred,
there is no snare like delusion, there is no flood like craving.

Easy to see are others’ fault, but one’s own is hard to see,
for one sifts other peoples’ faults like they were chaff,
but conceals one’s own faults, like a crafty cheat conceals his defeat.

The one who constantly looks for another’s fault, who is an abject complainer,
for him the pollutants increase, he is far from their destruction.

There is no footprint in the sky, there is no ascetic on the outside,
folk greatly delight in impediments, the Realised Ones are free of impediments.

There is no footprint in the sky, there is no ascetic on the outside,
there are no constant conditions, there is no disturbance for the Buddhas.

Translated by Ānandajoti Bhikkhu.

2nd edition, November 2017.

The text and translation, together with detailed notes and discussions, may be found in multiple formats on the translator’s website, Ancient Buddhist Texts.

Used by kind permission of Bhikkhu Ānandajoti.

The original translation was released under the following licence: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Prepared for SuttaCentral by Aminah Borg-Luck.