4.2. The Eight on the Body as a Cave (SNP4.2)

The person who’s to their body-cave
Clouded by many moods, and in delusion sunk,
Hard it is for that one, far from detachment,
To abandon sensual pleasures in the world.

Bound the worldly pleasures of the past,
And hard to liberate are they in future time,
From others they’re not free, not liberated—
They’re attached to past and the future too.

Those who are niggardly, who hank after pleasures,
infatuated they are, all their things—losses all!
But subjected to pain they lament their losses—
For how can all this be taken away, they wail?

Therefore should a person train,
Seeing the roughness of the world,
To take not to a wicked way,
For the wise say, life is short!

I see here trembling, fearful in the world,
These people gone under the sway of craving for births—
Base people floundering in the jaws of death,
Not free from craving for repeated birth.

Look at them trembling with their egotistic selfishness,
Like fish in a stream fast drying-up,
Seeing it so, fare unselfish in this life,
And cease worrying on different states of being.

No longer longing towards either extreme
Having understood touch, together with letting go,
One should do what others will praise and not blame,
A wise one is not stained by what is seen and heard.

The sage has known perception and crossed the flood,
So with nothing tainted, nothing wrapped around,
They fare on in diligence with the arrow drawn,
Neither longing for this world nor for another.

Translated by Laurence Khantipalo Mills.

This translation was edited by Bhikkhu Sujato as part of the full translation of the Sutta Nipāta with commentary prepared from a draft handwritten and typed manuscript of Laurence Khantipalo Mills in 2015. The project was managed by Laurence’s students Michael Wells and Gary Dellora, and initial digitizing of the text was by Sean Read. Full text is available at https://suttacentral.net/downloads

In addition to the suttas noted, Bhikkhu Sujato also translated verses 46, 78, 232, 465, 500, 589–597, 865, 885–890, 894–5, 897–901, 902–916, and 919–921.

This text is released dedicated to the Public Domain by way of Creative Commons Zero. No rights reserved.