306. Sampasādaka (THA-AP308)

“Praise to you, O Buddha-Hero!
You are the Clear One everywhere.
Calamity’s befallen me;
become the refuge for this me.”

Siddhattha Buddha, in the world
the Peerless One, explained to me:
“The Monks’ Assembly, ocean-like,
is without measure, unexcelled.
Bring your heart pleasure in the monks
and plant the seed of happiness
there in that field which has no flaws,
which provides fruit without limit.”

Saying that, the Omniscient One,
the World’s Best, the Bull among Men,
after instructing me that way,
rose up into the sky, the sky!

Not long after the Bull of Men,
Omniscient One, had gone his way,
the time of my own death arrived;
I was reborn in Tusitā.

Then in that field which has no flaws
which provides fruit without limit,
in the monks, having pleased my heart,
I joyed an aeon in heaven.

In the ninety-four aeons since
I received that pleasure back then,
I’ve come to know no bad rebirth:
that’s the fruit of feeling pleasure.

The four analytical modes,
and these eight deliverances,
six special knowledges mastered,
I have done what the Buddha taught!

Thus indeed Venerable Sampasādaka Thera spoke these verses.

The legend of Sampasādaka Thera is finished.

Translated by Jonathan S. Walters.

Whitman College, 2017

Legends of the Buddhist Saints (Apadāna) is released under the Attribution, Non-Commercial, Share Alike license.

This is the first-ever complete translation of Apadāna into a Western language.

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