10.1. Kisagotami Theri (THIG10.1)

Having admirable friends
has been praised by the Sage
with reference to the world.
Associating with an admirable friend
even a fool
becomes wise.

People of integrity
should be associated with.
In that way discernment grows.
Associating with people of integrity
one would be released from all suffering & stress,

would know stress,
the origination of stress,
cessation & the eightfold path:
the four noble truths.

Stressful, painful, is the woman's state:
so says the tamer of tamable people.
Being a co-wife is painful.
Some, on giving birth once,

slit their throats.
Others, of delicate constitution,
take poison.
In the midst of a breech-birth
both [mother & child] suffer destruction.

Going along, about to give birth,
I saw my husband dead.
Giving birth in the road,
I hadn't reached my own home.

Two children deceased,
my husband dead in the road
— miserable me!
My mother, father, & brother
were burning on a single pyre.

"Your family all gone, miserable,
you've suffered pain without measure.
Your tears have flowed
for many thousands of lives."

Then I saw,
I the midst of the charnel ground,
the muscles of sons being chewed.
With family killed,
despised by all,
my husband dead,
I reached the Deathless.

I've developed this path,
noble, eightfold,
going to the Deathless.
Having realized Unbinding,
I've gazed in the mirror of Dhamma.

I've cut out the arrow,
put down the burden,
done the task.
I, KisaGotami Theri,
my heart well-released,
have said this.

Translated from the Pali by: Thanissaro Bhikkhu.

©2005 Thanissaro Bhikkhu. The text of this page is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. To view a copy of the license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0. Documents linked from this page may be subject to other restrictions. Transcribed from a file provided by the translator.

Access to Insight (Legacy Edition), 30 November 2013, www.accesstoinsight.org

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