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### Sutta Nipata I.11

# Vijaya Sutta

# Victory

Translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu.
For free distribution only.

> Whether walking, standing,
> sitting, or lying down,
> it flexes & stretches:
> this is the body's movement.
> Joined together with tendons & bones,
> plastered over with muscle & skin,
> hidden by complexion,
> the body isn't seen
> for what it is:
> filled with intestines, filled with stomach,
> with the lump of the liver,
> bladder, lungs, heart,
> kidneys, spleen,
> mucus, sweat, saliva, fat,
> blood, synovial fluid, bile, & oil.
> On top of that,
> in nine streams,
> filth is always flowing from it:
> from the eyes : eye secretions,
> from the ears : ear secretions,
> from the nose : mucus,
> from the mouth : now vomit,
> now phlegm,
> now bile.
> from the body : beads of sweat.
> And on top of that,
> its hollow head is filled with brains.

> The fool, beset by ignorance,
> thinks it beautiful.
> But when it lies dead,
> swollen, livid,
> cast away in a charnel ground,
> even relatives don't care for it.
> Dogs feed on it,
> jackals, wolves, & worms.
> Crows & vultures feed on it,
> along with any other animals there.

> Having heard the Awakened One's words,
> the discerning monk
> comprehends, for he sees it
> for what it is:
> "As this is, so is that.
> As that, so this."
> Within & without,
> he should let desire for the body
> fade away.
> With desire & passion faded away,
> the discerning monk arrives here:
> at the deathless,
> the calm,
> the undying state
> of Unbinding.

> This two-footed, filthy, evil-smelling,
> filled-with-various-carcasses,
> oozing-out-here-&-there body:
> Whoever would think,
> on the basis of a body like this,
> to exalt himself or disparage another:

> What is that
> if not blindness?

Revised: Wed 16 May 2001