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## Dhammapada XX

# The Path

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

Read an alternate translation by Acharya Buddharakkhita

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273*:

> Of paths, the eightfold is best.
> Of truths, the four sayings.
> Of qualities, dispassion.
> Of two-footed beings,
> the one with the eyes
> to see.

274-276*:

> Just this
> is the path
> -- there is no other --
> to purify vision.
> Follow it,
> and that will be Mara's
> bewilderment.

> Following it,
> you put an end
> to suffering & stress.
> I have taught you this path
> having known
> -- for your knowing --
> the extraction of arrows.

> It's for you to strive
> ardently.
> Tathagatas simply
> point out the way.
> Those who practice,
> absorbed in jhana:
> from Mara's bonds
> they'll be freed.

277-279*:

> When you see with discernment,
> 'All fabrications are inconstant' --
> you grow disenchanted with stress.
> This is the path
> to purity.

> When you see with discernment,
> 'All fabrications are stressful' --
> you grow disenchanted with stress.
> This is the path
> to purity.

> When you see with discernment,
> 'All phenomena are not-self' --
> you grow disenchanted with stress.
> This is the path
> to purity.

280:

> At the time for initiative
> he takes no initiative.
> Young, strong, but lethargic,
> the resolves of his heart
> exhausted,
> the lazy, lethargic one
> loses the path
> to discernment.

281:

> Guarded in speech,
> well-restrained in mind,
> you should do nothing unskillful
> in body.
> Purify
> these three courses of action.
> Bring to fruition
> the path that seers have proclaimed.

282:

> From striving comes wisdom;
> from not, wisdom's end.
> Knowing these two courses
> -- to development,
> decline --
> conduct yourself
> so that wisdom will grow.

283-285*:

> Cut down
> the forest of desire,
> not the forest of trees.
> From the forest of desire
> come danger & fear.
> Having cut down this forest
> & its underbrush, monks,
> be deforested.

> For as long as the least
> bit of underbrush
> of a man for women
> is not cleared away,
> the heart is fixated
> like a suckling calf
> on its mother.

> Crush
> your sense of self-allure
> like an autumn lily
> in the hand.
> Nurture only the path to peace
> -- Unbinding --
> as taught by the One Well Gone.

286-289*:

> 'Here I'll stay for the rains.
> Here, for the summer & winter.'
> So imagines the fool,
> unaware of obstructions.

> That drunk-on-his-sons-&-cattle man,
> all tangled up in the mind:
> death sweeps him away --
> as a great flood,
> a village asleep.
> There are no sons
> to give shelter,
> no father,
> no family
> for one seized by the Ender,
> no shelter among kin.

> Conscious
> of this compelling reason,
> the wise man, restrained by virtue,
> should make the path pure
> -- right away --
> that goes all the way to Unbinding.

Revised: Sun 14 October 2001