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## Dhammapada V

# Fools

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

Read an alternate translation by Acharya Buddharakkhita

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60:

> Long for the wakeful is the night.
> Long for the weary, a league.
> For fools
> unaware of True Dhamma,
> samsara
> is long.

61:

> If, in your course, you don't meet
> your equal, your better,
> then continue your course,
> firmly,
> alone.
> There's no fellowship with fools.

62:

> 'I have sons, I have wealth' --
> the fool torments himself.
> When even he himself
> doesn't belong to himself,
> how then sons?
> How wealth?

63:

> A fool with a sense of his foolishness
> is -- at least to that extent -- wise.
> But a fool who thinks himself wise
> really deserves to be called
> a fool.

64-65:

> Even if for a lifetime
> the fool stays with the wise,
> he knows nothing of the Dhamma --
> as the ladle,
> the taste of the soup.

> Even if for a moment,
> the perceptive person stays with the wise,
> he immediately knows the Dhamma --
> as the tongue,
> the taste of the soup.

66:

> Fools, their wisdom weak,
> are their own enemies
> as they go through life,
> doing evil
> that bears
> bitter fruit.

67-68:

> It's not good,
> the doing of the deed
> that, once it's done,
> you regret,
> whose result you reap crying,
> your face in tears.

> It's good,
> the doing of the deed
> that, once it's done,
> you don't regret,
> whose result you reap gratified,
> happy at heart.

69:

> As long as evil has yet to ripen,
> the fool mistakes it for honey.
> But when that evil ripens,
> the fool falls into
> pain.

70:

> Month after month
> the fool might eat
> only a tip-of-grass measure of food,
> but he wouldn't be worth
> one sixteenth
> of those who've fathomed
> the Dhamma.

71*:

> An evil deed, when done,
> doesn't -- like ready milk --
> come out right away.
> It follows the fool,
> smoldering
> like a fire
> hidden in ashes.

72-74:

> Only for his ruin
> does renown come to the fool.
> It ravages his bright fortune
> & rips his head apart.

> He would want unwarranted status,
> preeminence among monks,
> authority among monasteries,
> homage from lay families.

> 'Let householders & those gone forth
> both think that this
> was done by me alone.
> May I alone determine
> what's a duty, what's not':
> the resolve of a fool
> as they grow --
> his desire & pride.

75:

> The path to material gain
> goes one way,
> the way to Unbinding,
> another.
> Realizing this, the monk,
> a disciple to the Awakened One,
> should not relish offerings,
> should cultivate seclusion
> instead.

Revised: Wed 16 May 2001