Sin

The Buddha's Way of Virtue, by W.D.C Wagiswara and K.J. Saunders, [1920], at sacred-texts.com

p. 57

§ XVIII

SIN

235. Thou art withered as a sere leaf: Death's messengers await thee. Thou standest at the gate of death, and hast made no provision for the journey.

236. Make to thyself a refuge; come, strive and be prudent: when thy impurities are purged, thou shalt come into the heavenly abode of the Noble.

237. Thy life is ended; thou art come into the Presence of Death: there is no resting-place by the way, and thou hast no provision for the journey.

238. Make for thyself a refuge; come, strive and play the sage! Burn off thy taints, and thou shalt know birth and old age no more.

239. As a smith purifies silver in the fire, so bit by bit continually the sage burns away his impurities.

240. It is the iron's own rust that destroys it: it is the sinner's own acts that bring him to hell.

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241. Disuse is the rust of mantras; laziness the rust of households; sloth is the rust of beauty; neglect is the watcher's ruin.

242. Impurity is the ruin of woman; and avarice the ruin of the giver: ill-deeds are the rust of this world and the next.

243. More corrosive than those is the rust of ignorance, the greatest of taints: put off this rust and be clean, O Bhikkhus.

244. Life is easy for the crafty and shameless, for the wanton, shrewd, and impure:

245. Hard it is for the modest, the lover of purity, the disinterested and simple and clean, the man of insight.

246, 247. The murderer, the liar, the thief, the adulterer, and the drunkard—these even in this world uproot themselves.

248. Know this, O man, evil is the undisciplined mind! See to it that greed and lawlessness bring not upon thee long suffering.

249. Men give according to faith or caprice. If a man fret because food and drink are given to another, he comes not day or night to serene meditation (i.e. Samādhi).

250. He in whom this (envious spirit) is destroyed and wholly uprooted, he truly day and night attains serene meditation.

251. There is no fire like lust, no ravenous beast like hatred, no snare like folly, no flood like desire.

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252. To see another's fault is easy: to see one's own is hard. Men winnow the faults of others like chaff: their own they hide as a crafty gambler hides a losing throw.

253. The taints of this man are ever growing. He is far from the purification of taints (Arahatship), the censorious one who is ever blaming others.

254. There is no path through the sky: there is no "religious" apart from us. The world without delights in dalliance: the Blessed Ones are freed from this thrall.

255. There is no path through the sky; there is no "religious" apart from us. Nothing in the phenomenal world is lasting; but Buddhas endure immovable.