Buddhism
Dhp44-59
Text
Minor Collection
Sayings of the Dhamma 44–59
4. Flowers
Who bestirs this earth,
and the Yama realm with its gods?
Who sets out the well-taught word of truth,
as an expert a flower?
A trainee bestirs this earth,
and the Yama realm with its gods.
A trainee sets out the well-taught word of truth,
as an expert a flower.
Knowing this body’s like foam,
realizing it’s all just a mirage,
and cutting off Māra’s blossoming,
vanish from the King of Death.
As a mighty flood sweeps off a sleeping village,
death steals away a man
even as he gathers flowers,
his mind caught up in them.
The terminator gains control of the man
who has not had his fill of pleasures,
even as he gathers flowers,
his mind caught up in them.
A bee takes the nectar
and moves on, doing no damage
to the flower’s beauty and fragrance;
and that’s how a sage should walk in the village.
Don’t find fault with others,
with what they’ve done or left undone.
You should only watch yourself,
what you’ve done or left undone.
Just like a glorious flower
that’s colorful but lacks fragrance;
eloquent speech is fruitless
for one who does not act on it.
Just like a glorious flower
that’s both colorful and fragrant,
eloquent speech is fruitful
for one who acts on it.
Just as one would create many garlands
from a heap of flowers,
when a person has come to be born,
they should do many skillful things.
The fragrance of flowers doesn’t spread upwind,
nor sandalwood, pinwheel, or jasmine;
but the fragrance of the good spreads upwind;
a true person’s virtue spreads in every direction.
Among all the fragrances—
sandalwood or pinwheel
or lotus or jasmine—
the fragrance of virtue is supreme.
Faint is the fragrance
of sandal or pinwheel;
but the fragrance of the virtuous
floats to the highest gods.
For those accomplished in ethics,
meditating diligently,
freed through the highest knowledge,
Māra cannot find their path.
From a heap of trash
discarded on the highway,
a lotus might blossom,
fragrant and delightful.
So too, among those thought of as trash,
a disciple of the perfect Buddha
outshines with their wisdom
the blind ordinary folk.
Translation: Bhikkhu Sujato, dedicated to the public domain (CC0), via SuttaCentral.
✦ Connected Across Traditions
Impermanence & Letting Go
Tao Te Ching 76 (trans. James Legge)
“Man at his birth is supple and weak; at his death, firm and strong. (So it is with) all things. Trees and plants, in their early growth, are soft and brittle; at their death, dry and withered.”
Ecclesiastes 3:1
“To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.”
Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 2 (trans. Edwin Arnold)
“Nay, but as when one layeth His worn-out robes away, And taking new ones, sayeth, "These will I wear to-day!" So putteth by the spirit Lightly its garb of flesh, And passeth to inherit A residence afresh.”
Quran 55:26-27
“Everyone that is thereon will pass away; There remaineth but the Countenance of thy Lord of Might and Glory.”
The Path to Wisdom
Proverbs 4:7
“Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding.”
Analects 2:11 (trans. James Legge)
“If a man keeps cherishing his old knowledge, so as continually to be acquiring new, he may be a teacher of others.”
Tao Te Ching 33 (trans. James Legge)
“He who knows other men is discerning; he who knows himself is intelligent.”
Quran 39:9
“Are those who know equal with those who know not?”
Good vs Evil / Light vs Darkness
Yasna 30:3
“Now the two primal Spirits, who reveal themselves as Twins, are the Better and the Bad, in thought and word and action.”
John 1:5
“And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.”
Genesis 1:3
“And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.”
Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 16 (trans. Edwin Arnold)
“The Doors of Hell Are threefold, whereby men to ruin pass, The door of Lust, the door of Wrath, the door Of Avarice. Let a man shun those three!”