Dhp44-59 — Chapter 9
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.
✦ Connected Across Traditions
Impermanence & Letting Go
Tao Te Ching 76
“A man is born gentle and weak. At his death he is hard and stiff. The soft and yielding is the disciple of life.”
Ecclesiastes 3:1-2
“To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.”
Bhagavad Gita 2:22
“As a person puts on new garments, giving up old ones, the soul similarly accepts new material bodies, giving up the old and useless ones.”
Quran 55:26-27
“Everyone upon the earth will perish, and there will remain the Face of your Lord, Owner of Majesty and Honor.”
The Path to Wisdom
Proverbs 4:7
“Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom. And in all your getting, get understanding.”
Analects 2:11
“If you study the past and use it to understand the present, you are worthy of being a teacher.”
Tao Te Ching 33
“Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom.”
Quran 39:9
“Are those who know equal to those who do not know?”
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
“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”
Genesis 1:3
“And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.”
Bhagavad Gita 16:21
“There are three gates to self-destructive hell: lust, anger, and greed. Therefore, one must learn to give these up.”