Property:SanskritTranslation
From Bodhicitta
This is a property of type Text.
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The fool is nobody’s friend, the tathagatas have said, “because the fool gives no love without self-interest." <span class="smw-highlighter" data-type="8" data-state="inline" data-title="Note extra verse" title="extra verse" tabindex="0"><span class="smwtticon bca-note note">extra verse</span><span class="smwttcontent">The love that enters through the door of self-interest is love only for one’s self. It is like the distress we feel when we lose property, for this distress—like self-interested love—is wrought only by the fear of a loss of pleasure.</span></span> +
Trees do not despise anyone, nor do they demand our devoted attention. When will I be able to live among them, whose company is a true source of happiness? +
When will I go, free of worries, without looking back, to live under a tree, in an abandoned temple, or in a cave? +
When will I live without settling anywhere, wandering freely in unclaimed, naturally spacious lands? +
When will I live without fear, without cares for my body, carrying with me as all of my wealth an earthen bowl, and a robe that would not tempt a thief? +
When will I go to the charnel ground, my native land, to compare my own body, destined to decay, with the skeletons of others? +
We are unable to give up the world because of clinging desire, accompanied with our thirst for possessions, fame, and the rest. Therefore, in order to give up this world, and one’s ideas about it, the wise reflect as follows: +
For this very body of mine will become so putrid that its stench will keep away even the jackals. +
Even these various bones, which are now part of one body, will be scattered; how much faster will be separated from us what is external to us, the object of our love. +
Because the human being is born and dies alone, no one shares this pain. What good are loved ones, who are only an obstacle in the path? +
As a traveler on the road stops over and stays as a guest, in the same way the one who travels on the road of existence stops over in various destinies. +
It would be better to leave for the forest before four men carry you away to your funeral, as your relatives watch and weep. +
The renouncer, free from both attraction and revulsion, is nothing but this solitary body. Because he has died to the world long before his physical death, he does not grieve when the time of death arrives. +
There will be no one around him to upset him with their weeping. There will be no one to distract him from his recollection of the Buddha, the dharma, and the other objects of recollection. +
Therefore, I should always dedicate myself to this sweet solitude, where there is no anxious striving, where peace is born, where distractions are quelled. +
Free from any other concern, the mind having itself as its focus, I will dedicate all my energies to recollection and self-mastery. +
For desires<span class="smw-highlighter pagebreaks" data-type="8" data-state="inline" data-title="Page number from:" title="426" tabindex="0"><span class="smwtticon pagebreak note text-80">[p.426]</span><span class="smwttcontent"><big>[[How to Be a Bodhisattva: Introduction to the Practice of the Bodhisattva Path (The Bodhicaryāvatāra)]]</big> <br> <span class="muted">Gómez, Luis O., trans. "How to Be a Bodhisattva: Introduction to the Practice of the Bodhisattva Path (''The Bodhicaryāvatāra'')." In ''Norton Anthology of World Religions: Buddhism'', edited by Donald S. Lopez Jr., 395–441. New York: Norton, 2017.</span></span></span> bring misfortune in this and the next world—here, with prison, a violent death, or mutilation; there, with hell or another evil destiny. +
“One who is properly engaged in the cultivation of insight, accompanied by calm, will destroy the afflictions." Knowing this, one should first seek to have calm; and calm arises from equanimity before the delights of the world. +
This is the body for which you repeatedly paid homage to your go-betweens, the body for whose sake you have ignored both sin and disgrace. +
For it you risked your life and spent your fortune. Here are the bones whose embrace gave you supreme pleasure. +
