4. Flowers
Who will master this world and the world
of Death with its devas? Who will gather well taught aphorisms (dhammapadas),
like an connoisseur picking a flower? 44
A disciple will master this
world and the world of Death with its devas. A disciple will gather well
taught aphorisms (dhammapadas), like a connoisseur picking a flower. 45
Seeing the foam-like nature
of the body, and awakening to its mirage-like quality, one can escape the
sight of the King of Death, snapping Mara's flowery bonds. 46
Death carries off a man busy
picking flowers with an besotted mind, like a great flood does a sleeping
village. 47
Death, the end-maker, will
exercise his will on a man busy picking flowers with a besotted mind, before
he has even found satisfaction. 48
A holy man should behave in
the village like a bee which takes its food from a flower without hurting
its appearance or its scent. 49
It is no the shortcomings of
others, nor what others have done or not done that one should think about,
but what one has done or not done oneself. 50
Like a fine flower, beautiful
to look at but without scent, fine words are fruitless in a man who does
not act in accordance with them. 51
Like a fine flower, beautiful
to look at and scented too, fine words bear fruit in a man who acts well
in accordance with them. 52
Just as one can make a lot
of garlands from a heap of flowers, so man, subject to birth and death
as he is, should make himself a lot of good karma. 53
The scent of flowers cannot
travel against the wind, and nor can that of sandalwood or jasmine, but
the fragrance of the good does travel against the wind, and a good man
perfumes the four quarters of the earth. 54
Sandalwood, tagara, lotus,
jasmine - the fragrance of virtue is unrivalled by such kinds of perfume.
55
The perfume of tagara and sandalwood
is of little enough power, while the supreme fragrance, that of the virtuous,
reaches even up to the devas. 56
Perfect of virtue, always acting
with recollection, and liberated by final realisation - Mara does not know
the path such people travel. 57
Like a beautiful, fragrant
lotus, springing up on a pile of rubbish thrown out on the highway, so
a disciple of the Enlightened One stands out among rubbish-like and blinded
ordinary people by virtue of his wisdom. 58, 59
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