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The Dhammapada - Chapter 10 - Violence - v129 - v145
buddhafoot
Veteran
Dandavagga
Violence
Translated from the Pali by
Acharya Buddharakkhita
Alternate translation: Buddharakkhita Thanissaro
129. All tremble at violence; all fear death. Putting oneself in the place of another, one should not kill nor cause another to kill.
130. All tremble at violence; life is dear to all. Putting oneself in the place of another, one should not kill nor cause another to kill.
131. One who, while himself seeking happiness, oppresses with violence other beings who also desire happiness, will not attain happiness hereafter.
132. One who, while himself seeking happiness, does not oppress with violence other beings who also desire happiness, will find happiness hereafter.
133. Speak not harshly to anyone, for those thus spoken to might retort. Indeed, angry speech hurts, and retaliation may overtake you.
134. If, like a broken gong, you silence yourself, you have approached Nibbana, for vindictiveness is no longer in you.
135. Just as a cowherd drives the cattle to pasture with a staff, so do old age and death drive the life force of beings (from existence to existence).
136. When the fool commits evil deeds, he does not realize (their evil nature). The witless man is tormented by his own deeds, like one burnt by fire.
137. He who inflicts violence on those who are unarmed, and offends those who are inoffensive, will soon come upon one of these ten states:
138-140 Sharp pain, or disaster, bodily injury, serious illness, or derangement of mind, trouble from the government, or grave charges, loss of relatives, or loss of wealth, or houses destroyed by ravaging fire; upon dissolution of the body that ignorant man is born in hell.
141. Neither going about naked, nor matted locks, nor filth, nor fasting, nor lying on the ground, nor smearing oneself with ashes and dust, nor sitting on the heels (in penance) can purify a mortal who has not overcome doubt.
142. Even though he be well-attired, yet if he is posed, calm, controlled and established in the holy life, having set aside violence towards all beings — he, truly, is a holy man, a renunciate, a monk.
143. Only rarely is there a man in this world who, restrained by modesty, avoids reproach, as a thoroughbred horse avoids the whip.
144. Like a thoroughbred horse touched by the whip, be strenuous, be filled with spiritual yearning. By faith and moral purity, by effort and meditation, by investigation of the truth, by being rich in knowledge and virtue, and by being mindful, destroy this unlimited suffering.
145. Irrigators regulate the waters, fletchers straighten arrow shafts, carpenters shape wood, and the good control themselves.
-bf
Violence
Translated from the Pali by
Acharya Buddharakkhita
Alternate translation: Buddharakkhita Thanissaro
129. All tremble at violence; all fear death. Putting oneself in the place of another, one should not kill nor cause another to kill.
130. All tremble at violence; life is dear to all. Putting oneself in the place of another, one should not kill nor cause another to kill.
131. One who, while himself seeking happiness, oppresses with violence other beings who also desire happiness, will not attain happiness hereafter.
132. One who, while himself seeking happiness, does not oppress with violence other beings who also desire happiness, will find happiness hereafter.
133. Speak not harshly to anyone, for those thus spoken to might retort. Indeed, angry speech hurts, and retaliation may overtake you.
134. If, like a broken gong, you silence yourself, you have approached Nibbana, for vindictiveness is no longer in you.
135. Just as a cowherd drives the cattle to pasture with a staff, so do old age and death drive the life force of beings (from existence to existence).
136. When the fool commits evil deeds, he does not realize (their evil nature). The witless man is tormented by his own deeds, like one burnt by fire.
137. He who inflicts violence on those who are unarmed, and offends those who are inoffensive, will soon come upon one of these ten states:
138-140 Sharp pain, or disaster, bodily injury, serious illness, or derangement of mind, trouble from the government, or grave charges, loss of relatives, or loss of wealth, or houses destroyed by ravaging fire; upon dissolution of the body that ignorant man is born in hell.
141. Neither going about naked, nor matted locks, nor filth, nor fasting, nor lying on the ground, nor smearing oneself with ashes and dust, nor sitting on the heels (in penance) can purify a mortal who has not overcome doubt.
142. Even though he be well-attired, yet if he is posed, calm, controlled and established in the holy life, having set aside violence towards all beings — he, truly, is a holy man, a renunciate, a monk.
143. Only rarely is there a man in this world who, restrained by modesty, avoids reproach, as a thoroughbred horse avoids the whip.
144. Like a thoroughbred horse touched by the whip, be strenuous, be filled with spiritual yearning. By faith and moral purity, by effort and meditation, by investigation of the truth, by being rich in knowledge and virtue, and by being mindful, destroy this unlimited suffering.
145. Irrigators regulate the waters, fletchers straighten arrow shafts, carpenters shape wood, and the good control themselves.
-bf
0
Comments
No mystical claptrap! No appeal to supermundane or supernatural! Just the old adage of walking a mile in another's shoes.
How can we go on living with neighbours who starve or wedding parties bombed when we feel the pain?
If our power company gave us shocks every time we turned on a light, we would march on the power station and demand a change. One of our local pacifists has spent quite some time in prison for refusing to pay the proportion of taxes that is applied to military adventurism by the government. If we all did that, for the sake of the pain we feel at others' suffering, how long do you think wars would last? How much longer would fat politicians slurp at their trough while families starve on welfare?
Who toil night and day
By hand and by brain
To earn your pay
Who for, centuries long past
For no more than your bread
Have bled for your countries
And counted your dead
In the factories and mills
In the shipyards and mines
Who've often been told
To keep up with the times
For our skills are not needed
They've streamlined the job
And by sliderule and stopwatch
Our pride they have robbed
Aye...
But when the sky darkens
And the prospect is war
Who is given a gun
And then pushed to the fore
And expected to die
For the land of our birth
Though we've never owned
One handful of earth.
We're the first ones to starve
We're the first ones to die
We're the first ones in life
For that "pie in the sky"
And we're always the last
When the cream is shared out
For the worker is working
When the fat cat's about
Aye, and all of these things
The worker has done
From tillin' the fields
To carrying the gun
We've been yoked to the plow
Since time first began
Aye, and always expected
To carry the can."
Dick Gaughan - The Worker's Song - A Handful of Earth.
-bf
Debout les forçats de la faim
La raison tonne en son cratère
C'est l'éruption de la fin
Du passe faisons table rase
Foules, esclaves, debout, debout
Le monde va changer de base
Nous ne sommes rien, soyons tout
Groupons-nous, et demain (bis)
L'Internationale
Sera le genre humain
Arise ye criminals of want
For reason in revolt now thunders
and at last ends the age of cant.
Now away with all your superstitions
Servile masses arise, arise!
We'll change forthwith [or henceforth] the old conditions
And spurn the dust to win the prize.
Then come comrades rally
And the last fight let us face
The Internationale
Unites the human race. (repeat).
Enrolled amongst the sons of toil
Let's claim the earth henceforth for brothers
Drive the indolent from the soil.
On our flesh for too long has fed the raven
We've too long been the vultures prey.
But now farewell to spirit craven
The dawn brings in a brighter day.
No trust we have in prince or peer
Our own right hand the chains must shiver
Chains of hatred, greed and fear.
Ere the thieves will out with their booty
And to all give a happier lot.
Each at his forge must do his duty
And strike the iron while its hot.
CHORUS
Back on topic, if any so desire...
-bf
However, it never ceases to amaze me how entrenched and ingrained some habits are....
I was reading the 'Dandavagga - Violence' sutra when you first posted it, and the involuntary (how unMindful is THAT - ?!) thought flitted across my mind, of how like the Bible these teachings were....
And then, of course, I had to smile inwardly at myself, because the Bible as we know it, came a long way afterwards.....!
I can only speak for myself when I say that I can identify with the different examples of Anger and Violence, and the results.....Although not to any extreme, I used to get very angry and resentful....
And I am stunned that I have over time, been able to be far more guarded and watchful of my own personal humour, and have reformed the negative aspects of my temperament....
If I were to meet someone from my schooldays, today, they would barely recognise me.....
Perhaps NOT realizing that the thought was involuntary would have been truly heedless...
:tongue2:
It's not how far we have to go, but how far we have come....
Gassho, Gentlemen.
So many good, clear teachings...
134 says quite a bit if one thinks about it.
-bf
I have a couple of copies of the Dhammapada. The first is a translation by John Ross Carter and Mahinda Paliwadana, published by the Quality Paperback Book Club in their "Sacred Writings" series (a wonderful series btw). The original edition, from OUP, is available from Amazon:
The Dhammapada
This edition also has useful notes.
The copy that I use more often, however, is part of Dom Bede Griffiths' wonderful 'anthology' of sacred texts, Universal Wisdom:
Universal Wisdom
Fr Bede has brought together texts:
* Hinduism: Upanishads and Bhagavadgita
* Buddhism: Dhammapada and Mahayana Shraddhotpada Shastra (Awakening of Faith)
* Chinese Tradition: Tao Te Ching
* Sikhism: Extracts from the Sacred Writings
* Islam: Suras from Quran, Deliverance from Error by Al Ghazali and some poems by Rumi (not the greatest translations, I fear)
* Juidaism: Extracts from the Wisdom books.
* Christianity: Extracts from the Synoptic Gospels, St John and the Letter to the Ephesians.
There are lots of editions of the Dhammapada so it is worth taking your time to find the one best suited to the use to which you will put it.
I cannot emphasise how much more I've come to understand these teachings by using this method. Go for it - arthritics beware though! There's cramping in them there verses!
Traditionally, they should be recited over and over again until they are committed to memory. Memory comes before writing and leaves us later (as BSF's comment about arthritis emphasises). Also, by memorising them, we can recite them at times and in places where reading is no longer possible.
Thanks for all of those references. I'm sure you just had to look in your own library to come up with those.
-bf