4.1
Who shall master the earth and gods,
and conquer the death-realm of Yama?
Who chooses Dhamma,
as an expert chooses a flower?
4.2
The earnest seeker shall
master the earth and gods,
and conquer the death-realm of Yama.
The earnest seeker chooses Dhamma,
as an expert chooses a flower.
4.3
Knowing the body to be as
insubstantial as foam,
seeing it has no more
substance than a mirage,
one breaks the flower-tipped
arrows of Mara
and becomes invisible to the
Lord of Death.
4.4
One absorbed in plucking the
sense-flowers of Mara
is surprised by death and
swept suddenly away,
like a sleeping village in
the path of a great flood.
4.5
One obsessed with plucking
the sense-flowers of Mara
is never satisfied,
and all too soon drowns in
death.
4.6
The sage wanders through
life
as the bee wanders from
flower to flower.
Nectar is taken, but the
beauty and fragrance
of the blossom is untouched.
4.7
Do not concerned yourself
with the faults of others,
with what they have done or
not done.
Think only of what you have
done,
and have yet to do.
4.8
Elegant words, spoken but
not lived,
are beautiful flowers with
no fragrance
or promise of fruit.
4.9
Elegant words, lived as they
are spoken,
are beautiful, fragrant
flowers
destined to bear fruit.
4.10
Just as many garlands
can be fashioned from a heap
of flowers,
so a man can fashion many
good things from his life.
4.11
The fragrance of flowers
does not travel against the
wind.
Nor does the perfume of
sandalwood,
rosebay, or jasmine.
Yet the scent of a virtuous
life
does travel against the
wind.
It imbues the far reaches of
everywhere.
4.12
The perfumes of sandalwood,
crepe jasmine, blue lotus,
flowering jasmine –
none surpass the fragrance
of virtue.
4.13
The fragrances of sandalwood
and jasmine
are barely detectable
compared to the perfume
of a virtuous life.
It permeates even the realm
of the gods.
4.14
Those who abound in virtue,
who live in Awareness, who
realize the Real,
are invisible to Mara the
Beguiler.
4.15
4.15
Just as a beautiful, fragrant lotus blooms
in a pile of garbage beside the road,
4.16
so does a follower of the Way of Buddha,
blossom in a world of blind ignorance.