10.1
Everyone fears pain.
Everyone fears death.
Knowing others to be the same as yourself,
do not kill or cause another to kill.
10.2
Everyone fears pain.
Everyone holds life dear.
Knowing others to be the same as yourself,
do not kill or cause another to kill.
10.3
One who hurts other beings desiring happiness
will in his own search for happiness
find it neither in life nor after death.
10.4
One who does not hurt
other beings desiring happiness
will in his own search for happiness
find it both in life and after death.
10.5
Do not speak harshly.
What you say will come back to you.
Angry words are painful and invite retaliation.
10.6
When you are still and silent as a shattered gong,
you will know Nirvana.
Anger is not possible.
10.7
As the rod of the cowherd drives cattle,
so do old age and death
drive the life of beings.
10.8
The deluded are oblivious to their evil.
The ignorant, by their actions,
ignite fires that will consume them.
10.9
He who inflicts pain on the innocent,
quickly suffers one of ten misfortunes:
10.10
severe pain, great loss, broken bones,
grave illness, mental derangement,
10.11
trouble with the government, cruel slander,
loss of family, destruction of possessions,
10.12
or fire that consumes his house.
And when his body dies,
he is born into hell.
10.13
Not nakedness, not matted hair,
not fasting, not sleeping on bare ground,
not smearing the body with dust and ash,
not squatting for days on the balls of the feet –
nothing can purify the man without faith.
10.14
Yet even though one is well adorned,
if he lives in peace and with self-restraint,
if he is pure and resolute,
if he harms no living thing,
then he is a brahmin, a mendicant, a monk.
10.15
In all the world is there a man of self-shame?
Who needs no reproof,
as a good horse needs no whip?
10.16
Like a good horse aware of the whip,
be earnest and determined.
With faith, virtue, and energy,
with meditation and insight,
with wisdom, right action, and mindfulness,
leave behind this realm of sorrow.
10.17
Irrigators guide water.
Fletchers true arrows.
Carpenters shape wood.
The wise master themselves.