18.1
Your life is now a withered yellow leaf.
Mara's minions of death approach.
You stand on the brink of departure,
yet have made no preparations for the journey.
18.2
Become a lamp unto yourself.
Begin now.
Work in earnest.
Become clear and aware.
Cleansed of impurities, returned to innocence,
you will enter the realm of the great.
18.3
Your life is at an end.
Death stands before you.
There is no reprieve.
Yet you have made no preparations for the journey.
18.4
Become a lamp unto yourself.
Begin now.
Work in earnest.
Become clear and aware.
Cleansed of impurities, returned to innocence,
you will not suffer birth and old age again.
18.5
The wise remove their own impurities carefully,
little by little, moment by moment,
like a silversmith removing impurities from silver.
18.6
Just as rust corrodes the iron that produced it,
so do impure actions bring one to a miserable state.
18.7
Scriptures corrode when not recited.
Houses corrode when not repaired.
Sloth corrodes physical beauty.
Negligence corrodes the watchful.
18.8
Transgression corrodes a woman's femininity.
Stinginess corrodes a man's generosity.
Impure actions are corrosive,
both in this world and beyond.
18.9
The greatest of all impurities is ignorance –
the supreme impurity.
Remove the impurity of ignorance
and become immaculate,
you who practice Dhamma.
18.10
It is easy to live a shameless life.
Impudent as a crow, agressive, arrogant,
selfish, disparaging, corrupt.
18.11
It is hard to live a mindful life.
Sensitive to shame, striving for purity,
selfless, discerning, sincere.
18.12
Whoever in this world destroys life, tells lies,
who takes what is not given,
who goes to the wife of another,
18.13
who gives himself up to intoxicants –
that man chops at the very source of himself.
18.14
Know this, my friend:
Impure actions carry forward.
Do not let greed and ignorance
sentence you to long-term suffering.
18.15
People give alms
according to their beliefs and pleasure.
One who becomes upset about the food and drink
he does or does not receive
will never attain stillness, be it day or night.
18.16
But one in whom judgment and self-interest
have been cut out, destroyed at the root,
will attain stillness, be it day or night.
18.17
No fire burns like lust.
No chains imprison like hate.
No net ensnares like delusion.
No river torrents like desire.
18.18
It is easy to see the faults of others,
difficult to see one's own.
You expose the faults of others
as one winnowing chaff,
yet conceal your own like a dishonest gambler
concealing a bad throw of the dice.
18.19
One who constantly judges the faults of others,
always taking offense,
suffers an increase in his own impurities,
and grows ever further away
from the end of ignorance.
18.20
There is no path through emptiness.
There is no refuge outside Dhamma.
Ordinary men delight in complex illusions.
The Awakened are free of illusion.
18.21
There is no path through emptiness.
There is no refuge outside Dhamma.
The created world is not eternal.
The Awakened are not impatient.