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The Dhammapada: Verses on the Way (Modern Library Classics)
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About The Dhammapada: Verses On The Way
Product Description Trembling and quivering is the mind, Difficult to guard and hard to restrain. The person of wisdom sets it straight, As a fletcher does an arrow. The Dhammapada introduced the actual utterances of the Buddha nearly twenty-five hundred years ago, when the master teacher emerged from his long silence to illuminate for his followers the substance of humankind’s deepest and most abiding concerns. The nature of the self, the value of relationships, the importance of moment-to-moment awareness, the destructiveness of anger, the suffering that attends attachment, the ambiguity of the earth’s beauty, the inevitability of aging, the certainty of death–these dilemmas preoccupy us today as they did centuries ago. No other spiritual texts speak about them more clearly and profoundly than does the Dhammapada. In this elegant new translation, Sanskrit scholar Glenn Wallis has exclusively referred to and quoted from the canonical suttas–the presumed earliest discourses of the Buddha–to bring us the heartwood of Buddhism, words as compelling today as when the Buddha first spoke them. On violence: All tremble before violence./ All fear death./ Having done the same yourself,/ you should neither harm nor kill. On ignorance: An uninstructed person/ ages like an ox,/ his bulk increases,/ his insight does not. On skillfulness: A person is not skilled/ just because he talks a lot./ Peaceful, friendly, secure–/ that one is called “skilled.” In 423 verses gathered by subject into chapters, the editor offers us a distillation of core Buddhist teachings that constitutes a prescription for enlightened living, even in the twenty-first century. He also includes a brilliantly informative guide to the verses–a chapter-by-chapter explication that greatly enhances our understanding of them. The text, at every turn, points to practical applications that lead to freedom from fear and suffering, toward the human state of spiritual virtuosity known as awakening. Glenn Wallis’s translation is an inspired successor to earlier versions of the suttas. Even those readers who are well acquainted with the Dhammapada will be enriched by this fresh encounter with a classic text. About the Author GLENN WALLIS has a Ph.D. in Sanskrit and Indian Studies from Harvard. He is assistant professor of religion at the University of Georgia and the author of Mediating the Power of Buddhas and numerous articles. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Buddha: THE DHAMMAPADA CHAPTER ONE ji Contrasting Pairs ymkvGgo Preceded by mind are phenomena, led by mind, formed by mind. If with mind polluted one speaks or acts, then pain follows, as a wheel follows the draft ox’s foot.(1)* Preceded by mind are phenomena, led by mind, formed by mind. If with mind pure one speaks or acts, then ease follows, as an ever-present shadow.(2)* “He berated me! He hurt me! He beat me! He deprived me!” For those who hold such grudges, hostility is not appeased.(3) “He berated me! He hurt me! He beat me! He deprived me!” For those who forgo such grudges, hostility ceases.(4) In this world hostilities are never appeased by hostility. But by the absence of hostility are they appeased. This is an interminable truth.(5)* Some do not understand that we are perishing here. Those who understand this bring to rest their quarrels.(6) Living with an eye to pleasure, unrestrained in the sense faculties, immoderate in eating, indolent, and idle— M¯ara overcomes such a person, as the wind overcomes a weak tree.(7)* Living without an eye to pleasure, well restrained in the sense faculties, moderate in eating, faithful, and energetic— M¯ara does not overcome such a person, as the wind, a rocky hill.(8)* A stained person who would wear the yellow-stained robe, although neither honest nor restrained, is not worthy of the yellow-stained.(9)* But a person who has dispelled his stain, well set on virtuous ways, both honest and restrained, that one is worthy of the yellow-stained.(10)* Those w
