233

Like a withered leaf are you now; death's messengers are waiting for you. You stand on the eve of your departure, yet you have made no provision for your journey! Make an island for yourself! Strive hard and become wise! Rid of impurities and cleansed of stain, you shall enter the celestial abode of the Noble Ones.

234

Your life has come to an end now; you are setting forth into the presence of Yama, the King of Death. No resting place is there for you on the way, yet you have made no provision for your journey! Make an island for yourself! Strive hard and become wise! Rid of impurities and cleansed of stain, you shall not come again to birth and decay.

235

One by one, little by little, moment by moment, a wise person should remove one's own impurities, as a smith removes the dross of silver.

236

Just as rust arising from iron eats away the base from which it arises, even so their own deeds lead transgressors to states of woe.

237

Non-repetition is the bane of scriptures; neglect is the bane of a home; slovenliness is the bane of personal appearance, and heedlessness is the bane of a watchman.

238

Unchastity is the taint in a person, and niggardliness is the taint in a giver. Taints, indeed, are all evil things, both in this world and the next.

239

A worse taint than these is ignorance, the worst of all taints. Destroy this one taint and become taintless, O renunciates! Easy is life for the shameless one who is as impudent as a crow, back-biting and forward, arrogant and corrupt.

240

Difficult is life for the modest one who always seeks purity, is detached and unassuming, clean in life, and discerning.

241

One who destroys life, utters lies, takes what is not given, goes to another person's spouse, and is addicted to intoxicating drinks--such a one digs up one's own root even in this very world.

242

Know this, O good person: evil things are difficult to control. Let not greed and wickedness drag you to protracted misery.

243

People give according to their faith or regard. If one becomes discontented with the food and drink given by others, one does not attain meditative absorption, either by day or by night.

244

But one in whom this (discontent) is fully destroyed, uprooted and extinct, that person attains absorption, both by day and by night.

245

There is no fire like lust; there is no grip like hatred; there is no net like delusion; there is no river like craving.

246

Easily seen are the faults of others, but one's own are difficult to see. Like chaff one winnows another's faults, but hides one's own, even as a crafty fowler hides behind sham branches.

247

One who seeks another's faults, who is ever censorious--that person's cankers grow.

248

That person is far from the destruction of the cankers.

249

There is no track in the sky, and no recluse outside (the Buddha's dispensation). Mankind delights in worldliness, but the Buddhas are free from worldliness.

250

There is no track in the sky, and no recluse outside (the Buddha's dispensation). There are no conditioned things that are eternal, and no instability in the Buddhas.