Don’t resort to lowly things,
don’t abide in negligence,
don’t resort to wrong views,
don’t perpetuate the world.
Get up, don’t be heedless,
live by principle, with good conduct.
For one of good conduct sleeps at ease,
in this world and the next.
Live by principle, with good conduct,
don’t conduct yourself badly.
For one of good conduct sleeps at ease,
in this world and the next.
Look upon the world
as a bubble
or a mirage,
then the King of Death won’t see you.
Come, see this world decked out
like a fancy royal chariot.
Here fools flounder,
but the discerning are not chained.
He who once was heedless,
but turned to heedfulness,
lights up the world
like the moon freed from clouds.
Someone whose bad deed
is supplanted by the good,
lights up the world,
like the moon freed from clouds.
Blind is the world,
few are those who clearly see.
Only a handful go to heaven,
like a bird freed from a net.
Swans fly by the sun’s path,
psychic sages fly through space.
The attentive leave the world,
having vanquished Māra and his mount.
When a person, spurning the hereafter,
transgresses in just one thing—
lying—
there is no evil they would not do.
The miserly don’t ascend to heaven,
it takes a fool to not praise giving.
The attentive celebrate giving,
and so find happiness in the hereafter.
The fruit of stream-entry is better
than being the one king of the earth,
than going to heaven,
than lordship over all the world.