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Dhammapada
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  • XIX - The Judge
    • 271-272*:
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271-272*271:

    Monk,
don't
on account of
    your precepts & practices,
    great erudition,
    concentration attainments,
    secluded dwelling,
    or the thought, 'I touch
    the renunciate ease
    that run-of-the-mill people
    don't know':
ever let yourself get complacent
    when the ending of effluents
    is still unattained.

 



271 -272: This verse has what seems to be a rare construction, in which na + instrumental nouns + a verb in the aorist tense gives the force of a prohibitive ("Don't, on account of x, do y"). "The renunciate ease that run-of-the-mill people don't know," according to DhpA, is the state of non-returning, the third of the four stages of Awakening (see note 22). Because non-returners are still attached to subtle states of becoming on the level of form and formlessness, DhpA drives home the message that even non-returners should not be complacent by paraphrasing a passage from A.I (203 in the Thai edition; at the end of Chapter XIX in the PTS edition) that reads, "Just as even a small amount of excrement is foul-smelling, in the same way I do not praise even a small amount of becoming, not even as much as a fingersnap."





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