Theragatha
    The Triple Verses
    Translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

     

    III.5 — Matangaputta

    It’s too cold,
    too hot,
    too late in the evening — 
    people who say this,
    shirking their work:
    the moment passes them by.
    Whoever regards cold & heat
    as no more than grass,
    doing his manly duties,
    won’t fall away from ease.
    With my chest
    I push through wild grasses
    spear-grass, ribbon-grass,
    rushes cultivating a seclusion heart.

     

    III.8 — Yasoja

    His limbs knotted
    like a kala plant,
    his body lean
    & lined with veins,
    knowing moderation
    in food & drink:
    the man of undaunted heart.

    Touched by gnats
    & horseflies in the wilds,
    the great wood,
    like an elephant
    at the head of a battle:
    he, mindful,
    should stay there endure.

    One alone is like Brahma,
    two, like devas,
    three, like a village,
    more than that:
    a hullabaloo.

    III.13 — Abhibhuta

    Listen, kinsmen, all of you,
    as many as are assembled here.
    I will teach you the Dhamma:
    Painful is birth,
    again & again.

    Rouse yourselves.
    Go forth.
    Apply yourselves
    to the Awakened One’s bidding.
    Scatter the army of Death
    as an elephant would
    a shed made of reeds.

    He who,
    in this doctrine & discipline,
    remains heedful,
    abandoning birth,
    the wandering-on,
    will put an end
    to suffering & stress.

    III.14 — Gotama

    While wandering on
    I went to hell;
    went again & again
    to the world of the hungry shades;
    stayed countless times, long,
    in the pain of the animal womb;
    enjoyed the human state;
    went to heaven from time to time;
    settled in the elements of form,
    the elements of formlessness,
    neither-perception, perception-less.

    Ways of taking birth are now known:
    devoid of essence,
    unstable,
    conditioned,
    always driven along.
    Knowing them
    as born from my self,
    mindful
    I went right to peace.

    III.15 — Harita (2)

    Whoever wants to do later
    what he should have done first,
    falls away from the easeful state
    & later burns with remorse.

    One should speak
    as one would act,
    & not as one wouldn’t.
    When one speaks without acting,
    the wise, they can tell.

    How very easeful:
    Unbinding,
    as taught by the Rightly
    Self-awakened One
    sorrowless,
    dustless,
    secure,
    where stress& suffering cease.