..续本文上一页sufferings arising there from,
passed before his mental eye, and he thought: [1]
"Surely if living creatures saw the results of all their evil deeds,
they would turn away from them in disgust.
But selfhood blinds them, and they cling to their obnoxious desires. [2]
"They crave pleasure for themselves and they cause pain to others;
when death destroys their inpiduality, they find no peace;
their thirst for existence abides
and their selfhood re, appears in new births. [3]
"Thus they continue to move in the coil
and can find no escape from the hell of their own making.
And how empty are their pleasures, how vain are their endeavours!
Hollow like the plantain-tree and without contents like the bubble. [4]
"The world is full of evil and sorrow, because it is full of lust.
Men go astray because they think that delusion is better than truth.
Rather than truth they follow error,
which is pleasant to look at in the beginning
but in the end causes anxiety, tribulation, and misery." [5]
And the Bodhisatta began to expound the Dharma.
The Dharma is the truth.
The Dharma is the sacred law.
The Dharma is religion.
The Dharma alone can deliver us from error,
from wrong and from sorrow. [6]
Pondering on the origin of birth and death,
the Enlightened One recognized that ignorance was the root of all evil;
and these are the links in the development of life,
called the twelve nidanas: [7]
In the beginning there is existence blind and without knowledge;
and in this sea of ignorance there are stirrings, formative and organizing.
From stirrings, formative and organizing, rises awareness or feelings.
Feelings beget organisms that live as inpidual beings.
These organisms develop the six fields,
that is, the five senses and the mind.
The six fields come incontact with things.
Contact begets sensation.
Sensation creates the thirst of inpidualized being.
The thirst of being creates a cleaving to things.
The cleaving produces the growth and continuation of selfhood.
Selfhood continues in renewed births.
The renewed births of selfhood
are the cause of suffering, old age, sickness, and death.
They produce lamentation, anxiety, and dispair. [8]
The cause of all sorrow lies at the very beginning;
it is hidden in the ignorance from which life grows.
Remove ignorance and you will destroy the wrong appetences that rise from ignorance;
destroy these appetences and you will wipe out the wrong perception that rises from them.
Destroy wrong perception and there is an end of errors in inpidualized beings.
Destroy the error in inpidualized beings
and the illusions of the six fields will disappear.
Destroy illusions and the contact with things will cease to beget misconception.
Destroy misconception and you do away with thirst.
Destroy thirst and you will be free of all morbid cleaving.
Remove the cleaving and you destroy the selfishness of selfhood.
If the selfishness of selfhood is destroyed
you will be above birth, old age, disease, and death,
and you will escape all suffering. [9]
The enlightened One saw the four noble truths
which point out the path that leads to Nirvana
or the extinction of self: [10]
The first noble truth is the existence of sorrow. [11]
The second noble truth is the cause of suffering. [12]
The third noble truth is cessation of sorrow. [13]
The fourth noble truth is the eightfold path that leads to the cessation of sorrow. [14]
This is the Dharma.
This is the truth.
This is religion.
And the Enlightened One uttered this stanza: [15]
"Through many births I sought in vain
The Builder of this House of Pain.
Now, Builder, thee I plainly see!
This is the last abode for me.
Thy gable”s yoke and rafters broke,
My heart has peace. All lust will cease." [16]
There is self and there …
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