Texts from the Buddhist canon : commonly known as Dhammapada

PLEASURE. 119
the six objects of desire, immediately, with a sigh, addressed
the four men, and asked them, "What is the subject' of
your discourse, as you sit here together beneath this tree ?
On this they told him truthfully what each one's idea of
happiness was. And then Buddha rejoined, "Let there
be an end of such discourse, for all these things (which
you desire) are the causes of (way of) sorrow, misfortune,
fear, and calamity. This is not the way of eternal peace,
the system of the highest joy. The flowers of spring shall
fade in autumn, and fall in utter decay before the winter
cold. All those friends in whose society you place such
reliance for happiness, ere long shall be scattered and
separated far and wide. That wealth you prizfe, and that
beauty of wife, and those pleasures, alas ! are the causes of
every misfortune—hatred in families, wreck of body, future
misery ! Wherefore, Bhikshus !
be sure that the highest
bliss is to leave the world, to search after supreme wisdom,
to covet a condition of entire' indifference, to desire nought
for one's self, to aim at NirvS.na." And then the World-
honoured uttered these stanzas :
"From^ love (or lust) comes sorrow, from lust
comes fear ; where there is no lust (or, no ground
for lust), what sorrow, what fear can there be ?
From pleasure comes sorrow, from pleasure comes
fear ; where there is no ground for pleasure, what
grief or fear can there be ? From covetousness
(greed) comes sorrow, from greed comes fear ; where
one is free from covetousness, there can be no sorrow
or fear. But to be greedy to fulfil perfectly the re-
quirements (moral rules) of the Law—to be truthful
in everything (or, to be perfectly truthful), to be
modest in everything, to conduct his own business
(to order himself) according to what is right—this
—
' Compare vera. ai2, ^13, ss. of the P41i.
"