Sixty Songs of Milarepa - Buddhist Publication Society

If for love of preaching one expounds
Without the backing of scripture,
If through self-conceit,
One accepts obeisance;
If like a bungling, fumbling fool one teaches,
Not knowing the disciple’s capacity,
If to gather money one behaves
Like a Dharma practiser—
These four ways can never help the welfare of sentient beings!
To prefer diversions to solitude,
To love pleasures and hate hardship,
To crave for talk when urged to meditate,
To wallow arrogantly in the world—
These four ways will never bring one to Liberation!
This is the song of Fourfold Warning
Dear patrons, bear it in your minds!
(pp. 601–602)
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Rechungpa had just returned from India complete with new learning, instructions in various
meditations, skill in logic, and a swollen head. In order to clear up Rechungpa’s pride and
arrogance, Milarepa sang:
… Oh, my son, your pride in what you learned
Will lead you well astray!
To preach a lot, with empty words,
Ruins your good experience and meditation.
To be swollen with pride and arrogance
Proves you have betrayed the Guru’s precepts.
Nothing gives cause for more regret
Than disobedience to the Guru.
No one is more distracted and confused
Than he who ceases to meditate in solitude.
Nothing is more fruitless
Than a Buddhist 47 who renounces not his kin.
Nothing is more shameful
Than a learned Buddhist who neglects his meditation.
Nothing is more disgraceful
Than a monk who violates the rules.
(p. 425 extract)
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