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Dhammapada
- Introduction
- Bhikkhu Bodhi
From ancient times to the present, the Dhammapada has been regarded as the most
succinct expression of the Buddha's teaching found in the Pali Canon and the chief
spiritual testament of early Buddhism. In the countries following Theravada Buddhism, such
as Sri Lanka, Burma and Thailand, the influence of the Dhammapada is ubiquitous. It is an
ever-fecund source of themes for sermons and discussions, a guidebook for resolving the
countless problems of everyday life, a primer for the instruction of novices in the
monasteries. Even the experienced contemplative, withdrawn to forest hermitage or
mountainside cave for a life of meditation, can be expected to count a copy of the book
among his few material possessions. Yet the admiration the Dhammapada has elicited has not
been confined to avowed followers of Buddhism. Wherever it has become known its moral
earnestness, realistic understanding of human life, aphoristic wisdom and stirring message
of a way to freedom from suffering have won for it the devotion and veneration of those
responsive to the good and the true.
The expounder of the verses that comprise the Dhammapada is the Indian sage called the
Buddha, an honorific title meaning "the Enlightened One" or "the Awakened
One." The story of this venerable personage has often been overlaid with literary
embellishment and the admixture of legend, but the historical essentials of his life are
simple and clear. He was born in the sixth century B.C., the son of a king ruling over a
small state in the Himalayan foothills, in what is now Nepal. His given name was
Siddhattha and his family name Gotama (Sanskrit: Siddhartha Gautama) . Raised in luxury,
groomed by his father to be the heir to the throne, in his early manhood he went through a
deeply disturbing encounter with the sufferings of life, as a result of which he lost all
interest in the pleasures and privileges of rulership. One night, in his twenty-ninth
year, he fled the royal city and entered the forest to live as an ascetic, resolved to
find a way to deliverance from suffering. For six years he experimented with different
systems of meditation and subjected himself to severe austerities, but found that these
practices did not bring him any closer to his goal. Finally, in his thirty-fifth year,
while sitting in deep meditation beneath a tree at Gaya, he attained Supreme Enlightenment
and became, in the proper sense of the title, the Buddha, the Enlightened One. Thereafter,
for forty-five years, he traveled throughout northern India, proclaiming the truths he had
discovered and founding an order of monks and nuns to carry on his message. At the age of
eighty, after a long and fruitful life, he passed away peacefully in the small town of
Kusinara, surrounded by a large number of disciples.
To his followers, the Buddha is neither a god, a divine incarnation, or a prophet
bearing a message of divine revelation, but a human being who by his own striving and
intelligence has reached the highest spiritual attainment of which man is capable --
perfect wisdom, full enlightenment, complete purification of mind. His function in
relation to humanity is that of a teacher -- a world teacher who, out of compassion,
points out to others the way to Nibbana (Sanskrit: Nirvana), final release
from suffering. His teaching, known as the Dhamma, offers a body of instructions
explaining the true nature of existence and showing the path that leads to liberation.
Free from all dogmas and inscrutable claims to authority, the Dhamma is founded solidly
upon the bedrock of the Buddha's own clear comprehension of reality, and it leads the one
who practices it to that same understanding -- the knowledge which extricates the roots of
suffering.
The title "Dhammapada" which the ancient compilers of the Buddhist scriptures
attached to our anthology means portions, aspects, or sections of Dhamma. The work has
been given this title because, in its twenty-six chapters, it spans the multiple aspects
of the Buddha's teaching, offering a variety of standpoints from which to gain a glimpse
into its heart. Whereas the longer discourses of the Buddha contained in the prose
sections of the Canon usually proceed methodically, unfolding according to the sequential
structure of the doctrine, the Dhammapada lacks such a systematic arrangement. The work is
simply a collection of inspirational or pedagogical verses on the fundamentals of the
Dhamma, to be used as a basis for personal edification and instruction. In any given
chapter several successive verses may have been spoken by the Buddha on a single occasion,
and thus among themselves will exhibit a meaningful development or a set of variations on
a theme. But by and large, the logic behind the grouping together of verses into a chapter
is merely the concern with a common topic. The twenty-six chapter headings thus function
as a kind of rubric for classifying the diverse poetic utterances of the Master, and the
reason behind the inclusion of any given verse in a particular chapter is its mention of
the subject indicated in the chapter's heading . In some cases (Chapters 4
and 23) this may be a metaphorical symbol rather than a point of
doctrine. There also seems to be no intentional design in the order of the chapters
themselves, though at certain points a loose thread of development can be discerned.
The teachings of the Buddha, viewed in their completeness, all link together into a
single perfectly coherent system of thought and practice which gains its unity from its
final goal, the attainment of deliverance from suffering. But the teachings inevitably
emerge from the human condition as their matrix and starting point, and thus must be
expressed in such a way as to reach human beings standing at different levels of spiritual
development, with their highly diverse problems, ends, and concerns and with their very
different capacities for understanding. Thence, just as water, though one in essence.
assumes different shapes due to the vessels into which it is poured, so the Dhamma of
liberation takes on different forms in response to the needs of the beings to be taught.
This diversity, evident enough already in the prose discourses, becomes even more
conspicuous in the highly condensed. spontaneous and intuitively charged medium of verse
used in the Dhammapada. The intensified power of delivery can result in apparent
inconsistencies which may perplex the unwary. For example, in many verses the Buddha
commends certain practices on the grounds that they lead to a heavenly birth, but in
others he discourages disciples from aspiring for heaven and extols the one who takes no
delight in celestial pleasures (187, 417)
[Unless chapter numbers are indicated, all figures enclosed in parenthesis refer to verse
numbers of the Dhammapada.]
Often he enjoins works of merit, yet elsewhere he praises the one who has gone beyond
both merit and demerit (39, 412).
Without a grasp of the underlying structure of the Dhamma, such statements viewed side by
side will appear incompatible and may even elicit the judgment that the teaching is
self-contradictory.
The key to resolving these apparent discrepancies is the recognition that the Dhamma
assumes its formulation from the needs of the diverse persons to whom it is addressed, as
well as from the diversity of needs that may co-exist even in a single individual. To make
sense of the various utterances found in the Dhammapada, we will suggest a schematism of
four levels to be used for ascertaining the intention behind any particular verse found in
the work, and thus for understanding its proper place in the total systematic vision of
the Dhamma. This fourfold schematism develops out of an ancient interpretive maxim which
holds that the Buddha's teaching is designed to meet three primary aims: human welfare
here and now, a favorable rebirth in the next life, and the attainment of the ultimate
good. The four levels are arrived at by distinguishing the last aim into two stages: path
and fruit.
(i) The first level is the concern with establishing well-being and happiness in
the immediately visible sphere of concrete human relations. The aim at this level is to
show man the way to live at peace with himself and his fellow men, to fulfill his family
and social responsibilities, and to restrain the bitterness, conflict and violence which
infect human relationships and bring such immense suffering to the individual, society,
and the world as a whole. The guidelines appropriate to this level are largely identical
with the basic ethical injunctions proposed by most of the great world religions, but in
the Buddhist teaching they are freed from theistic moorings and grounded upon two directly
verifiable foundations: concern for one's own integrity and long-range happiness and
concern for the welfare of those whom one's actions may affect (129-132).
The most general counsel the Dhammapada gives is to avoid all evil, to cultivate good and
to cleanse one's mind (183). But to dispel any doubts the
disciple might entertain as to what he should avoid and what he should cultivate, other
verses provide more specific directives. One should avoid irritability in deed, word and
thought and exercise self-control (231-234). One should adhere
to the five precepts, the fundamental moral code of Buddhism, which teach abstinence from
destroying life, from stealing, from committing adultery, from speaking lies and from
taking intoxicants; one who violates these five training rules "digs up his own root
even in this very world" (246-247). The disciple should
treat all beings with kindness and compassion, live honestly and righteously, control his
sensual desires, speak the truth and live a sober upright life, diligently fulfilling his
duties, such as service to parents, to his immediate family and to those recluses and
brahmins who depend on the laity for their maintenance (332-333).
A large number of verses pertaining to this first level are concerned with the
resolution of conflict and hostility. Quarrels are to be avoided by patience and
forgiveness, for responding to hatred by further hatred only maintains the cycle of
vengeance and retaliation. The true conquest of hatred is achieved by non-hatred, by
forbearance, by love (4-6). One should not respond to bitter speech
but maintain silence (134). One should not yield to anger but
control it as a driver controls a chariot (222). Instead of
keeping watch for the faults of others, the disciple is admonished to examine his own
faults, and to make a continual effort to remove his impurities just as a silversmith
purifies silver (50, 239). Even if he
has committed evil in the past, there is no need for dejection or despair; for a man's
ways can be radically changed, and one who abandons the evil for the good illuminates this
world like the moon freed from clouds (173).
The sterling qualities distinguishing the man of virtue are generosity, truthfulness,
patience, and compassion (223). By developing and mastering
these qualities within himself, a man lives at harmony with his own conscience and at
peace with his fellow beings. The scent of virtue, the Buddha declares, is sweeter than
the scent of all flowers and perfumes (55-56). The good man, like
the Himalaya mountains, shines from afar, and wherever he goes he is loved and respected (303-304).
(ii) In its second level of teaching, the Dhammapada shows that morality does
not exhaust its significance in its contribution to human felicity here and now, but
exercises a far more critical influence in molding personal destiny. This level begins
with the recognition that, to reflective thought, the human situation demands a more
satisfactory context for ethics than mere appeals to altruism can provide. On the one hand
our innate sense of moral justice requires that goodness be recompensed with happiness and
evil with suffering; on the other our typical experience shows us virtuous people beset
with hardships and afflictions and thoroughly bad people riding the waves of fortune (119-120). Moral intuition tells us that if there is any long-range
value to righteousness, the imbalance must somehow be redressed. The visible order does
not yield an evident solution, but the Buddha's teaching reveals the factor needed to
vindicate our cry for moral justice in an impersonal universal law which reigns over all
sentient existence. This is the law of kamma (Sanskrit: karma), of action
and its fruit, which ensures that morally determinate action does not disappear into
nothingness but eventually meets its due retribution, the good with happiness, the bad
with suffering.
In the popular understanding kamma is sometimes identified with fate, but this is a
total misconception utterly inapplicable to the Buddhist doctrine. Kamma means volitional
action, action springing from intention, which may manifest itself outwardly as bodily
deeds or speech, or remain internally as unexpressed thoughts, desires and emotions. The
Buddha distinguishes kamma into two primary ethical types: unwholesome kamma, action
rooted in mental states of greed, hatred and delusion; and wholesome kamma. action rooted
in mental states of generosity or detachment, goodwill and understanding. The willed
actions a person performs in the course of his life may fade from memory without a trace,
but once performed they leave subtle imprints on the mind, seeds with the potential to
come to fruition in the future when they meet conditions conducive to their ripening.
The objective field in which the seeds of kamma ripen is the process of rebirths called
samsara. In the Buddha's teaching, life is not viewed as an isolated occurrence
beginning spontaneously with birth and ending in utter annihilation at death. Each single
life span is seen, rather, as part of an individualized series of lives having no
discoverable beginning in time and continuing on as long as the desire for existence
stands intact. Rebirth can take place in various realms. There are not only the familiar
realms of human beings and animals, but ranged above we meet heavenly worlds of greater
happiness, beauty and power, and ranged below infernal worlds of extreme suffering.
The cause for rebirth into these various realms the Buddha locates in kamma, our own
willed actions. In its primary role, kamma determines the sphere into which rebirth takes
place, wholesome actions bringing rebirth in higher forms, unwholesome actions rebirth in
lower forms. After yielding rebirth, kamma continues to operate, governing the endowments
and circumstances of the individual within his given form of existence. Thus, within the
human world, previous stores of wholesome kamma will issue in long life, health, wealth,
beauty and success; stores of unwholesome kamma in short life, illness, poverty, ugliness
and failure.
Prescriptively, the second level of teaching found in the Dhammapada is the practical
corollary to this recognition of the law of kamma, put forth to show human beings, who
naturally desire happiness and freedom from sorrow, the effective means to achieve their
objectives. The content of this teaching itself does not differ from that presented at the
first level; it is the same set of ethical injunctions for abstaining from evil and for
cultivating the good. The difference lies in the perspective from which the injunctions
are issued and the aim for the sake of which they are to be taken up. The principles of
morality are shown now in their broader cosmic connections, as tied to an invisible but
all-embracing law which binds together all life and holds sway over the repeated rotations
of the cycle of birth and death. The observance of morality is justified, despite its
difficulties and apparent failures, by the fact that it is in harmony with that law, that
through the efficacy of kamma, our willed actions become the chief determinant of our
destiny both in this life and in future states of becoming. To follow the ethical law
leads upwards -- to inner development, to higher rebirths and to richer experiences of
happiness and joy. To violate the law, to act in the grip of selfishness and hate, leads
downwards -- to inner deterioration, to suffering and to rebirth in the worlds of misery.
This theme is announced already by the pair of verses which opens the Dhammapada, and
reappears in diverse formulations throughout the work (see, e.g., 15-18,
117-122, 127, 132-133,
Chapter 22).
(iii) The ethical counsel based on the desire for higher rebirths and happiness
in future lives is not the final teaching of the Buddha, and thus cannot provide the
decisive program of personal training commended by the Dhammapada. In its own sphere of
application, it is perfectly valid as a preparatory or provisional teaching for those
whose spiritual faculties are not yet ripe but still require further maturation over a
succession of lives. A deeper, more searching examination, however, reveals that all
states of existence in samsara, even the loftiest celestial abodes, are lacking in genuine
worth; for they are all inherently impermanent, without any lasting substance, and thus,
for those who cling to them, potential bases for suffering. The disciple of mature
faculties, sufficiently prepared by previous experience for the Buddha's distinctive
exposition of the Dhamma, does not long even for rebirth among the gods. Having understood
the intrinsic inadequacy of all conditioned things, his focal aspiration is only for
deliverance from the ever-repeating round of births. This is the ultimate goal to which
the Buddha points, as the immediate aim for those of developed faculties and also as the
long-term ideal for those in need of further development: Nibbana, the Deathless, the
unconditioned state where there is no more birth, aging and death, and no more suffering.
The third level of teaching found in the Dhammapada sets forth the theoretical
framework and practical discipline emerging out of the aspiration for final deliverance.
The theoretical framework is provided by the teaching of the Four Noble Truths (190-192, 273), which the Buddha had
proclaimed already in his first sermon and upon which he placed so much stress in his many
discourses that all schools of Buddhism have appropriated them as their common foundation.
The four truths all center around the fact of suffering (dukkha), understood not as
mere experienced pain and sorrow, but as the pervasive unsatisfactoriness of everything
conditioned (202-203). The first truth details the various forms
of suffering -- birth, old age, sickness and death, the misery of unpleasant encounters
and painful separations, the suffering of not obtaining what one wants. It culminates in
the declaration that all constituent phenomena of body and mind, "the aggregates of
existence" (khandha), being impermanent and substanceless, are intrinsically
unsatisfactory. The second truth points out that the cause of suffering is craving (tanha),
the desire for pleasure and existence which drives us through the round of rebirths,
bringing in its trail sorrow, anxiety, and despair (212-216, Chapter 24). The third truth declares that the destruction of craving
issues in release from suffering, and the fourth prescribes the means to gain release, the
Noble Eightfold Path: right understanding, right thought, right speech, right action,
right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration (Chapter 20).
If, at this third level, the doctrinal emphasis shifts from the principles of kamma and
rebirth to the Four Noble Truths, a corresponding shift in emphasis takes place in the
practical sphere as well. The stress now no longer falls on the observation of basic
morality and the cultivation of wholesome attitudes as a means to higher rebirths. Instead
it falls on the integral development of the Noble Eightfold Path as the means to uproot
the craving that nurtures the process of rebirth itself. For practical purposes the eight
factors of the path are arranged into three major groups which reveal more clearly the
developmental structure of the training: moral discipline (including right speech, right
action and right livelihood), concentration (including right effort, right mindfulness and
right concentration), and wisdom (including right understanding and right thought). By the
training in morality, the coarsest forms of the mental defilements, those erupting as
unwholesome deeds and words, are checked and kept under control. By the training in
concentration the mind is made calm, pure and unified, purged of the currents of
distractive thoughts. By the training in wisdom the concentrated beam of attention is
focused upon the constituent factors of mind and body to investigate and contemplate their
salient characteristics. This wisdom, gradually ripened, climaxes in the understanding
that brings complete purification and deliverance of mind.
In principle, the practice of the path in all three stages is feasible for people in
any walk of life. The Buddha taught it to laypeople as well as to monks, and many of his
lay followers reached high stages of attainment. However, application to the development
of the path becomes most fruitful for those who have relinquished all other concerns in
order to devote themselves wholeheartedly to spiritual training, to living the "holy
life" (brahmacariya). For conduct to be completely purified, for sustained
contemplation and penetrating wisdom to unfold without impediments, adoption of a
different style of life becomes imperative, one which minimizes distractions and
stimulants to craving and orders all activities around the aim of liberation. Thus the
Buddha established the Sangha, the order of monks and nuns, as the special field for those
ready to dedicate their lives to the practice of his path, and in the Dhammapada the call
to the monastic life resounds throughout.
The entry-way to the monastic life is an act of radical renunciation. The thoughtful,
who have seen the transience and hidden misery of worldly life, break the ties of family
and social bonds, abandon their homes and mundane pleasures, and enter upon the state of
homelessness (83, 87-89, 91). Withdrawn to silent and secluded places, they seek out the
company of wise instructors, and guided by the rules of the monastic training, devote
their energies to a life of meditation. Content with the simplest material requisites,
moderate in eating, restrained in their senses, they stir up their energy, abide in
constant mindfulness and still the restless waves of thoughts (185,
375). With the mind made clear and steady, they learn to
contemplate the arising and falling away of all formations, and experience thereby "a
delight that transcends all human delights," a joy and happiness that anticipates the
bliss of the Deathless (373-374). The life of meditative
contemplation reaches its peak in the development of insight (vipassana), and the
Dhammapada enunciates the principles to be discerned by insight-wisdom: that all
conditioned things are impermanent, that they are all unsatisfactory, that there is no
self or truly existent ego entity to be found in anything whatsoever (277-279). When these truths are penetrated by direct experience,
the craving, ignorance and related mental fetters maintaining bondage break asunder, and
the disciple rises through successive stages of realization to the full attainment of
Nibbana.
(iv) The fourth level of teaching in the Dhammapada provides no new disclosure
of doctrine or practice, but an acclamation and exaltation of those who have reached the
goal. In the Pali Canon the stages of definite attainment along the way to Nibbana are
enumerated as four. At the first, called "Stream-entry" (sotapatti), the
disciple gains his first glimpse of "the Deathless" and enters irreversibly upon
the path to liberation, bound to reach the goal in seven lives at most. This achievement
alone, the Dhammapada declares, is greater than lordship over all the worlds (178). Following Stream-entry come two further stages which weaken
and eradicate still more defilements and bring the goal increasingly closer to view. One
is called the stage of Once-returner (sakadagami), when the disciple will return to
the human world at most only one more time; the other the stage of Non-returner (anagami),
when he will never come back to human existence but will take rebirth in a celestial
plane, bound to win final deliverance there. The fourth and final stage is that of the
Arahat, the Perfected One, the fully accomplished sage who has completed the development
of the path, eradicated all defilements and freed himself from bondage to the cycle of
rebirths. This is the ideal figure of early Buddhism and the supreme hero of the
Dhammapada. Extolled in Chapter 7 under his own name and in Chapter 26 (385-388, 396-423)
under the name brahmana, "holy man," the Arahat serves as a living
demonstration of the truth of the Dhamma. Bearing his last body, perfectly at peace, he is
the inspiring model who shows in his own person that it is possible to free oneself from
the stains of greed, hatred and delusion, to rise above suffering, to win Nibbana in this
very life.
The Arahat ideal reaches its optimal exemplification in the Buddha, the promulgator and
master of the entire teaching. It was the Buddha who. without any aid or guidance,
rediscovered the ancient path to deliverance and taught it to countless others. His
arising in the world provides the precious opportunity to hear and practice the excellent
Dhamma (182, 194). He is the giver and
shower of refuge (190-192), the Supreme Teacher who depends
on nothing but his own self-evolved wisdom (353). Born a man,
the Buddha always remains essentially human, yet his attainment of Perfect Enlightenment
elevates him to a level far surpassing that of common humanity. All our familiar concepts
and modes of knowing fail to circumscribe his nature: he is trackless, of limitless range,
free from all worldliness, the conqueror of all, the knower of all, untainted by the world
(179, 180, 353).
Always shining in the splendor of his wisdom, the Buddha by his very being confirms the
Buddhist faith in human perfectibility consummates the Dhammapada's picture of man
perfected, the Arahat.
The four levels of teaching just discussed give us the key for sorting out the
Dhammapada's diverse utterances on Buddhist doctrine and for discerning the intention
behind its words of practical counsel. Interlaced with the verses specific to these four
main levels, there runs throughout the work a large number of verses not tied to any
single level but applicable to all alike. Taken together, these delineate for us the basic
world view of early Buddhism. The most arresting feature of this view is its stress on
process rather than persistence as the defining mark of actuality. The universe is in
flux, a boundless river of incessant becoming sweeping everything along; dust motes and
mountains, gods and men and animals, world system after world system without number -- all
are engulfed by the irrepressible current. There is no creator of this process, no
providential deity behind the scenes steering all things to some great and glorious end.
The cosmos is beginningless, and in its movement from phase to phase it is governed only
by the impersonal, implacable law of arising, change, and passing away.
However, the focus of the Dhammapada is not on the outer cosmos, but on the human
world, upon man with his yearning and his suffering. his immense complexity, his striving
and movement towards transcendence. The starting point is the human condition as given,
and fundamental to the picture that emerges is the inescapable duality of human life, the
dichotomies which taunt and challenge man at every turn. Seeking happiness, afraid of
pain, loss and death, man walks the delicate balance between good and evil, purity and
defilement, progress and decline. His actions are strung out between these moral
antipodes, and because he cannot evade the necessity to choose, he must bear the full
responsibility for his decisions. Man's moral freedom is a reason for both dread and
jubilation, for by means of his choices he determines his own individual destiny, not only
through one life, but through the numerous lives to be turned up by the rolling wheel of samsara.
If he chooses wrongly he can sink to the lowest depths of degradation, if he chooses
rightly he can make himself worthy even of the homage of the gods. The paths to all
destinations branch out from the present, from the ineluctable immediate occasion of
conscious choice and action.
The recognition of duality extends beyond the limits of conditioned existence to
include the antithetical poles of the conditioned and the unconditioned, samsara
and Nibbana, the "near shore" and the "far shore." The Buddha appears
in the world as the Great Liberator who shows man the way to break free from the one and
arrive at the other, where alone true safety is to be found. But all he can do is indicate
the path; the work of treading it lies in the hands of the disciple. The Dhammapada again
and again sounds this challenge to human freedom: man is the maker and master of himself,
the protector or destroyer of himself, the savior of himself (160,
165, 380). In the end he must choose
between the way that leads back into the world, to the round of becoming, and the way that
leads out of the world, to Nibbana. And though this last course is extremely difficult and
demanding, the voice of the Buddha speaks words of assurance confirming that it can be
done, that it lies within man's power to overcome all barriers and to triumph even over
death itself.
The pivotal role in achieving progress in all spheres, the Dhammapada declares, is
played by the mind. In contrast to the Bible, which opens with an account of God's
creation of the world, the Dhammapada begins with an unequivocal assertion that mind is
the forerunner of all that we are, the maker of our character, the creator of our destiny.
The entire discipline of the Buddha, from basic morality to the highest levels of
meditation, hinges upon training the mind. A wrongly directed mind brings greater harm
than any enemy, a rightly directed mind brings greater good than any other relative or
friend (42, 43). The mind is unruly,
fickle, difficult to subdue, but by effort, mindfulness and unflagging self-discipline,
one can master its vagrant tendencies, escape the torrents of the passions and find
"an island which no flood can overwhelm" (25). The one
who conquers himself, the victor over his own mind, achieves a conquest which can never be
undone, a victory greater than that of the mightiest warriors (103-105).
What is needed most urgently to train and subdue the mind is a quality called
heedfulness (appamada). Heedfulness combines critical self awareness and
unremitting energy in a process of keeping the mind under constant observation to detect
and expel the defiling impulses whenever they seek an opportunity to surface. In a world
where man has no savior but himself, and where the means to his deliverance lies in mental
purification, heedfulness becomes the crucial factor for ensuring that the aspirant keeps
to the straight path of training without deviating due to the seductive allurements of
sense pleasures or the stagnating influences of laziness and complacency. Heedfulness, the
Buddha declares, is the path to the Deathless; heedlessness, the path to death. The wise
who understand this distinction abide in heedfulness and experience Nibbana, "the
incomparable freedom from bondage" (21-23).
As a great religious classic and the chief spiritual testament of early Buddhism, the
Dhammapada cannot be gauged in its true value by a single reading, even if that reading is
done carefully and reverentially. It yields its riches only through repeated study,
sustained reflection, and most importantly, through the application of its principles to
daily life. Thence it might be suggested to the reader in search of spiritual guidance
that the Dhammapada be used as a manual for contemplation. After his initial reading, he
would do well to read several verses or even a whole chapter every day, slowly and
carefully, relishing the words. He should reflect on the meaning of each verse deeply and
thoroughly, investigate its relevance to his life, and apply it as a guide to conduct. If
this is done repeatedly, with patience and perseverance, it is certain that the Dhammapada
will confer upon his life a new meaning and sense of purpose. Infusing him with hope and
inspiration, gradually it will lead him to discover a freedom and happiness far greater
than anything the world can offer.
Bhikkhu Bodhi