If a man can control his body and mind and thereby refrains from eating animal flesh and wearing animal products, I say he will really be liberated.
For innumerable reasons, Mahamati, the Bodhisattva, whose nature is compassion, is not to eat any meat.
Therefore, do not eat meat which will cause terror among people, because it hinders the truth of emancipation; not to eat meat? this is the mark of the wise.
Ennui has made more gamblers than avarice, more drunkards than thirst, and perhaps as many suicides as despair.
The man who wears the yellow-dyed robe but is not free from stains himself, without self-restraint and integrity, is unworthy of the robe.
In the same way that rain breaks into a house with a bad roof, desire breaks into the mind that has not been practising meditation.
Attention leads to immortality. Carelessness leads to death. Those who pay attention will not die, while the careless are as good as dead already.
Foolish, ignorant people indulge in careless lives, whereas a clever man guards his attention as his most precious possession.
Don’t indulge in careless behaviour. Don’t be the friend of sensual pleasures. He who meditates attentively attains abundant joy.
Careful amidst the careless, amongst the sleeping wide-awake, the intelligent man leaves them all behind, like a race-horse does a mere hack.
Death carries off a man busy picking flowers with an besotted mind, like a great flood does a sleeping village.
Just as one can make a lot of garlands from a heap of flowers, so man, subject to birth and death as he is, should make himself a lot of good karma.
Sandalwood, tagara, lotus, jasmine – the fragrance of virtue is unrivalled by such kinds of perfume.
A fool who recognises his own ignorance is thereby in fact a wise man, but a fool who considers himself wise – that is what one really calls a fool.
Even if a fool lived with a wise man all his life, he would still not recognise the truth, like a wooden spoon cannot recognise the flavour of the soup.
Like fresh milk a bad deed does not turn at once. It follows a fool scorching him like a smouldering fire.
Journey over, sorrowless, freed in every way, and with all bonds broken – for such a man there is no more distress.
The recollected go forth to lives of renunciation. They take no pleasure in a fixed abode. Like wild swans abandoning a pool, they leave one resting place after another.
He whose inflowing thoughts are dried up, who is unattached to food, whose dwelling place is an empty and imageless release – the way of such a person is hard to follow, like the path of birds through the sky.
Neither my life of luxury in the palace -nor- my life as ascetic in the forest were ways to enlightenment.