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Buddhism

Thag 2:13 · Heraññakāni

Thai temple painting: Prince Vessantara gives away the white elephant
Vessantara Jātaka, Chapter 2 (Himavanta Forest) · Thai, Rattanakosin, c. 1850–1870 · Walters Art Museum

Days & nights

fly past.

Life

comes to an end.

The span of mortals

runs out,

like the water of a piddling stream.

But the fool doing evil deeds

doesn’t realize that later

it’s bitter for him:

evil for him

the result.


Translated by Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu. © 2014 / rev. 2017 Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu — released under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 licence, for free distribution only. Source: dhammatalks.org (Metta Forest Monastery).

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