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Buddhism

Thig 1:17 · Dhammā

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

Wandering for alms—

weak, leaning on a staff,1

with trembling limbs—

I fell down right there on the ground.

Seeing the drawbacks of the body,

my mind was then

set free.

Note

1. Reading daṇḍamolubbha with the Burmese, Sinhalese, and PTS editions. The Thai edition has daṇḍamādāya, “holding a staff.”


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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