Snp 4.15 · Sn 935–954
Taking Up Arms
Attadaṇḍasutta
Fear arises when weapons are raised.
Look at people fighting.
Let me tell you about the urgency
that took hold of me.
I saw beings thrashing about
like fish in drying water,
set against each other —
and fear came over me.
The world, all of it, was hollow.
Every direction was unstable.
I looked for somewhere to settle,
and found nowhere unclaimed.
Watching them locked in conflict
right to the end, I lost heart.
Then I saw it: an arrow,
hard to see, lodged in the heart.
Pierced by that arrow,
a person runs in every direction.
Pull it out —
they neither run nor sink.
(Here the trainings are recited.)
Whatever the world is attached to,
don't get caught in it.
Seeing through sensual pleasures completely,
train toward your own *nibbāna*.
Be truthful, not brash,
not deceitful, not slanderous.
Without anger, the sage crosses over
the evil of greed, the evil of possessiveness.
Conquer sleep, drowsiness, dullness.
Don't be heedless.
A person whose mind is set on *nibbāna*
shouldn't stand in pride.
Don't be led into lying.
Don't get attached to physical form.
Fully understand the urge to compare.
Live restrained from violence.
Don't delight in the old.
Don't prefer the new.
Don't grieve over what is fading.
Don't depend on what pulls at you.
Greed, I call the great flood.
Longing, I call the current.
Mental fixation, fabrication —
the swamp of sensuality, hard to cross.
Not swerving from the truth, the sage —
the brahmin stands on solid ground.
Having relinquished everything,
they are truly called "at peace."
They are truly learned, they truly know.
Having known the way, independent —
moving rightly in the world,
they long for no one here.
Whoever here has crossed sensuality,
the tangle in the world hard to cross —
they don't grieve, don't hope.
The stream cut, unbound.
Let what came before wither away.
Want nothing in what comes after.
If in the middle you don't grasp,
you will walk at peace.
For one who has no "mine"
at all in name-and-form,
who doesn't grieve over what isn't,
they don't waste away in the world.
For one who has no "this is mine,"
nor anything "belonging to others" —
finding no "mine,"
they don't grieve "I have nothing."
Not cruel, not greedy,
unshaken, even toward all —
this is what I tell them,
when they ask: who is the unwavering sage?
For the unshaken one who knows,
there is nothing more to do.
Restrained from instigation,
they see safety everywhere.
Not as equal, not as lesser,
not as better — the sage speaks.
At peace, free of possessiveness,
they neither take up nor reject.