Everyone trembles at punishment; everyone fears death.
Likening others to oneself,
one should neither kill nor cause killing.

Everyone trembles at punishment; everyone loves life.
Likening others to oneself,
one should neither kill nor cause killing.

Whoever seeking one's own happiness
inflicts pain on others who also want happiness
will not find happiness after death.

Whoever seeking one's own happiness
does not inflict pain on others who also want happiness
will find happiness after death.

Do not speak anything harsh.
Those who are spoken to will answer you.
Angry talk is painful, and retaliation will touch you.
If you make yourself as still as a broken gong,
you have attained nirvana, for anger is not known to you.

Just as a cowherd with a staff
drives the cows into the pasture,
so old age and death drive the life of living beings.

A fool committing wrong actions does not know
that the stupid person burns through one's own deeds,
like one burned by fire.

Whoever inflicts punishment
on those who do not deserve it
and offends against those who are without offense
soon comes to one of these ten states:
cruel suffering, infirmity, injury of the body, fearful pain,
or mental loss, or persecution from the ruler,
or a fearful accusation, loss of relations,
or destruction of possessions,
or lightning fire burning one's houses,
and when one's body is destroyed the fool goes to hell.

Neither nakedness nor matted hair nor mud
nor fasting nor lying on the ground
nor rubbing with dust nor sitting motionless
purify a mortal who is not free from doubt and desire.

Whoever though dressed in fine clothes, lives peacefully,
is calm, controlled, restrained, pure,
and does not hurt any other beings,
that one is holy, an ascetic, a mendicant.

Is there in the world anyone
who is so restrained by modesty
that they avoid blame like a trained horse avoids the whip?
Like a trained horse when touched by a whip,
be strenuous and eager, and by faith, by virtue, by energy,
by meditation, by discernment of the truth
you will overcome this great sorrow,
perfected in knowledge, behaviour, and mindfulness.

Engineers of canals guide the water;
fletchers make the arrow straight;
carpenters shape the wood;
good people mould themselves.