Before the Body Breaks

"Seeing how, behaving how

is one called at peace?

Tell me, Gotama,

about the supreme person."

"Rid of craving before the body breaks,"

*(said the Buddha,)*

"not leaning on the past,

not fixed in the present,

favoring nothing ahead.

Not angry, not afraid,

no boasting, no regret,

they speak with care, settled —

a sage of guarded speech.

Not pulled toward the future,

not grieving the past,

alone amid the senses,

not led around by views.

Withdrawn, honest,

not envious, not possessive,

not pushy, not off-putting,

not given to slander.

Not swept up in pleasures,

not arrogant,

gentle and quick in speech,

neither longing nor cooling off.

Not training for gain,

not fuming at loss,

not turned hostile by cravings,

not chasing after flavors.

Even-minded, always mindful,

not measuring themselves

as equal, lesser, or better —

they have no pretensions.

They have nothing to lean on.

Knowing the way, they lean on nothing.

With no craving in them

for existence or for its end —

this is the one I call at peace,

done with sensual pleasures.

No knots in them at all —

they've crossed the stickiness.

No sons, no cattle,

no field, no land —

nothing is taken up, nothing put down,

none of that found in them.

Whatever ordinary folk

or ascetics and brahmins say of them —

they favor none of it.

So they're not moved by talk.

Free of greed, not possessive,

the sage doesn't claim to be

above, equal, or below.

They make nothing up — and there's nothing made up about them.

Whoever has nothing of their own in the world,

doesn't grieve for what isn't,

doesn't drift among teachings —

this is who's called at peace."