Raṭṭhapāla Sutta - Worldly Delusions [English]

This video can be used as a meditation-aid, a memorization tool, or can be contemplated. It is primarily to help develop dispassion for worldly goals and inspire those, who can hear its message, to pursue the reclusive life. Contemplating this attacks the 4th fetter, kama-raga.

Rattaphala Sutta — Translated by Bhikkhu Bodhi
https://suttacentral.net/mn82/en/bodhi

I see men wealthy in the world, who yet
From ignorance give not their gathered wealth.
Greedily they hoard away their riches
Longing still for further sensual pleasures.

A king who has conquered the earth by force
And rules over the land the ocean bounds
Is yet unsated with the sea’s near shore
And hungers for its further shore as well.
Most other people too, not just a king,
Encounter death with craving unabated;
With plans still incomplete they leave the corpse;
Desires remain unsated in the world.

His relatives lament and rend their hair,
Crying, ‘Ah me! Alas! Our love is dead!’
They bear away the body wrapped in shrouds
To place it on a pyre and burn it there.

Clad in a shroud, he leaves his wealth behind,
Prodded with stakes he burns upon the pyre.
And as he dies, no relatives or friends
Can offer him shelter and refuge here.

While his heirs take over his wealth, this being
Must pass on according to his actions;
And as he dies nothing can follow him;
Not child nor wife nor wealth nor royal estate.

Longevity is not acquired with wealth
Nor can prosperity banish old age;
Short is this life, as all the sages say,
Eternity it knows not, only change.
The rich and poor alike shall feel Death’s touch,
The fool and sage as well shall feel it too;
But while the fool lies stricken by his folly,
No sage will ever tremble at the touch.

Better is wisdom here than any wealth,
Since by wisdom one gains the final goal.
For people through ignorance do evil deeds
While failing to reach the goal from life to life.

As one goes to the womb and the next world,
Renewing the successive round of births,
Another of little wisdom, trusting him,
Goes also to the womb and the next world.
Just as a robber caught in burglary
Is made to suffer for his evil deed,
So people after death, in the next world,
Are made to suffer for their evil deeds.

Sensual pleasures, varied, sweet, delightful,
In many different ways disturb the mind:
Seeing the danger in these sensual ties
I chose to lead the homeless life, O King.

As fruits fall from the tree, so people too,
Both young and old, fall when this body breaks.
Seeing this too, O King, I have gone forth:
Better is the recluse’s life assured.

Видео Raṭṭhapāla Sutta - Worldly Delusions [English] канала john lescano