How is it possible that my husband detests me?
]]>Karotha buddhasāsanaṁ
Do what the Buddha taught…
A poem which humbly and brilliantly summarizes the Buddhist path at all its various levels.
]]>When one’s ferverous nature has been laid down…
]]>Vaḍḍha, do not get caught
in the endless thicket of the world…
I was a householder
when I heard the Dhamma…
How does being a woman have anything to do
with a well-collected mind?
Why do you live as if lost?
]]>I used to pay homage to constellations,
worshiping fire in the forest…
I wandered here and there,
jealous…
to the Buddha, Dhamma, & Saṅgha I go…
]]>Though I’m skinny,
sick, and feeble…
… right by my child’s half-eaten flesh.
]]>What is so dear to you about contemplatives?
The story of Rohinī’s conversion.
]]>now old, it has become like hemp bark—
the word of the truthful one is confirmed.
A guided meditation on the aging body.
]]>… feeble, leaning on a staff.
]]>Your passion has been appeased
like a dry vegetable in a pot.
… all fixation is annihilated,
and the mass of darkness destroyed.
Nandā, see this bag of bones…
]]>I became profoundly dispassionate
towards all sensual pleasures.
Seeing fear in identity,
I longed for renunciation.
No life is eternal, not even that of the gods;
what then of sensual pleasures so hollow…
The Princess Sumedhā pulls out all the stops to convince her family to let her ordain, showing off her impressive knowledge of the Buddha’s teachings.
]]>I am not lazy nor conceited,
so why have I not attained Nirvana?
This beautiful poem elegantly captures the stages of the path in subtle prose.
]]>For twenty-five years,
since I had gone forth,
I had not experienced serenity…
relying on my youth,
I despised anyone who was not my equal…
A former courtesan roars her lion’s roar.
]]>Guttā, why did you go forth?
]]>All suffering is fully understood,
craving, its cause, has been made to wither…