← English library

SN 1.17 — Dukkara.m (Kummo) Sutta: Difficult

translated from the Pāli by Maurice O'Connell Walshe

...the deva spoke this verse...:

Hard it is to keep, and hard to bear, Recluse-life for him who lacks the skill. Obstacles abound, the fool is lost. How long can he endure the holy life, If he cannot hold his heart in check? Caught now here, now there, he stumbles, falls,

[The Blessed One replied:]

As the tortoise draws into his shell Each limb, the monk, withdrawn, with mind applied, Unattached, and doing harm to none, Passions wholly stilled, dwells blaming none.[1]

Notes

1.
Cf. Bhagavadgiitaa ii, 58: "He who withdraws his senses on all sides from sense-objects as the tortoise draws in his limbs, is firmly established in wisdom." The same image occurs in SN 35.199.
Copyright © 1985 Buddhist Publication Society. The text of this page (“Dukkara.m (Kummo) Sutta: Difficult”, by Maurice O'Connell Walshe) is licensed under a Buddhist Publication Society free-distribution licence. From Access to Insight (BCBS Edition), 30 November 2013. You may copy, reformat, reprint, republish, and redistribute this work in any medium whatsoever, provided that: (1) you only make such copies, etc. available free of charge and, in the case of reprinting, only in quantities of no more than 50 copies; (2) you clearly indicate that any derivatives of this work (including translations) are derived from this source document; and (3) you include the full text of this license in any copies or derivatives of this work. Otherwise, all rights reserved. This presentation is a derivative of that source document: it has been restyled and its links rewritten. The translation itself is unaltered.