The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha - Bhikkhu Nanamoli [330]
“What do you think, great king? You now [71] enjoy yourself provided and endowed with the five cords of sensual pleasure, but will you be able to have it of the life to come: ‘Let me likewise enjoy myself provided and endowed with these same five cords of sensual pleasure’? Or will others take over this property, while you will have to pass on according to your actions?”
“I cannot have it thus of the life to come, Master Raṭṭhapāla. On the contrary, others will take over this property while I shall have to pass on according to my actions.”
“Great king, it was on account of this that the Blessed One who knows and sees, accomplished and fully enlightened, said: ‘[Life in] any world has nothing of its own; one has to leave all and pass on’; and when I knew and saw and heard this, I went forth from the home life into homelessness.”
“It is wonderful, Master Raṭṭhapāla, it is marvellous how well that has been expressed by the Blessed One who knows and sees, accomplished and fully enlightened: ‘[Life in] any world has nothing of its own; one has to leave all and pass on.’ It is indeed so!
41. “Now Master Raṭṭhapāla said: ‘[Life in] any world is incomplete, insatiate, the slave of craving.’ How should the meaning of that statement be understood?”
“What do you think, great king? Do you reign over the rich Kuru country?”
“Yes, Master Raṭṭhapāla, I do.”
“What do you think, great king? Suppose a trustworthy and reliable man came to you from the east and said: ‘Please know, great king, that I have come from the east, and there I saw a large country, powerful and rich, very populous and crowded with people. There are plenty of elephant troops there, plenty of cavalry, chariot troops and infantry; there is plenty of ivory there, and plenty of gold coins and bullion both unworked and worked, and plenty of women for wives. With your present forces you can conquer it. Conquer it then, great king.’ What would you do?” [72]
“We would conquer it and reign over it, Master Raṭṭhapāla.”
“What do you think, great king? Suppose a trustworthy and reliable man came to you from the west…from the north…from the south…from across the sea and said: ‘Please know, great king, that I have come from across the sea, and there I saw a large country, powerful and rich…Conquer it then, great king.’ What would you do?”
“We would conquer it too and reign over it, Master Raṭṭhapāla.”
“Great king, it was on account of this that the Blessed One who knows and sees, accomplished and fully enlightened, said: ‘[Life in] any world is incomplete, insatiate, the slave of craving’; and when I knew and saw and heard this, I went forth from the home life into homelessness.”
“It is wonderful, Master Raṭṭhapāla, it is marvellous how well that has been expressed by the Blessed One who knows and sees, accomplished and fully enlightened: ‘[Life in] any world is incomplete, insatiate, the slave of craving.’ It is indeed so!”
42. That is what the venerable Raṭṭhapāla said. And having said that he said further:
“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. [73]
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