The Buddha's words on everyday life – 40 Dhammapada verses

Intention is the leader of things; intention is first, they’re made by intention. If with pure intent you speak or act, happiness follows you like a shadow that never leaves.

Just as rain doesn’t seep into a well roofed house, lust doesn’t seep into a well developed mind.

Hard to hold back, flighty, alighting where it will; it’s good to tame the mind; a tamed mind leads to bliss.

A rightly directed mind would do you more good than your mother or father or any other relative.

“They abused me, they hit me! They beat me, they robbed me!” For those who bear no such grudge, hatred is laid to rest.

For never is hatred laid to rest by hate, it’s laid to rest by love: this is an ancient teaching.

When anger surges like a lurching chariot, keep it in check. That’s what I call a charioteer; others just hold the reins.

Defeat anger with kindness, villainy with virtue, stinginess with giving, and lies with truth.

Just like a glorious flower that’s both colorful and fragrant, eloquent speech is fruitful for one who acts on it.

Don’t speak harshly, they may speak harshly back. For aggressive speech is painful, and the rod may spring back on you.

It’s always been this way, Atula, it’s not just today. They blame you when you’re silent, they blame you when you speak a lot, and even when you speak just right: no one in the world escapes blame.

The words they utter are polished, informative, and true, and don’t offend anyone: that’s who I declare a brahmin.

“Sons are mine, wealth is mine”—thus the fool frets. For even your self is not your own, let alone your sons or wealth.

Even if it were raining money, you’d not be sated in sensual pleasures. An astute person understands that sensual pleasures offer little gratification and much suffering.

Sorrow springs from craving, fear springs from craving; one free from craving has no sorrow, let alone fear.

But whoever prevails over this wretched craving, so hard to get over in the world, their sorrows fall from them, like a drop from a lotus-leaf.

Their mind is peaceful, peaceful are their speech and deeds. Such a one is at peace, rightly freed through enlightenment.

Happy, the arising of Buddhas! Happy, the teaching of Dhamma! Happy is the harmony of the Saṅgha, and the striving of the harmonious is happy.

Victory breeds enmity; the defeated sleep badly. The peaceful sleep at ease, having left victory and defeat behind.

Health is the ultimate blessing; contentment, the ultimate wealth; trust is the ultimate family; extinguishment, the ultimate happiness.

All too soon this body will lie upon the earth, bereft of consciousness, tossed aside like a worthless log.

Knowing this body’s like foam, realizing it’s all just a mirage, and cutting off Māra’s blossoming, vanish from the King of Death.

Fancy chariots of kings wear out, and even this body gets old. But the truth of the good never gets old—so the good proclaim to the good.

All conditions are impermanent—when this is seen with wisdom, one grows disillusioned with suffering: this is the path to purity.

Not to do any evil; to embrace the good; to purify one’s mind: this is the instruction of the Buddhas.

If you do something good, do it again and again, set your heart on it, for piling up goodness is joyful.

Think not lightly of evil, that it won’t come back to you. The pot is filled with water falling drop by drop; the fool is filled with wickedness piled up bit by bit.

Think not lightly of goodness, that it won’t come back to you. The pot is filled with water falling drop by drop; the attentive one is filled with goodness piled up bit by bit.

In this world it’s a blessing to serve one’s mother and one’s father. And it’s a blessing also to serve ascetics and brahmins.

Don’t mix with bad friends, nor with the worst of men. Mix with spiritual friends, and with the best of men.

If while wandering you find no partner equal or better than yourself, then firmly resolve to wander alone—there’s no fellowship with fools.

It’s hard to find a thoroughbred man: they’re not born just anywhere. A family where that attentive one is born prospers in happiness.

As the wind cannot stir a solid mass of rock, so too blame and praise do not affect the wise.

By hard work and diligence, by restraint and by self-control, a smart person would build an island that the floods cannot overflow.

One is indeed the lord of oneself, for who else would be one’s lord? By means of a well-tamed self, one gains a lord that’s rare indeed.

For it is by oneself that evil’s done, one is corrupted by oneself. It’s by oneself that evil’s not done, one is purified by oneself. Purity and impurity are personal matters, no one can purify another.

While irrigators guide water, fletchers bend arrows straight, and carpenters bend timber straight, the astute tame themselves.

A smart person would purge their own stains gradually, bit by bit, moment by moment, like a smith smelting silver.

He who once was heedless, but turned to heedfulness, shines upon this world like the moon freed from clouds.

Heedful among the heedless, wide awake while others sleep—a true sage leaves them behind, like a swift horse passing a feeble.