The Chapter of Eights

Objects, Desires and Pleasures

If one with a desiring mind
Succeeds in gaining sensual pleasure,
A mortal such is pleased in mind
With wishes all fulfilled.

But if from this person passionate
all of these pleasures disappear,
then does this pleasure-addict feel,
as though by arrows pierced.

The one who shuns these pleasures of sense,
like treading not on a serpent’s head,
such a one with mindfulness
this tangled world transcends.

Obsessed with fields and property,
with money, estates and those employed,
with many pleasures, women and kin,
such a person greedily—

Do weaknesses bring down indeed,
by dangers is that person crushed,
and then by dukkhas stuck against—
as water into broken boat.

So let a mindful one avoid
at every turn these sense-desires,
with them abandoned, cross the flood,
as boat is baled for the Further Shore.

- Translator: Laurence Khantipalo Mills

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Sensual Pleasures

If a mortal desires sensual pleasure
and their desire succeeds,
they definitely become elated,
having got what they want.
But for that person in the throes of pleasure,
aroused by desire,
if those pleasures fade,
it hurts like an arrow’s strike.
One who, being mindful,
avoids sensual pleasures
like side-stepping a snake’s head,
transcends attachment to the world.
There are many objects of sensual desire:
fields, lands, and gold; cattle and horses;
slaves and servants; women and relatives.
When a man lusts over these,
the weak overpower him
and adversities crush him.
Suffering follows him
like water in a leaky boat.
That’s why a person, ever mindful,
should avoid sensual pleasures.
Give them up and cross the flood,
as a bailed-out boat reaches the far shore.