thig.5.8 Therigatha

Sona: Mother of Ten

Ten children I bore
from this physical heap.
Then weak from that, aged,
I went to a nun.

She taught me the Dhamma:
aggregates, sense spheres, & elements.
Hearing her Dhamma,
I cut off my hair & ordained.

Having purified the divine eye
while still a probationer,
I know my previous lives,
where I lived in the past.

I develop the theme-less meditation,
well-focused oneness.
I gain the liberation of immediacy —
from lack of clinging, unbound.

The five aggregates, comprehended,
stand like a tree with its root cut through.
I spit on old age.
There is now no further becoming.

- Translator: Thanissaro Bhikkhu

- Editor: Ayya Kathrin Vimalañāṇī

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Soṇā

I gave birth to ten sons
in this form, this bag of bones.
Then, when feeble and old,
I approached a nun.
She taught me the Dhamma:
the aggregates, sense fields, and elements.
When I heard her teaching,
I shaved off my hair and went forth.
When I was a trainee nun,
my clairvoyance was clarified,
and I knew my past lives,
the places I used to live.
I meditate on the signless,
my mind unified and serene.
I achieved the immediate liberation,
extinguished by not grasping.
The five aggregates are fully understood;
they remain, but their root is cut.
Curse you, wretched old age!
now there’ll be no more future lives.