When I lived in a house 

"When I lived in a house

I heard a monk's words

and saw in those words

nirvana

the unchanging state.

I am the one

who left son and daughter,

money and grain,

cut off my hair

and set out into homelessness.

Under training 

on the straight way,

desire and hatred fell away,

along with the obsessions

of the mind

that combine with them.

After my ordination,

I remembered 

I had been born before.

The eye of heaven became clear.

The elements fo body and mind

I saw as other,

born from a cause,

subject to decay.

I have given up the obsessions

of the mind.

I am quenched and cool."

Sakula (6th-5th Centuries BCE?)

(translated by Susan Murcott)

Voices of Light

1999, edited by Aliki Barnstone

Shambhala Publications, Inc.