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Heedfulness Is the Path to the Deathless

Dhp 21-32, the Appamādavagga — set 2, The Basic Diagnosis and the Path

Reading time: about 2 min · 303 words

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Before you read

This page is a short chapter of verses from the Dhammapada, the best-known collection of the Buddha's sayings. All twelve verses are about one quality: heedfulness.

Heedfulness means not drifting. It is the quality of someone who stays awake to what they are doing, keeps making the effort, and comes back when attention slips. Its opposite, heedlessness, is simply letting things slide.

The first verse makes the whole claim at once: heedfulness is the path to the deathless, and heedlessness is the path to death. The rest show what that looks like: a person building an island no flood can reach, a fire burning up its fetters, someone on a mountain looking out over the plain.

The numbers beside the verses are the Dhammapada's own verse numbers, so you can find any verse in other translations. Maghavā, in verse 30, is a name of Sakka, the chief of the devas.

Translation

Verses

21Heedfulness is the path to the deathless; heedlessness is the path to death. The heedful do not die; the heedless are as if already dead.

22Knowing this difference clearly, the wise, established in heedfulness, rejoice in heedfulness, delighting in the range of the noble ones.

23Those who practice the mental themes, persevering, always firm in their effort, the steadfast touch nibbāna, the unsurpassed security from the yoke.

24For someone who is energetic and remembers, whose actions are clean, who acts with care, who is restrained, living by the Dhamma, and heedful, fame grows.

25By effort and heedfulness, by restraint and self-control, the intelligent should make an island that no flood can overwhelm.

26Fools, people of poor understanding, give themselves to heedlessness; the intelligent guard heedfulness as their greatest treasure.

27Do not give yourselves to heedlessness, nor to intimacy with sensual delight. Whoever is heedful and practices the mental themes reaches abundant satisfaction.

28When the wise drive out heedlessness by heedfulness, they climb the tower of discernment, and free of sorrow, they look out over a sorrowing people, as one standing on a mountain looks out over those on the plain: the steadfast look out over fools.

29Heedful among the heedless, wide awake among those asleep, the person of good understanding goes on ahead, as a swift horse leaves a weak one behind.

30By heedfulness Maghavā rose to be chief of the devas. Heedfulness is praised; heedlessness is always blamed.

31A bhikkhu who delights in heedfulness, or who sees fear in heedlessness, goes on like a fire, burning up every fetter, fine or coarse.

32A bhikkhu who delights in heedfulness, or who sees fear in heedlessness, cannot fall away: they are close to nibbāna.

The second chapter, on heedfulness, is finished.

Words used in this translation (10)
bhikkhu
A Buddhist monk -- someone who has left household life to practise full time. Left untranslated because "monk" carries centuries of unrelated European associations.
deathless
A name for nibbāna: what does not die, because it was never born.
Dhamma
The Buddha's teaching taken as a whole -- both what he taught and the way things actually are, which the teaching describes.
flood
A force that overwhelms a person and carries them along unless they cross it. SN 1.1 leaves the image open; it does not define it as one specific mental state.
heedful
Living with heedfulness: awake to what you are doing and keeping up the effort.
heedfulness
This project's rendering of "appamāda" -- staying awake to what you are doing, keeping up the effort, and coming back when attention slips. Often translated "diligence" or "vigilance."
heedlessness
The opposite of heedfulness: drifting, letting things slide, not noticing what the mind is doing.
knowing
This project's rendering of "viññāṇa" (often translated "consciousness") -- bare awareness of an object through one of the senses or the mind.
nibbāna
The end of greed, hatred, and confusion -- the traditional goal of Buddhist practice. Left untranslated because no single English word covers it; "quenching" is the closest one-word gloss.
security from the yoke
A name for nibbāna: safety from the yokes of sensuality, becoming, views, and ignorance that bind a person to further becoming.
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