[103] Standing to one side, a certain devatā recited this verse in the presence of the Blessed One:
"No sensual pleasures (kāmā) among humans are permanent;
here there are only desirable things, to which a man is bound;
heedless in their midst, he does not come
from the realm of Death (maccudheyya) to the state of no-more-returning."
"Misery (agha) is born of desire (chanda); suffering (dukkha) is born of desire;
with the removal of desire comes the removal of misery;
with the removal of misery comes the removal of suffering."
"They are not sensual pleasures, the pretty things in the world:
lustful intention (saṅkapparāga) is a man's sensual pleasure.
The pretty things remain just as they are in the world,
but the wise here remove desire for them.
One should abandon anger, should discard conceit (māna),
should transcend every fetter (saññojana);
no sufferings befall him who clings not
to name-and-form (nāmarūpa), who has nothing at all.
He abandoned reckoning (saṅkhā), came not to conceit;
he cut off craving (taṇhā) here in name-and-form:
him — the knots severed, untroubled, without longing —
devas and humans, though they searched, did not find,
whether here or beyond,
in the heavens or in all abodes."
[Variant readings noted in the Siam edition: (1) at "heedless in their midst" (v. 1), Sī. reads "yesu ca baddho supamatto"; (2) at "the pretty things" (v. 3), Sī. reads "kāmāni citrāni."]
English translation from the Pali (Siam Raṭṭha edition) — under review, not for citation.