[387] 3.
For long indeed, ardent (ātāpī), pondering over the Dhamma,
I gained no peace of mind;
so I asked ascetics and brahmins:
"Who is he in the world who has gone to the far shore?
Who has attained the plunge into the Deathless (amata)?
Whose Dhamma shall I accept,
the Dhamma that gives knowledge of the highest goal (paramattha)?
I had taken the hook inside me,
like a fish that swallows the bait;
I was bound with the snare of Mahinda,
like the asura Vepacitti.
I tug at it, but I am not set loose
from this sorrow and lamentation (soka-pariddava).
Who in the world will loosen my bond
and make enlightenment (sambodhi) known to me?
What ascetic or what brahmin [shall I take]
as one who points out the perishable?
Whose Dhamma shall I accept,
the Dhamma that bears away aging and death?"
Bound up with doubt (vicikicchā) and uncertainty,
conjoined with the strength of contentiousness (sārambha),
rigid in mind through the onset of anger,
with the rending of covetous longing (abhijappā),
arisen from the bow of craving (taṇhā),
fitted with the two and the fifteen —
behold how, having cleft the breast,
it stands lodged fast within!
The failure to abandon speculative views (anudiṭṭhi),
whetted by the arrow of intention —
pierced by that I tremble,
like a leaf stirred by the breeze.
Arising from within me,
the evil swiftly falls back upon me;
the body with its six bases of contact (phassāyatana)
is that wherein it ever courses.
I do not see that physician
who might draw out this dart of mine —
this doubt — neither with any of the various knives,
nor with anything else.
Who, without knife, without [opening] a wound,
without harming any of my limbs,
will draw out for me the dart
that lies lodged deep within?
For he, the lord of the Dhamma, is supreme,
he who washes away the taint of poison;
to me, fallen into the deep,
may he show dry land, as with a [helping] hand.
I am plunged into a lake
wherein the dust can never be cleared away,
a lake overspread with deceit, envy, contentiousness,
and dullness and drowsiness (thīna-middha).
Amid the thundering of the cloud of restlessness (uddhacca),
amid the storm-cloud of the fetters (saṃyojana),
torrents — intentions dependent on lust —
sweep the man of wrong view away.
The streams flow everywhere;
the creeper, having sprung up, stands fast.
Who will hold back those streams?
Who will cut that creeper away?
Venerable sirs, build an embankment,
a barrier to hold back the streams!
Let not the mind-made stream
fell you of a sudden, as [a torrent fells] a tree.
Thus, for me who was filled with fear,
seeking the far shore from this shore,
the Teacher, whose weapon is wisdom,
attended by throngs of seers, was my shelter.
As I was being swept away, he gave me
a stairway, well wrought, pure,
made of the heartwood of the Dhamma, firm;
and he said to me: "Do not fear."
Having climbed to the tower of the establishment of mindfulness (satipaṭṭhāna),
I surveyed the people
delighting in personal identity (sakkāya) —
that which formerly I had conceived [to be real].
And when I saw the path (magga) —
the boarding of the ship —
not taking my stand upon self,
I saw the supreme landing-place.
The dart that arises from oneself,
brought into being by the conduit to existence (bhavanetti) —
for the non-occurrence of these
he taught the supreme path.
Long latent within me,
long settled there —
the Buddha dispelled from me the tie (gantha),
he who washes away the taint of poison.
Telukāni the Elder.
English translation from the Pali (Siam Raṭṭha edition) — under review, not for citation.