Thag 14:1  Revata’s Farewell

Since I went forth

from home into homelessness,

I haven’t known

an ignoble, aversive resolve.

“May these beings

be destroyed,

be slaughtered,

fall into pain”—

I’ve not known this resolve

in this long, long time.

But I have known goodwill,

unlimited,

fully developed,

nurtured step after step,

as taught by the One

Awake:

to all, a friend;

to all, a comrade;

for all beings, sympathetic.1

And I develop a mind of goodwill,

delighting in non-malevolence

—always.

Unvanquished, unshaken,

I gladden the mind.

I develop the sublime abiding,

not frequented by

the lowly.

Attaining no-thinking,

the disciple of the Rightly

Self-awakened One

is endowed with noble silence2

straightaway.

As a mountain of rock

is unmoving,

firmly established,

so a monk,

with the ending of delusion,

like a mountain,

doesn’t quake.

To a person without blemish,

in constant quest of what’s pure,

a hair-tip of evil

seems a storm cloud.

As a frontier fortress is guarded

within & without,

you should safeguard yourselves.

Don’t let the moment

pass you by.

I don’t delight in death,

don’t delight in living.

I await my time

like a worker his wage.

I don’t delight in death,

don’t delight in living.

I await my time,

mindful, alert.

The Teacher has been served by me;

the Awakened One’s bidding,

done;

the heavy load,       laid down;

the guide to becoming,   uprooted.

And the goal for which I went forth

from home life into homelessness

I’ve reached:

the end

of all fetters.

Attain consummation

through heedfulness:

That is my message.

So then, I’m about to

unbind.

I’m released

everywhere.3

Notes

1. On the development of goodwill as an unlimited attitude, see MN 21 and SN 42:8.

2. Noble silence = the second jhāna.

3. AN 3:77 and AN 3:78 use the analogy of a field to describe becoming, in which kamma is the field, craving the moisture, and consciousness the seed. The logic of the analogy suggests that if consciousness is not watered by craving, and does not land in any place (see SN 12:64), it is like a seed without moisture or a field. Therefore it will not sprout into further becoming. Poems in the Canon often describe the arahant as being “everywhere released” (sabbattha vimutto—see Dhp 348) or “everywhere independent” (sabbattha anissito—see Sn 4:6), referring indirectly to this analogy. Translators, lacking a sense of the underlying image of the idiom, have tended to render it in more prosaic terms: “completely released in every respect,” “not dependent on anything,” “released from everything.” However, in light of the field analogy, the idiom means precisely what it says: The arahant is released from every possible “where,” whether fabricated or not—every possible spot for renewed becoming.