The Fourth Truth is The Way. It openeth wide,Plain for all feet to tread, easy and near,The Noble Eightfold Path; it goeth straightTo peace and refuge. Hear!Manifold tracks lead to yon sister-peaksAround whose snows the gilded clouds are curledBy steep or gentle slopes the climber comesWhere breaks that other world.Strong limbs may dare the rugged road which storms,Soaring and perilous, the mountain's breast;The weak must wind from slower ledge to ledgeWith many a place of rest.So is the Eightfold Path which brings to peace;By lower or by upper heights it goes.The firm soul hastes, the feeble tarries. AllWill reach the sunlit snows.The First good Level is Right Doctrine.Walk In fear of Dharma, shunning all offence;In heed of Karma, which doth make man's fate;In lordship over sense.The Second is Right Purpose. Have good-willTo all that lives, letting unkindness dieAnd greed and wrath; so that your lives be madeLike soft airs passing by.The Third is Right Discourse. Govern the lipsAs they were palace-doors, the King within;Tranquil and fair and courteous be all wordsWhich from that presence win.The Fourth is Right Behavior. Let each actAssoil a fault or help a merit grow;Like threads of silver seen through crystal beadsLet love through good deeds show.Four higher roadways be. Only those feetMay tread them which have done with earthly things—Right Purity, Right Thought, Right Loneliness,Right Rapture. Spread no wingsFor sunward flight, thou soul with unplumed vansSweet is the lower air and safe, and knownThe homely levels: only strong ones leaveThe nest each makes his own.Dear is the love, I know, of Wife and Child;Pleasant the friends and pastimes of your years;Fruitful of good Life's gentle charities;False, though firm-set, its fears.Live—ye who must—such lives as live on these;Make golden stair-ways of your weakness; riseBy daily sojourn with those phantasiesTo lovelier verities.So shall ye pass to clearer heights and findEasier ascents and lighter loads of sins,And larger will to burst the bonds of sense,Entering the Path. Who winsTo such commencement hath the First Stage touched;He knows the Noble Truths, the Eightfold Road;By few or many steps such shall attainNIRVANA's blest abode.Who standeth at the Second Stage, made freeFrom doubts, delusions, and the inward strife,Lord of all lusts, quit of the priests and books,Shall live but one more life.Yet onward lies the Third Stage: purged and pureHath grown the stately spirit here, hath risenTo love all living things in perfect peace.His life at end, life's prisonIs broken. Nay, there are who surely passLiving and visible to utmost goalBy Fourth Stage of the Holy ones—the Buddhs—And they of stainless soul.Lo! like fierce foes slain by some warrior,Ten sins along these Stages lie in dust,The Love of Self, False Faith, and Doubt are three,Two more, Hatred and Lust.Who of these Five is conqueror hath trodThree stages out of Four: yet there abideThe Love of Life on earth, Desire for Heaven,Self-Praise, Error, and Pride.As one who stands on yonder snowy hornHaving nought o'er him but the boundless blue,So, these sins being slain, the man is comeNIRVANA's verge unto.Him the Gods envy from their lower seats;Him the Three Worlds in ruin should not shake;All life is lived for him, all deaths are dead;Karma will no more makeNew houses. Seeking nothing, he gains all;Foregoing self, the Universe grows "I":If any teach NIRVANA is to cease,Say unto such they lie.If any teach NIRVANA is to live,Say unto such they err; not knowing this,Nor what light shines beyond their broken lamps,Nor lifeless, timeless bliss.Enter the Path! There is no grief like Hate!No pains like passions, no deceit like sense!Enter the Path! far hath he gone whose footTreads down one fond offence.Enter the Path! There spring the healing streamsQuenching all thirst! there bloom th' immortal flowersCarpeting all the way with joy! there throng,Swiftest and sweetest hours!
More is the treasure of the Law than gems;Sweeter than comb its sweetness; its delightsDelightful past compare. Thereby to liveHear the Five Rules aright:—Kill not—for Pity's sake—and lest ye slayThe meanest thing upon its upward way.Give freely and receive, but take from noneBy greed, or force, or fraud, what is his own.Bear not false witness, slander not, nor lie;Truth is the speech of inward purity.Shun drugs and drinks which work the wit abuse;Clear minds, clean bodies, need no soma juice.Touch not thy neighbour's wife, neither commitSins of the flesh unlawful and unfit.These words the Master spake of duties dueTo father, mother, children, fellows, friends;Teaching how such as may not swiftly breakThe clinging chains of sense—whose feet are weakTo tread the higher road—should order soThis life of flesh that all their hither daysPass blameless in discharge of charitiesAnd first true footfalls in the Eightfold Path;Living pure, reverent, patient, pitiful,Loving all things which live even as themselves;Because what falls for ill is fruit of illWrought in the past, and what falls well of good;And that by howsomuch the householderPurgeth himself of self and helps the world,By so much happier comes he to next stage,In so much bettered being. This he spake,As also long before, when our Lord walkedBy Rajagriha in the Bamboo-GroveFor on a dawn he walked there and beheldThe householder Singala, newly bathed,Bowing himself with bare head to the earth,To Heaven, and all four quarters; while he threwRice, red and white, from both hands. "Wherefore thusBowest thou, Brother?" said the Lord; and he,"It is the way, Great Sir! our fathers taughtAt every dawn, before the toil begins,To hold off evil from the sky aboveAnd earth beneath, and all the winds which blow."Then the World-honoured spake: "Scatter not rice,But offer loving thoughts and acts to all.To parents as the East where rises light;To teachers as the South whence rich gifts come;To wife and children as the West where gleamColours of love and calm, and all days end;To friends and kinsmen and all men as North;To humblest living things beneath, to SaintsAnd Angels and the blessed Dead aboveSo shall all evil be shut off, and soThe six main quarters will be safely kept."But to his own, them of the yellow robeThey who, as wakened eagles, soar with scornFrom life's low vale, and wing towards the SunTo these he taught the Ten ObservancesThe Dasa-Sil, and how a mendicantMust know the Three Doors and the Triple Thoughts;The Sixfold States of Mind; the Fivefold Powers;The Eight High Gates of Purity; the ModesOf Understanding; Iddhi; Upeksha;The Five Great Meditations, which are foodSweeter than Amrit for the holy soul;The Jhana's and the Three Chief Refuges.Also he taught his own how they should dwell;How live, free from the snares of love and wealth;What eat and drink and carry—three plain cloths,Yellow, of stitched stuff, worn with shoulder bareA girdle, almsbowl, strainer. Thus he laidThe great foundations of our Sangha well,That noble Order of the Yellow RobeWhich to this day standeth to help the World.So all that night he spake, teaching the LawAnd on no eyes fell sleep—for they who heardRejoiced with tireless joy. Also the King,When this was finished, rose upon his throneAnd with bared feet bowed low before his SonKissing his hem; and said, "Take me, O Son!Lowest and least of all thy Company."And sweet Yasodhara, all happy now,—Cried "Give to Rahula—thou Blessed One!The Treasure of the Kingdom of thy WordFor his inheritance." Thus passed these ThreeInto the Path.——————Here endeth what I writeWho love the Master for his love of us,A little knowing, little have I toldTouching the Teacher and the Ways of Peace.Forty-five rains thereafter showed he thoseIn many lands and many tongues and gaveOur Asia light, that still is beautiful,Conquering the world with spirit of strong graceAll which is written in the holy Books,And where he passed and what proud EmperorsCarved his sweet words upon the rocks and caves:And how—in fulness of the times—it fellThe Buddha died, the great Tathagato,Even as a man 'mongst men, fulfilling allAnd how a thousand thousand crores since thenHave trod the Path which leads whither he wentUnto NIRVANA where the Silence lives.Ah! Blessed Lord! Oh, High Deliverer!Forgive this feeble script, which doth thee wrong.Measuring with little wit thy lofty love.Ah! Lover! Brother! Guide! Lamp of the law!I take my refuge in they name and thee!I take my refuge in they order! OM!The dew is on the lotus!—Rise, Great Sun!And lift my leaf and mix me with the wave.Om Mani Padme Hum, the sunrise comes!The Dewdrop Slips Into The Shining Sea!
The End