“Adore thy good-will, for they who do kind and hopeful good pay me most honor, and please me most.
“As in the last month of the autumn rains when the sky is clear and the clouds are gone, the great sun climbs the vault of heaven, pervading all space with his radiance, so good-will glows radiant above all other virtues; yea, it is as the morning-star.
“The black toad that dwells within his heart, the early waker disenchants and banishes.
“Give not way to anger or evil words towards men in power. Anger and hate destroy the true Law; and they destroy dignity and beauty of body.
“As the mongoose immune from the poison of the snake, even so the monk living amid hate and anger with tender heart.
“From the ‘desiring-little’ we find the way of true deliverance; desiring true freedom we ought to practice the contentment of ‘knowing-enough.’ For the rich and poor alike, having contentment, enjoy perpetual rest.
“Do not become insatiable in your requirements, and so through the long night of life gathering increasing sorrow. Many dependents are like the many bands that bind us; without this wisdom the mind is poor and insincere.
“Ever and ever have these pitiful, frightened selves gulped through to death, changing dreams miraculously, returning in ignorant new skin of babes; like trees,—arms, heaviness, blear peace.
“The poor wretches, deficient in wisdom and conduct, lapsed into the mundane whirl, retained in dismal places, plunged in affliction incessantly renewed. Fettered as they are by desire like the yak by its tail, continually blinded by sensual pleasure, they do not seek the Buddha, the mighty one; they do not seek the Law that leads to the end of pain.
“Hearing my words and not with care obeying them, this is not the fault of him who speaks.”
Near midnight in the silence of their brotherly woe the Blessed One said to his disciples: “Maybe it is from reverence to the Teacher that ye keep silence: let us rather speak as friend to friend.”
Anuruddha stepped forth and said: “O Blessed Lord, passed the sea of birth and death, without desire, with nothing to seek, we only know how much we love, and, grieving, ask why Buddha dies so quickly?”
And, “O my heart is joined to him!” cried Pingiya.
The Honored Elder Brother of Mankind said: “What think you, Brothers? Which is greater, the floods of tears which, weeping and wailing you have shed upon this long way, ever and ever again hastening towards new birth and new death, united to the undesired, separated from the desired, this, or the waters of the Four Great Seas?
“Long time, Brothers, have you suffered the death of a mother, for long the death of a father, for long the death of a son, for long the death of a daughter, for long the death of brothers and sisters, the loss of goods, the pangs of disease.
“There are some whose eyes are only a little darkened with dust, and they will perceive the truth.
“As a bird whom sailors loosed to discover land, came back when it failed to find it, so having failed to find the truth thou has returned to me.
“As thinking nothing of herself, a mother’s love enfolds and cherishes her only son, so now through the world let thy compassion move, and cover everyone.
“Even robbers will we permeate with stream of loving thought unfailing; and forth from them proceeding, enfold and permeate the whole wide world with constant thoughts of loving-kindness, ample, expanding, full of divine approval, joyously free from enmity, free from all suspicious fear. Yea, verily, thus, my disciples, thus must you school yourselves.
“Having arrived at the farther shore and reached Nirvana, do you not guide others to its safety?”
Ananda rose and sang his mournful song:-
“For five-and-twenty years on the
Exalted One
I waited, serving him with
loving thoughts
And like his shadow followed
after him.
When pacing up & down the
Buddha walked,
Behind his back I
kept the pace always;
And when the Law was being
taught,
In me knowledge grew, &
understanding.
But O he dies, now
he dies!
And I am one yet with
work to do,
A learner with a mind
not yet matured,
The flower of my pity has
not opened
And now the Master
breaks my heart & dies,
He, the Holy One, Awakened
Perfect in Wisdom & Compassion,
He, the Incomparable Trainer
of men,
He, the Morning-Star,
Love’s White Dove
and Suckling Lamb,
He, Milk of Rain and
Transcendental Pity,
the Chariot of Spotless
White, the Child, the Lotus King,
the Angel in Our Mind,
He dies, O now he dies
And leaves me mortal dimness
in the unimaginable brilliance
of the Void!”
Surrounding the Sala grove were younger monks and lay people who had realized that what this man taught was not only a verity, but the very hope of their salvation, because for the first time they had recognized in his words, which expressed the radiant confidence of his discovery, the truth that made of slaves free men, and of castes and classes brotherhood. But now because of the oncoming death of the temporary form of his body they were afraid, wise lambs affrighted by the assurance of the ignorant lion Death.
To them and to Ananda and to ease and purify their minds the Buddha said:- “In the beginning things were fixed, in the end again they separate; different combinations cause other substances, for there is no uniform and constant principle in nature. But when all mutual purposes be answered, what then shall chaos and creation do! the gods and men alike that should be saved, shall all have been completely saved! Ye then! my followers, who know so well the perfect law, remember! the end must come; give not way again to sorrow.
“Use diligently the appointed means; aim to reach the home where separation cannot come; I have lit the lamp of wisdom, its rays alone can drive away the gloom that shrouds the world. The world is not forever fixed! You should rejoice therefore! As when a friend, afflicted grievously, his sickness healed, escapes from pain. For I have put away this painful vessel, I have stemmed the flowing sea of birth and death, free forever now, from pain! For this you should exult with joy!
“Now guard yourselves aright, let there be no remissness! That which exists will all return to nothingness!
“And now I die.
“From this time forth my words are done, this is my very last instruction.”
Entering the Samadhi ecstasy of the first Dhyana meditation, he went successively through all the nine Dhyanas in a direct order; then inversely he returned throughout and entered on the first, and then from the first he raised himself and entered on the Fourth Dhyana, the Dhyana of Neither Joy nor Suffering, utterly pure and equal, the original and eternal perfect essence of Mind. Leaving the state of Samadhi ecstasy, his soul without a resting-place forthwith he reached Pari-Nirvana, complete extinction of the form after it has died.
The moon paled, the river sobbed, a mental breeze bowed down the trees.
Like the great elephant robbed of its tusks, or like the ox-king spoiled of his horns; or heaven without the sun and moon, or as the lily beaten by the hail, thus was the world bereaved when Buddha died.
Only in Nirvana is there joy, providing lasting escape, for to escape from the prison, was why the prison was made.
The diamond mace of inconstancy can overturn the mountain of the moon, but only the diamond curtain of Tathagata, the iron curtain of the mind, can overwhelm inconstancy! The long sleep, the end of all, the quiet, peaceful way is the highest prize of sages and of heroes and of saints.
Voluntarily enduring infinite trials through numberless ages and births, that he might deliver mankind and all life, foregoing the right to enter Nirvana and casting himself again and again into Sangsara’s stream of life and destiny for the sole purpose of teaching the way of liberation from sorrow and suffering, this is Buddha, who is everyone and everything, Aremideia the Light of the World, the Tathagata, Maitreya, the Coming Hero, the Walker of the terrace of earth, the Sitter under Trees, persistent, energetic, intensely human, the Great Wise Being of Pity and Tenderness.
The noble and superlative law of Buddha ought to receive the adoration of the world.
ALSO BY JACK KEROUAC
THE DULUOZ LEGEND
Visions of Gerard
Doctor Sax
Maggie Cassidy
Vanity of Duluoz
On the Road
Visions of Cody
The Subterraneans
Tristessa
Lonesome Traveller
Desolation Angels
The Dharma Bums
Book of Dreams
Big Sur
Satori in Paris
POETRY
Mexico City Blues
Scattered Poems
Pomes All Sizes
Heaven and Other Poems
Book of Blues
Book of Haikus
Book of Sketches
OTHER WORK
The Town and the City
The Scripture of the Golden
Eternity
Some of the Dharma
Old Angel Midnight
Good Blonde & Others
Pull My Daisy
Trip Trap
Pic
The Portable Jack Kerouac
Selected Letters: 1940-1956
Selected Letters: 1957-1969
Atop an Underwood
Door Wide Open
Orpheus Emerged
Departed Angels: The Lost
Paintings
Windblown World
Beat Generation: A Play
On the Road: The Original Scroll