p.
49 CHAPTER XIV.
THE BUDDHA (THE AWAKENED).
179.
He whose conquest is not conquered again, into whose conquest no one in this world enters, by what track can you lead him, the Awakened, the Omniscient, the trackless?
180.
He whom no desire with its snares and poisons can lead astray, by what track can you lead him, the Awakened, the Omniscient, the trackless?
181.
Even the gods envy those who are awakened and not forgetful, who are given to meditation, who are wise, and who delight in the repose of retirement (from the world).
182.
Difficult (to obtain) is the conception of men, difficult is the life of mortals, difficult is the hearing of the True Law, difficult is the birth of the Awakened (the attainment of Buddhahood).
[179, 180.
Buddha, the Awakened, is to be taken as an appellative rather than as the proper name of the Buddha (see v.
183).
It means, anybody who has arrived at complete knowledge.
Anantago k aram I take in the sense of, possessed of unlimited knowledge.
Apadam, which Dr.
Fausböll takes as an epithet of Buddha and translates by 'non investigabilis,' is translated 'trackless,' in order to show the play on the word pada; see Childers, s.v.
The commentator says: 'The man who is possessed of even a single one of such conditions as râga, &c., him ye may lead forward; but the Buddha has not even one condition or basis of renewed existence, and therefore by what track will you lead this unconditioned Buddha?' Cf.
Dhp.
vv.
92 , 420 ; and G âtaka, vol.
i.
pp.
79, 313.
182.
Mr.
Beal (Dhammapada, p.
110) states that this verse occurs in the Sûtra of the Forty-two Sections.] p.
50 183.
Not to commit any sin, to do good, and to purify one's mind, that is the teaching of (all) the Awakened.
184.
The Awakened call patience the highest penance, long-suffering the highest Nirvâ n a; for he is not an anchorite (pravra g ita) who strikes others, he is not an ascetic ( s rama n a) who insults others.
185.
Not to blame, not to strike, to live restrained under the law, to be moderate in eating, to sleep and sit alone, and to dwell on the highest thoughts,--this is the teaching of the Awakened.
[183.
This verse is again one of the most solemn verses among the Buddhists.
According to Csoma Körösi, it ought to follow the famous Âryâ stanza, 'Ye dhammâ' (Lotus, p.
522), and serve as its complement.
But though this may be the case in Tibet, it was not so originally.
The same verse (ascribed to Kanakamuni) occurs at the end of the Chinese translation of the Prâtimoksha.
(Beal, J.
R.
A.
S.
XIX, p.
473; Catena, p.
159); in the Tibetan translation of the Gâthâsa n graha, v.
14 (Schiefner, Mél.
Asiat.
I VIII, pp.
568, 586; and Csoma Körösi, As.
Res.
XX, p.
79).
Burnouf has fully discussed the metre and meaning of our verse on pp.
Eckhart's Abgeschiedenheit/Gelassenheit — radical letting-go of will, image, and grasping that opens the soul to God; distinct from inner_silence (quietness) and from material renunciation, and adjacent to Sufi tark and Buddhist non-grasping as a practice rather than a metaphysical claim.
The text emphasizes not being led astray by desire and living restrained under the law.
Disciplined inward attention — sitting, focused, or open-awareness practice — as a stand-alone term that umbrellas active_contemplation, inner_silence, and dhyana-style sitting.
Verses 181 and 185 explicitly mention meditation and dwelling on highest thoughts as part of the teaching.
Eckhart's radical reading of Matthew 5:3 — the saint as one who wants nothing, knows nothing, and has nothing, having emptied even the will and the self with which to receive God; distinct from renunciation_of_wealth (material poverty).
The emphasis on not being led by desire aligns with the renunciation of attachment characteristic of this concept.
The Buddhist doctrine that all phenomena lack independent self-nature; emptiness as the positive recognition that things arise only in dependence on conditions — distinct from kenoma's mere deficiency.
The Buddha is described as having no basis for renewed existence and being trackless, reflecting the concept of emptiness.