Do not let pleasure distract you
from meditation, from the way.

Free yourself from pleasure and pain.
For in craving pleasure or in nursing pain
there is only sorrow.

Like nothing lest you lose it,
lest it bring you grief and fear.
Go beyond likes and dislikes.

From passion and desire,
sensuousness and lust,
arise grief and fear.
Free yourself from attachment.

He is pure, and sees.
He speaks the truth, and lives it.
He does his own work,
so he is admired and loved.

With a determined mind and undesiring heart
he longs for freedom.
He is called uddhamsoto –
“He who goes upstream.”

When a traveler at last comes home
from a far journey,
with what gladness
his family and his friends receive him!

Even so shall your good deeds
welcome you like friends
and with what rejoicing
when you pass from this life to the next!

An inmate at the insane asylum was being examined for possible release. The first question the examining doctor asked him was, “What are you going to do when you leave this institution?”

“I am gonna get me a slingshot,” said the patient, “and I am gonna come back here and break every goddamn window in the place!”

After six more months of treatment, the patient was again brought before the examining doctor for possible dismissal, and the same question was put to him.

“Well, I am going to get a job,” the patient replied.

“Fine,” said the doctor. “Then what?”

“I am going to rent an apartment.”

“Very good.”

“Then I am going to meet a beautiful girl.”

“Excellent.”

“I am going to take the beautiful girl up to my apartment and I am going to pull up her skirt.”

“Normal, perfectly normal.”

“Then I am gonna steal her garter, make a slingshot out of it and come back here and break every goddamn window in the place!”