The Perfection of Ethics (2nd)

“Then again when I was

Bhūridatta, a dragon of great psychic power, ^[1]

together with Virūpakkha the Great King

I went to a heavenly realm.

There I saw gods

wholly given over to pleasure.

For the sake of going to that heaven,

I undertook the observance of ethics.

After tending to my physical needs,

and eating enough to get by,

I resolved on the four factors,

and lay down atop a termite mound, thinking:

‘My outer skin and inner, flesh,

sinews and bones:

whoever has use for these,

they are already given, please take them.’

While lying there the ingrate

Ālampāyana grabbed me.

He threw me in a basket

and made me perform in places all over. ^[2]

Though thrown in a basket

and crushed by his hands,

I did not get upset with Ālampāyana,

for fear of breaking my ethics.

To give up my own life

was as light as a blade of grass.

To transgress my ethical principles

was like overturning the earth.

In a hundred successive lives

I would give up my own life.

I would not even violate my ethics

for the sake of the four continents.

For the sake of protecting ethics,

and fulfilling my perfection of ethics,

I did not let my mind change,

even when thrown in a basket.”