Chapter One

You can’t live by fasting,

but food doesn’t lead to peace of heart.

Seeing how this bag of bones is sustained by food,

I wander, seeking.

They know it’s just a swamp,

this homage and veneration in respectable families.

Honor is a subtle dart, hard to extract,

and hard for a reprobate to give up.

That is how these verses were recited by the senior venerable Bhāradvāja the Alms-Gatherer.