Chapter One

I was drunk with the pride of birth

and wealth and authority.

I wandered about intoxicated

with my own gorgeous body.

No-one was my equal or my better—

or so I thought.

I was such an arrogant fool,

stuck up, waving my own flag.

I never paid homage to anyone:

not even my mother or father,

nor others esteemed as respectable.

I was stiff with pride, lacking regard for others.

When I saw the foremost leader,

the most excellent of charioteers,

shining like the sun,

at the fore of the mendicant Saṅgha,

I discarded conceit and vanity,

and, with a clear and confident heart,

I bowed down with my head

to the most excellent of all beings.

The conceit of superiority <j>and the conceit of inferiority

have been given up and eradicated.

The conceit “I am” is cut off,

and every kind of conceit is destroyed.