Application

At one time one of the mendicants was staying in the land of the Kosalans in a certain forest grove.

Now at that time that mendicant went for the day’s meditation, but fell asleep. ^[1]

The deity haunting that forest had sympathy for that mendicant, and wanted what’s best for them. So they approached that mendicant wanting to stir them up, and addressed them in verse:

“Get up, mendicant! Why lie down?

What’s the point in sleeping?

How can the afflicted slumber,

inflicted by an arrow strike?

You should amplify the faith

that led you to go forth

from the home life to homelessness.

Don’t fall under the sway of slumber.”

“Sensual pleasures are impermanent and unstable,

but dullards still fall for them.

Among those who are bound, <j>they’re free and unattached:

why bother a renunciate?

By removing desire and greed,

by going beyond ignorance,

that knowledge has been perfectly cleansed:

why bother a renunciate?

By breaking ignorance with knowledge,

by the ending of defilements,

they’re sorrowless, unstressed:

why bother a renunciate?

Energetic, resolute,

always staunchly vigorous,

aspiring to extinguishment:

why bother a renunciate?”