With Dāmali

Linked Discourses 2.5

Chapter One

With Dāmali

At Sāvatthī.

Then, late at night, the glorious godling Dāmali, lighting up the entire Jeta’s Grove, went up to the Buddha, bowed, stood to one side,

and spoke this verse in the Buddha’s presence:

“This is what should be done by a brahmin:

unrelenting striving.

Then, with the giving up of sensual pleasures,

they won’t hope to be reborn.”

“The brahmin has nothing left to do,”

said the Buddha to Dāmali,

“for they’ve completed their task.

So long as a personage fails to gain a footing in the river,

they swim with every limb.

But someone who has gained a footing and stands on dry land

need not swim, for they have reached the far shore.

Dāmali, this is a simile for the brahmin,

alert, a meditator who has ended defilements.

Since they’ve reached the end of rebirth and death,

they need not swim, for they have reached the far shore.”