“For like a solitary desert tree in which the birds and monkeys gather, so is it when we are cumbered much with family associations; through the long night we gather many sorrows.  Many dependents are like the many bands that bind us, or like the old elephant that struggles in the mud.  By diligent perseverance a man may get much profit; therefore night and day men ought with ceaseless effort to exert themselves; the tiny streams that trickle down the mountain slopes by always flowing eat away the rock.  If we use not earnest diligence in drilling wood in wood for fire, we shall not obtain the spark, so ought we to be diligent and persevere, as the skilful master drills the wood for fire.  A ’virtuous friend’ though he be gentle is not to be compared with right reflection—­right thought kept well in the mind, no evil thing can ever enter there.

“Wherefore those who practise a religious life should always think about ‘the body’; if thought upon one’s self be absent, then all virtue dies.  For as the champion warrior relies for victory upon his armor’s strength, so ‘right thought’ is like a strong cuirass, able to withstand the six sense-robbers.  Right faith enwraps the enlightened heart, so that a man perceives the world throughout is liable to birth and death; therefore the religious man should practise faith.

“Having found peace in faith, we put an end to all the mass of sorrows, wisdom then can enlighten us, and so we put away the rules by which we acquire knowledge by the senses.  By inward thought and right consideration following with gladness the directions of the ‘true law,’ this is the way in which both laymen of the world and men who have left their homes should walk.

“Across the sea of birth and death, ‘wisdom’ is the handy bark; ‘wisdom’ is the shining lamp that lightens up the dark and gloomy world.  ‘Wisdom’ is the grateful medicine for all the defiling ills of life; ‘wisdom’ is the axe wherewith to level all the tangled forest trees of sorrow.  ‘Wisdom’ is the bridge that spans the rushing stream of ignorance and lust—­therefore, in every way, by thought and right attention, a man should diligently inure himself to engender wisdom.  Having acquired the threefold wisdom, then, though blind, the eye of wisdom sees throughout; but without wisdom the mind is poor and insincere; such things cannot suit the man who has left his home.

“Wherefore let the enlightened man lay well to heart that false and fruitless things become him not, and let him strive with single mind for that pure joy which can be found alone in perfect rest and quietude.