Many wanderers and Brahmans who haunt
the silent and remote recesses of
the forest say: when the body dissolves
after death they who break the precepts of
morality are reborn in the Waste,
the Woeful Way, the Fallen Place, the Pit.
Don’t believe it. There is no other world,
no merit or demerit, no rebirth,
no karma. Nor is there heaven or hell
or fruit or result of deeds good or ill.
Trust only in things: hard things and soft things,
things that can be eaten and cannot,
fragrant things and things with an evil smell,
things movable and things immovable:
earth, trees, mountains and the lotus flower,
beasts, people and the music of the flute.