Although the body is seen like a foe,

Nevertheless it should be protected.

By long sustaining a disciplined [body]

Great merit is created. [2.26]

 

When human suffering is produced
By the body, and pleasure by other [factors],

Why are you devoted to
This hull, a container of suffering? [2.27]

 

When humans do not have
As much pleasure as pain,

Should so much pain
Be considered negligible? [2.28]

 

Ordinary people are bent on pleasure;

Those who have pleasure are hard to find.

Thus it is as if transitory
Beings are pursued by suffering. [2.29]

 

Suffering is found at will?
But what pleasure is there at will?

Why do you value the rare
But do not fear the plentiful? [2.30]

 

A comfortable body
Is a container of suffering
Thus valuing the body and
Valuing a foe both seem alike. {2.31]

 

The body, however long one spends,

Will not in itself become pleasurable.

To say its nature can be overruled

By other factors is improper. [2.32]

 

The high have mental suffering;
For the common it comes from the body.

Day by day, both kinds of suffering

Overwhelm people in the world. [2.33]

 

Pleasure is governed by thoughts;

Thoughts are governed by pain.

Thus there is nothing anywhere

More powerful than pain. [2.34]

 

With the passage of time
Pain increases.
Pleasure, therefore, seems as if

Alien to this body. [2.35]

 

There seem to be many causes
Of suffering, like sickness and others,

But humans do not seem to have
As many causes of pleasure. [2.36]

 

With the intensification of pleasure
It opposite is seen to occur.
With the intensification of pain
There will not likewise be its opposite. [2.37]

 

With the conditions for pleasure

Its opposite is seen.
With the conditions for pain

There is not its opposite. [2.38]

 

When you have spent, are spending

And will spend time dying,
It is not at all proper to call
The process of dying pleasurable. [2.39]

 

When beings with bodies are constantly

Afflicted by hunger and so forth,
It is not at all proper to call
Being afflicted pleasurable. [2.40]

 

Though powerless, the combining of

All the elements produces [the body];

Thus it is not at all proper to call

What is incompatible pleasure. [2.41]

 

When there is never that
Which will relieve cold and so forth,

It is not at all proper to call
Being destroyed pleasurable. [2.42]

 

When on earth no action is
Done without exertion,
It is not at all proper to call
Performing actions pleasurable. [2.43]

 

In this [life] and in others, always
One should guard agains ill deeds.

Calling them pleasurable is not all
Proper when there are bad rebirths. [2.44]

 

There is never any pleasure
For humans in riding and so forth.
How can that which at the start
Does not begin, in the end increase? [2.45]

 

Thinking the alleviation
Of pain is pleasure
Is like someone who feels delight

Vomiting into a gold pot. [2.46]

 

By beginning it stops the produced-
How can pain that begins be pleasure?
It seems the Subduer therefore said
Both birth and cessation are suffering. [2.47]

 

If common beings do not see suffering

Because pleasure disguises it,
Why is there no pleasure
Which obscures suffering? [2.48]

 

Common beings must be told, “You are not

Free from attachment to suffering.”

Certainly Tathagatas therefore have said

This is the worst confusion of all. [2.49]

 

The impermanent is definitely harmed.

What is harmed is not pleasurable.

Therefore all that is impermanent
Is said to be suffering. [2.50]

 

SUMMARIZING STANZA   Abiding in this fathomless ocean of cyclic existence, Utterly tormented by the crocodiles of distrubing emotions, What sentient being would not feel aversion? With effort endeavor to attain enlightenment.   This concludes the second chapter of the Four Hundred Stanzas on the Yogic Deeds, showing the means to abandon erroneous belief in pleasure.