Reading guide
A bed among the dead
The setting is stark and unadorned: a charnel ground, a skeleton for a bed. Village louts mock the sleeper ‘in all sorts of ways’; others bring incense, flowers, and fine food, thrilled and reverent. Both receive the identical response.
Equanimity defined by what it does not distinguish
The story states its perfection plainly: ‘those who brought me pain, and those who gave me happiness, were all the same to me. I felt no favor or anger.’ Unlike the restraint shown in the ethics chapter, which withholds a specific retaliation, this is a flatness applied equally to opposite treatment, not a response to any one threat.
A numbering gap in the source itself
This page's sections jump directly from §4, the end of the story proper, to §10 — sections 5 through 9 do not exist in the source text at all. This reading guide reproduces the source exactly as numbered, rather than renumbering to hide the gap.
A closing summary, not another story
Section 10 onward is a different kind of writing: a review naming several perfections in quick succession — giving, ethics, renunciation, and, notably, a ‘perfection of acceptance’ alongside effort and inquiry, resolve and truthful speech, and finally equanimity again — each said to lead to ‘supreme awakening’. This summary mentions qualities, like acceptance, that did not receive their own dedicated story anywhere in the preceding thirty-five — the individual stories dramatize seven perfections in depth, while this closing review gestures more broadly across the tradition's fuller list of ten.
Three short exhortations, then a colophon
Before the work closes, three brief verses repeat a single pattern — laziness feared, energy as sanctuary; dispute feared, harmony as sanctuary; negligence feared, the eightfold path as sanctuary — each closing with the same refrain, ‘this is the Buddha's instruction!’ A final sentence then names the whole work: ‘the exposition of the teaching named the ‘Legends of the Buddha’.’
Key terms
The text
The Great Hair-raising Conduct
§1“I made my bed in a charnel ground, resting on a skeleton. Village louts came up and mocked me in all sorts of ways.
§2Others brought me incense and flowers, and many kinds of cooked food, all thrilled, their minds elated.
§3Those who brought me pain, and those who gave me happiness, were all the same to me. I felt no favor or anger.
§4I became balanced towards pleasure and pain, fame and disgrace. I was equal in every case: this is my perfection of equanimity.”
Closing verses of the whole Cariyapitaka
§10Having thus experience many kinds of suffering and many kinds of success, in various past lives, I realized supreme awakening.
§11I gave what could be given, and fulfilled ethics without reserve. having won the perfection of renunciation, I realized supreme awakening.
§12I inquired of the astute, and put forth highest effort, having won the perfection of acceptance, I realized supreme awakening.
§13Having made a firm resolve, and guarded truthful speech, having won the perfection of love, I realized supreme awakening.
§14In gain and loss, fame and disgrace, respect and contempt, having become equal in every case, I realized supreme awakening.
§15Seeing laziness as fearful, and energy as a sanctuary, rouse up energy: this is the Buddhas instruction!
§16Seeing dispute as fearful, and harmony as a sanctuary, be harmonious and courteous: this is the Buddhas instruction!
§17Seeing negligence as fearful, and diligence as a sanctuary, develop the eightfold path: this is the Buddhas instruction!
§18That is how the Buddha, illustrating his own conduct in past lives, spoke the exposition of the teaching name the “Legends of the Buddha”.
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