Reading guide
A question posed with real concern, not hostility
The poem opens as dialogue: someone — addressing Saṅkicca as ‘tāta’, ‘dear’ or ‘my child’, a term of affection — asks why he stays exposed to the monsoon rains like ‘a little bird’, when the city of Verambhā would offer comfort instead. This isn't a hostile challenge but a real question about hardship, voiced with concern.
A pun turning the questioner's own image against the city
Saṅkicca's reply in the second verse plays on the questioner's own word: just as the wind at Verambhā scatters the monsoon clouds, so ‘the city scatters my perception of seclusion’. The city offered as refuge from harsh weather is reframed as itself the greater danger — not to comfort, but to the very state of mind he's cultivating.
A crow in a charnel ground, prompting mindfulness
The third verse's image is unusual even within this collection's body-contemplation poems: not a corpse directly observed, but ‘the crow whose abode is the charnel ground’ itself — the scavenger, not the scavenged — rousing ‘mindfulness, based on dispassion for the body’. A single glimpsed bird becomes the occasion for reflection, without any corpse needing to be present at all.
A verse shared with a story told to a king
Sujato's comment on the fourth verse notes a nearly identical verse in Ja 10, there addressed to a king rather than a monk — and observes that the Jātaka's clearly vocative grammar (addressing ‘O king’ directly) supports reading this poem's own ‘bhikkhu’ the same way, as a direct address to the mendicant, against the traditional commentary's different grammatical reading. This reading guide records the textual question as Sujato states it, without resolving it further.
Fearlessness stated plainly, even toward predators
Having described dwelling ‘frequented by beasts of prey’ — the same phrase already found describing ideal retreat lodgings in this site's own Thag 10.6 (Upasena) — the seventh verse makes a striking claim: even surrounded by creatures that could kill him, Saṅkicca denies ever having harbored a wish for their harm, ‘may these beings be killed... I'm not aware of having any such ignoble, hateful thoughts’. Non-malice here extends specifically to the animals most capable of causing his own death.
A closing line among the Theragātha's most celebrated
The tenth and eleventh verses share their first three lines verbatim, closing only on a different final phrase: ‘like a worker waiting for their wages’, then ‘aware and mindful’. ‘I don't long for death; I don't long for life; I await my time’ is among the most frequently quoted single images in the entire collection, independent of its source — equanimity toward death expressed not as resignation, but as a worker's calm, ordinary patience for something owed and expected.
Key terms
The text
§1“What good does it do you to be in the grove, my dear? You’re like a little bird in the monsoon! The city of Verambhā is nice for you—seclusion is for meditators.”
§2“Just as the wind in Verambhā scatters the monsoon clouds as they pour down, so the city scatters my perception of seclusion.”
§3“It’s all black and born of an egg—the crow whose abode is the charnel ground rouses my mindfulness, based on dispassion for the body.”
§4“He who is not guarded by others, and who does not guard others, truly sleeps at ease, mendicant, unconcerned for sensual pleasures.”
§5“The water’s clear and the rocks are broad, monkeys and deer are all around; festooned with dewy moss, these rocky crags delight me!
§6I’ve stayed in the wilderness, in caves and caverns and remote lodgings frequented by beasts of prey.
§7‘May these beings be killed! May they be slaughtered! May they suffer!’—I’m not aware of having any such ignoble, hateful thoughts.
§8I’ve served the teacher and fulfilled the Buddha’s instructions. The heavy burden is laid down, the leash to existence is eradicated.
§9I’ve attained the goal for the sake of which I went forth from the lay life to homelessness—the ending of all fetters.
§10I don’t long for death; I don’t long for life; I await my time, like a worker waiting for their wages.
§11I don’t long for death; I don’t long for life; I await my time, aware and mindful.”
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