Ru-Yi Meditation Center
Theragatha · 5.2

Subhūta

Subhūta — The Book of the Fives · Chapter One · Poem 2 of 12

Setting
General teaching, not autobiography, without a translated attribution
Speaker
Subhūta, teaching on luck, surrender, and honest speech
Form
Five four-line verses — misfortune reconsidered, a warning against total surrender, honest speech, and a flower simile told twice
Length
under 1 minute to read
Northern parallel
This reading guide does not assert a specific matching text for this poem in other Buddhist literatures.
Difficulty
★★☆☆☆ — plain vocabulary, a notable recurring verse

Why this text

Subhūta teaches on what people blame as bad luck, on the difference between surrendering in part and surrendering everything blindly, on saying only what one will do — a verse this collection has now met three times — and closes with a flower simile told twice, once without fragrance and once with.

Reading guide

Blame reconsidered as blindness

The first two verses examine how people explain failure: someone who applies effort in the wrong direction calls it ‘a sign of my bad luck’, but the second verse complicates this — surrendering a misfortune ‘in part’ is merely unlucky, like losing at dice, but surrendering it ‘all’ requires being ‘blind’, unable to see ‘the even and the uneven’.

A verse this collection has now found three times

The third verse — ‘you should only say what you would do; you shouldn't say what you wouldn't do. The wise will recognize one who talks without doing’ — is word for word identical to Thag 3.3 (Bākula) and Thag 3.15 (Hārita 2nd)'s shared second verse, in the Book of the Threes. Where that earlier case was already this collection's most extensive duplication (three full verses shared between two poems), this is the first time a single verse from that pair has surfaced again in an entirely different book, attached to a third name.

A flower, with and without fragrance

The closing two verses complete the poem with a paired simile: well-spoken speech not acted on is like a ‘glorious flower that's colorful but lacks fragrance’, ‘fruitless’; speech matched by action is the same flower ‘both colorful and fragrant’, ‘fruitful’. The near-identical wording of the two verses, differing only in the single word for fragrance and its outcome, gives the poem its own small mirrored structure to close on, echoing this book's growing use of paired and repeated verses.

Key terms

dubbhagalakkhaṇaṁ — “a sign of my bad luck” — the explanation offered in the first verse for misdirected effort.
samavisamassa adassanato — “not seeing the even and the uneven” — the blindness of surrendering everything at once.
akarontaṁ bhāsamānaṁ — “one who talks without doing” — identical to Thag 3.3 and Thag 3.15's shared phrase.
vaṇṇavantaṁ agandhakaṁ — “colorful but lacks fragrance” — the flower simile for well-spoken but unacted-on speech.
vaṇṇavantaṁ sugandhakaṁ — “both colorful and fragrant” — the same flower, now fruitful, when speech is acted on.

The text

The text in full: five verses, with no separate attribution line in this chapter. Translation: Bhikkhu Sujato (CC0, SuttaCentral).

§1When a person, wishing for a certain outcome, applies themselves where they ought not; not achieving what they worked for, they say: “That’s a sign of my bad luck.”

§2When a misfortune is extracted and beaten, to surrender it in part would be like losing at dice; but to surrender it all you’d have to be blind, not seeing the even and the uneven.

§3You should only say what you would do; you shouldn’t say what you wouldn’t do. The wise will recognize one who talks without doing.

§4Just like a glorious flower that’s colorful but lacks fragrance; well-spoken speech is fruitless for one who does not act on it.

§5Just like a glorious flower that’s both colorful and fragrant, well-spoken speech is fruitful for one who acts on it.

· · ·

Self-check quiz

Ten questions. Click an answer to see immediate feedback. No score is recorded — this is for your own checking.

Question 1 of 10
What does the first verse say people call misdirected effort?
Correct: D. 'Taṁ me dubbhagalakkhaṇaṁ' — the speaker's own quoted excuse.
Question 2 of 10
What does the second verse say about surrendering a misfortune entirely, rather than in part?
Correct: A. Surrendering in part is merely unlucky; surrendering all requires blindness.
Question 3 of 10
What does this poem's third verse share with Thag 3.3 and Thag 3.15?
Correct: C. The first time a verse from that pair has surfaced again, in a different book.
Question 4 of 10
How does this discovery change the scale of that earlier duplication?
Correct: B. This reading guide does not claim to know why, only that it recurs.
Question 5 of 10
What simile closes the poem?
Correct: A. Vaṇṇavantaṁ agandhakaṁ, then vaṇṇavantaṁ sugandhakaṁ.
Question 6 of 10
What does the fourth verse say about well-spoken speech not acted on?
Correct: B. Aphalā hoti akubbato.
Question 7 of 10
What does the fifth verse say about speech matched by action?
Correct: B. Saphalā hoti kubbato.
Question 8 of 10
What does 'samavisamassa adassanato' mean?
Correct: C. The blindness described in the second verse.
Question 9 of 10
How do the fourth and fifth verses relate to each other structurally?
Correct: B. A small mirrored structure closing the poem.
Question 10 of 10
Where does this poem fall in the Book of the Fives?
Correct: D. Following Rājadatta's opening poem.
Answered 0 of 10 · Correct 0

Further reading

← PreviousThag 5.1 · Rājadatta