Reading guide
Counsel given in general terms, with no personal narrative
Unlike many poems in this collection, Mahākaccāyana's verse contains no episode of his own conversion, ordination, or crisis — every verse offers direct, impersonal instruction: avoid excessive activity, recognize honor as ‘a subtle dart, hard to extract’, understand that one's deeds, not others' words, determine one's character.
Honor as a trap for the very people it flatters
The second verse names something rarely stated so directly in this collection: ‘homage and veneration in respectable families’ is itself ‘a bog’, and ‘honor is a subtle dart, hard to extract, and hard for a reprobate to give up’. The warning targets not obvious temptation but the very respect a monk might otherwise take as confirmation of his own practice.
A closing image of total, deliberate withdrawal
The eighth verse, extended to six lines, builds a sequence of paired opposites — sighted yet acting blind, hearing yet acting deaf, wise yet acting dumb, strong yet acting feeble — before its final instruction: when conflict arises, ‘lie as still as a corpse’. This is a considerably more extreme image of non-engagement than this collection's more common counsel toward equanimity or patience.
The same elder already met as Soṇa's mentor
This site's own Thag 5.11 (Soṇa of the Sharp Ears) already describes Soṇa asking ‘his mentor Mahākaccāna three times for ordination, waiting years for a monastic quorum’ — the identical figure (Mahākaccāyana / Mahākaccāna, alternate spellings of the same name), here giving his own verse rather than appearing as another elder's teacher. This site's MN 133, Mahākaccāna and One Fine Night, and its own listing in AN 1.188–197, Foremost Monks (I), as ‘the foremost among those who explain in detail the meaning of a brief statement’, both already appear on this site.
Opening a new book, a structure confirmed fresh
The Book of the Eights holds just three poems in a single chapter, per bilara-data — the shortest book yet in this collection, continuing the single-chapter pattern of every book since the Threes. Its baseline verse form is eight four-line verses; this poem's eighth verse, extending to six lines, is its first departure from that baseline.
Key terms
The text
§1Don’t get involved in lots of work, avoid people, and don’t try to acquire things. If you’re eager and greedy for flavors, you’ll miss the goal that brings such happiness.
§2They know it really is a bog, this homage and veneration in respectable families. Honor is a subtle dart, hard to extract, and hard for a reprobate to give up.
§3The deeds of a mortal aren’t bad because of what others do. You yourself should not do bad, for mortals have deeds as their kin.
§4You’re not a bandit because of what someone says, you’re not a sage because of what someone says; but as you know yourself, so the gods will know you.
§5When others do not understand, let us, who do understand this, restrain ourselves in this regard; for that is how conflicts are laid to rest.
§6A wise person lives on even after loss of wealth; but without gaining wisdom, even a rich person doesn’t really live.
§7All is heard with the ear, all is seen with the eye; the attentive ought not discard all that is seen and heard.
§8Though you have eyes, be as if blind; though you have ears, be as if deaf; though you have wisdom, be as if dumb; though you have strength, be as if feeble. And when issues come up lie as still as a corpse.
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