The Buddha's Bequeathed Teaching
Between the twin śāla trees, in the last watch of the night, having already taught everyone who could still be taught, the Buddha gathers his monks one final time and speaks — not a new doctrine, but a plain, urgent restatement of what actually matters now that he is about to be gone: guard the senses the way a herdsman watches cattle grazing near a farmer's field, treat the mind as more dangerous than a venomous snake sleeping in your own room, and know that a life measured honestly runs out in the space of a single breath. Kumārajīva's early-5th-century translation, still recited today wherever a monastic first learns what is actually being asked of them.
Translation Method
The Chinese source is Kumārajīva's translation (鳩摩羅什, "Youthful Age," so named for the maturity of his learning at a young age), completed at the Later Qin court in Chang'an in the early 5th century CE — the same towering translator responsible for this site's own Diamond Sūtra, Lotus Sūtra, and Vimalakīrti Sūtra. Unlike those longer, more doctrinally elaborate texts, this sūtra is short and its setting entirely specific: the Buddha's own final night, between the twin śāla trees at Kuśinagara, addressed directly to the monastic community he is about to leave behind. Reading notes throughout draw on the Qing-dynasty monk Daopei (道霈, 1615–1702), whose commentary the Fozu Sanjing Zhinan (佛祖三經指南, X0675) covers this text alongside the Sūtra of Forty-Two Chapters; Daopei's own preface records that this sūtra received relatively little sustained commentary after antiquity — "Aśvaghoṣa wrote a treatise on it, and Guyshan a sub-commentary, but neither survives in the world; what circulates now is only Song-dynasty Jingyuan's digest of that treatise" — and that his own work leans on the further annotation of the Ming-dynasty monk Zhuhong (蓮池袾宏, one of the "Four Great Masters" of that period).
The "Aśvaghoṣa" treatise Daopei's preface names as lost in fact survives, misattributed: the Yijiao Jing Lun (遺教經論, T1529), a substantial verse-and-prose treatise on this same sūtra, is credited in the Chinese tradition to Vasubandhu (天親/世親) rather than Aśvaghoṣa, and was translated into Chinese by Paramārtha (真諦), one of Chinese Buddhism's own "four great translators," in the 6th century CE. It survives complete, organizing the sūtra into a systematic sevenfold structure of "accomplishments" (功德) — this site's own division of the text below follows that same structure, and a small number of reading notes draw directly on Vasubandhu's own scholastic analysis where it illuminates a passage Daopei's more accessible commentary treats more briefly. Classical text is set in the left-hand column below, our English in the right. See also this site's note on translation method.
The Last Watch of the Night
釋迦牟尼佛初轉法輪，度阿若憍陳如，最後說法度須跋陀羅，所應度者皆已度訖，於娑羅雙樹間將入涅槃。是時中夜寂然無聲，為諸弟子略說法要：「汝等比丘，於我滅後，當尊重珍敬波羅提木叉，如闇遇明、貧人得寶。當知此則是汝大師，若我住世無異此也。」
Śākyamuni Buddha, having first turned the wheel of the Dharma and liberated Ājñāta-Kauṇḍinya, and, in his very last teaching, liberated Subhadra — every being fit to be liberated now having been liberated — was, between the twin śāla trees, about to enter parinirvāṇa. At that time, in the utter stillness and silence of the middle watch of the night, he spoke briefly to his disciples of the essentials of the Dharma: "You monks — after I am gone, you should honor and treasure the prātimokṣa, the code of liberation, exactly as one lost in darkness treasures a light, or a poor person treasures a found jewel. Know that this is itself your own great teacher — no different from my own continued presence in the world."
Daopei reads the sūtra's own opening — the Buddha's teaching career bracketed precisely between his very first convert, Kauṇḍinya, and his very last, the wandering ascetic Subhadra who arrived at Kuśinagara at the age of a hundred and twenty, having heard of the Buddha's imminent death, and was taught the four noble truths and attained arhatship on the spot — as itself doing the work most sūtras leave to a separate closing section: "other sūtras only frame the single teaching they contain; this sūtra frames the Buddha's entire ministry from beginning to end at once." On why the precepts themselves, rather than any doctrine, are named as the Buddha's own stand-in once he is gone, he is direct: "it is by this precept-code that the Dharma-body itself, never actually extinguished, continues to work for the world's own final liberation" — the code of conduct is not administrative housekeeping left over after the real teaching, but the concrete form the teaching itself takes once its living teacher is no longer present to give it in person.
A Life Set Apart
「持淨戒者，不得販賣貿易、安置田宅、畜養人民奴婢畜生，一切種殖及諸財寶，皆當遠離如避火坑。不得斬伐草木、墾土掘地，合和湯藥、占相吉凶、仰觀星宿推步盈虛、曆數算計，皆所不應。節身時食清淨自活，不得參預世事通致使命，呪術仙藥、結好貴人親厚媟嫚，皆不應作。當自端心正念求度，不得苞藏瑕疵、顯異惑眾。於四供養知量知足，趣得供事不應稸積。此則略說持戒之相。戒是正順解脫之本，故名波羅提木叉。依因此戒，得生諸禪定及滅苦智慧。是故比丘，當持淨戒勿令毀犯。若人能持淨戒，是則能有善法；若無淨戒，諸善功德皆不得生。是以當知，戒為第一安隱功德之所住處。」
"One who holds pure precepts should not engage in trade or commerce, should not acquire land or houses, should not keep servants, slaves, or livestock, and should set aside all planting of crops and every kind of accumulated wealth, avoiding these things as one would avoid a pit of fire. One should not fell trees or dig into the earth, should not compound medicines, read omens, study astrology, or calculate calendars and numerology — none of this is fitting. Regulate the body, eat at the proper time, and live purely by one's own means; do not involve yourself in worldly affairs or carry messages for others, do not practice spells or seek immortality elixirs, do not curry favor with the powerful or grow overly familiar and casual with them — none of this should be done. Keep the mind upright and mindful, seeking only liberation; do not conceal your own faults, nor put on a display of the extraordinary to attract a following. Regarding the four requisites — clothing, food, medicine, and lodging — know their proper measure and be content; take only what is offered, and never hoard. This, in brief, is the mark of holding the precepts. Discipline is the very root of rightly according with liberation, and so it is called the prātimokṣa. In dependence on this discipline, every meditative absorption, and the wisdom that extinguishes suffering, are able to arise. Therefore, monks, hold pure precepts, and never let them be broken. One who is able to hold pure precepts thereby possesses wholesome dharmas; without pure precepts, no wholesome quality of any kind can arise. Know, then, that discipline is the very first, most secure ground on which every meritorious quality stands."
Daopei groups the prohibitions of this section into four clusters, each answering a distinct temptation: commerce and property (the pull toward worldly security), agriculture and medicine (the pull toward useful worldly craft), fortune-telling and calendrics (the pull toward secular learning treated as a livelihood), and courting the powerful (the pull toward influence and comfortable connection). None of these, he is careful to note, are condemned as evil in themselves — a farmer or physician commits no wrong — but a monk who has left home has, by definition, already set that entire register of life aside, "just as one would step back from a pit of fire, not because fire itself is evil, but because this is no longer the ground this particular person has any business standing on." Vasubandhu's own treatise reads this same section as the first of "three accomplishments for training the world's own qualities" — the remedy for what he calls wrong livelihood specifically, treating each named prohibition not as an arbitrary rule but as the countermeasure to one particular way a monastic's independence from worldly entanglement can quietly be lost.
The Herdsman, and the Mind That Must Be Watched
「汝等比丘，已能住戒，當制五根，勿令放逸入於五欲。譬如牧牛之人，執杖視之，不令縱逸犯人苗稼。若縱五根，非唯五欲，將無崖畔不可制也；亦如惡馬，不以轡制，將當牽人墜於坑陷。……是故智者制而不隨，持之如賊，不令縱逸；假令縱之，皆亦不久見其磨滅。此五根者，心為其主。是故汝等當好制心，心之可畏，甚於毒蛇、惡獸、怨賊，大火越逸，未足喻也。譬如有人，手執蜜器，動轉輕躁，但觀於蜜，不見深坑；譬如狂象無鈎，猿猴得樹，騰躍跳躑，難可禁制，當急挫之，無令放逸。縱此心者喪人善事，制之一處，無事不辦。是故比丘，當勤精進折伏其心。」
"You monks, having now settled into the precepts, should govern the five faculties, and never let them fall into heedlessness and enter the five sense-pleasures. It is like a herdsman who, staff in hand, watches over the cattle, never letting them stray loose to trample another's crop. Should the five faculties be given free rein, it is not only the five pleasures they will pursue — they will run past every boundary, uncontrollable; it is also like a wild horse never checked by a bridle, which will end by dragging its rider down into a pit. …The wise, therefore, govern their faculties rather than follow them, holding them as one holds a thief in check, never letting them run loose; and should they be given free rein even so, it will not be long before their true nature shows itself and unravels. Of these five faculties, the mind is the master. You should therefore govern the mind well — the mind is more to be feared than a venomous snake, a savage beast, or a hateful bandit; even a great fire raging out of control is not a strong enough comparison for it. It is like a person carrying a jar of honey, moving carelessly and in haste, watching only the honey and never noticing the deep pit ahead; or like a maddened elephant with no hook to restrain it, or a monkey once it has reached the trees, leaping and bounding about, impossible to check — such a mind must be sharply reined in at once, never given free rein. To indulge this mind is to lose every wholesome undertaking a person has; to bring it under control in a single place is to leave nothing at all unaccomplished. Monks, you should therefore diligently and with full effort subdue your own mind."
Daopei reads the sequence of similes here as building deliberately from the external to the internal, from the manageable to the genuinely dangerous: a herdsman's cattle straying into a neighbor's field is a contained, recoverable mistake; a bridle-less horse dragging its own rider into a pit is a step more serious, since now the very person meant to be in control is being carried along helplessly; and the mind itself, once introduced, is placed above even the fire, snake, and bandit already invoked as points of comparison, because "these other dangers threaten only this present life, while the mind's own unchecked movement carries harm across kalpa after kalpa." He is precise about the honey-jar and mad-elephant images that follow this warning as well: the person watching only the honey is not evil, only careless — undone by ordinary, unremarkable inattention rather than by any dramatic vice — which he reads as the sūtra's own warning against assuming this particular danger announces itself clearly enough to be easily seen coming.
Moderation, and the Serpent Asleep in the Room
「汝等比丘，受諸飲食，當如服藥，於好於惡勿生增減，趣得支身以除飢渴。如蜂採花，但取其味不損色香；比丘亦爾，受人供養取自除惱，無得多求壞其善心。」
「汝等比丘，晝則勤心修習善法，無令失時，初夜後夜亦勿有廢，中夜誦經以自消息，無以睡眠因緣令一生空過無所得也。當念無常之火燒諸世間，早求自度勿睡眠也。諸煩惱賊常伺殺人，甚於怨家，安可睡眠不自驚寤？煩惱毒蛇睡在汝心，譬如黑蚖在汝室睡，當以持戒之鉤早摒除之。睡蛇既出乃可安眠，不出而眠是無慚人也。慚恥之服，於諸莊嚴最為第一……若離慚恥則失諸功德。有愧之人則有善法；若無愧者，與諸禽獸無相異也。」
"You monks, in receiving food and drink, should regard it exactly as taking medicine — never craving more of what pleases you, nor recoiling from what does not; take only enough to sustain the body and relieve hunger and thirst. It is like a bee gathering nectar from a flower: it takes only the flower's own essence, without harming its color or fragrance. A monk receiving a lay supporter's offering should do just the same — take only enough to relieve one's own want, and never demand more, lest it ruin the giver's own wholesome heart."
"You monks, by day diligently apply the mind to cultivating wholesome dharmas, letting no time slip past; in the first and last watches of the night, too, never let this lapse; and in the middle watch, recite the sūtras to keep yourself alert — never let the pretext of sleep cause an entire life to pass by empty, with nothing gained. Hold in mind that the fire of impermanence is burning through the whole world, and seek your own liberation quickly — do not sleep through it. Every bandit of affliction is constantly watching for a chance to kill you, far more dangerous than any personal enemy — how, then, can you sleep and fail to rouse and startle yourself awake? The venomous serpent of affliction lies asleep in your own heart, exactly as a black adder might lie asleep in your own room — you must use the hook of upheld precepts to drive it out at the earliest moment. Only once that sleeping serpent has been driven out can you rightly sleep in peace; to sleep without first driving it out is to be a person without any sense of shame at all. The garment of shame and self-respect is, of every adornment there is, the very finest… Should you ever be parted from this sense of shame, you will lose every meritorious quality along with it. A person who feels conscience thereby possesses wholesome qualities; one who feels none is no different at all from the beasts."
On the bee-and-flower simile, Daopei is precise about what it is and is not claiming: the bee benefits genuinely from the flower, "yet the flower's own color and fragrance remain wholly intact afterward" — a model of receiving support from others that leaves the giver's own goodwill undamaged rather than depleted, which is exactly what "demanding more" would put at risk. On the sleeping serpent, he distinguishes three sources of drowsiness — from food, from the body's own rhythm, and from the mind's own affliction — and notes that only the third is the sūtra's real target here: an arhat, having exhausted affliction entirely, "still sleeps by the body's own rhythm, since even a liberated being must rest, but is never troubled by this third, deeper kind of sleep at all." The urgency of the passage, on his reading, rests on a single distinction: ordinary drowsiness costs a night's alertness; the affliction asleep in the heart, left undisturbed, costs far more than that, and is far easier to mistake for simple tiredness in the meantime.
Anger, Pride, and Flattery
「汝等比丘，若有人來節節支解，當自攝心無令瞋恨，亦當護口勿出惡言……忍之為德，持戒苦行所不能及。能行忍者，乃可名為有力大人；若其不能歡喜忍受惡罵之毒如飲甘露者，不名入道智慧人也。所以者何？瞋恚之害則破諸善法、壞好名聞，今世後世人不憙見。當知瞋心甚於猛火，常當防護無令得入，劫功德賊無過瞋恚。」
「汝等比丘，當自摩頭，已捨飾好著壞色衣，執持應器以乞自活，自見如是，若起憍慢，當疾滅之。……汝等比丘，諂曲之心與道相違，是故宜應質直其心。當知諂曲但為欺誑，入道之人則無是處。是故汝等宜應端心，以質直為本。」
"You monks, should someone come and cut your very limbs apart, joint by joint, you should still hold your own mind in check and give rise to no hatred, and guard your speech and utter no ill word … Patience is a virtue that no amount of discipline or ascetic hardship can equal. One who is able to practice patience may rightly be called a person of true strength; one who cannot receive the poison of cruel abuse joyfully, as though drinking sweet nectar, cannot be called one who has truly entered the way with wisdom. Why is this so? The harm of anger and hatred destroys every wholesome quality, ruins a good reputation, and leaves one disliked by others in this life and every life after. Know that an angry mind is fiercer than any raging fire — constantly guard against it, and never let it find a way in. No bandit robs a person of merit more thoroughly than anger and hatred do."
"You monks, you should touch your own shaved head, and, having already set aside every fine adornment and put on plain, dull-colored robes, holding only an alms bowl to sustain yourself by begging — seeing yourself this way, should any pride arise, extinguish it at once. … You monks, a flattering, crooked mind runs contrary to the way itself; you should therefore keep your own mind honest and upright. Know that flattery serves only to deceive — there is no place for it in one who has entered the way. You should therefore keep the mind rectified, taking honesty and uprightness as its very foundation."
Daopei reads the anger passage's own opening image — being cut apart joint by joint and still refusing hatred — as deliberately the most extreme case the text can name, precisely so that every lesser provocation a monk will actually face falls automatically within the same standard: "if even the loss of one's own body is no grounds for hatred, then how much less is an unkind word." He reads the closing comparison of a layperson's anger against a monastic's own as a matter of what each has, or lacks, by way of a remedy already in hand: "a layperson, absorbed in worldly desire, has no method for governing the self, and so their anger, though still a fault, is at least understandable; a monastic, who has left home precisely to leave desire behind and who has been given every tool for self-governance already, has no such excuse at all" — the same act judged by a different standard depending on what resources the person committing it already possesses. The pride and flattery sections that follow, though brief, he treats as two sides of a single problem: pride is a wrong relationship to one's own accomplishment, flattery a wrong relationship to another's — and both, in his phrase, "return a mind already turned toward liberation back onto itself, which is precisely the direction this whole sūtra has been arguing against from its very first line."
Eight Qualities of a Practitioner Set Free
「汝等比丘，當知多欲之人多求利故，苦惱亦多；少欲之人無求無欲，則無此患。……有少欲者則有涅槃，是名少欲。」
「汝等比丘，若欲脫諸苦惱，當觀知足。知足之法，即是富樂安隱之處。知足之人，雖臥地上，猶為安樂；不知足者，雖處天堂，亦不稱意。……是名知足。」
「汝等比丘，若求寂靜無為安樂，當離憒閙、獨處閑居……若樂眾者，則受眾惱，譬如大樹，眾鳥集之，則有枯折之患。世間縛著，沒於眾苦，譬如老象溺泥，不能自出。是名遠離。」
「汝等比丘，若勤精進則事無難者，是故汝等當勤精進，譬如小水常流則能穿石。……是名精進。」
「汝等比丘，求善知識、求善護助而不忘念；若不忘念者，諸煩惱賊則不能入。……是名不忘念。」
「汝等比丘，若攝心者心則在定，心在定故能知世間生滅法相。是故汝等常當精勤修集諸定……是名為定。」
「汝等比丘，若有智慧則無貪著，常自省察不令有失，是則於我法中能得解脫……實智慧者，則是度老病死海堅牢船也，亦是無明黑闇大明燈也，一切病苦之良藥也，伐煩惱樹者之利斧也。……是為智慧。」
「汝等比丘，若種種戲論其心則亂，雖復出家猶未得脫。是故比丘，當急捨離亂心戲論；若汝欲得寂滅樂者，唯當善滅戲論之患。是名不戲論。」
Few desires: "You monks, know that one of many desires, seeking profit for that very reason, suffers much distress as well; one of few desires, seeking nothing and wanting nothing, is troubled by none of this. … One of few desires already possesses nirvāṇa. This is called having few desires."
Contentment: "You monks, if you wish to be free of every distress, contemplate contentment. The practice of contentment is itself the very ground of wealth, joy, and security. One who is content, though lying on bare ground, is still at ease; one who is not content, though dwelling in a heavenly palace, still finds nothing to their liking. … This is called contentment."
Solitude: "You monks, if you seek the ease of stillness and non-action, keep apart from noisy crowds and dwell alone in quiet … One who delights in company thereby receives the troubles of that company as well — it is like a great tree gathering a crowd of birds, which then suffers the harm of broken, withered branches. Attachment to the world drowns a being in a host of sufferings, exactly as an old elephant mired in mud is unable to free itself. This is called solitude."
Diligence: "You monks, where diligent effort is applied, nothing remains difficult — you should therefore be diligent, exactly as a trickle of water, flowing without pause, is able to bore straight through stone. … This is called diligence."
Unforgetting mindfulness: "You monks, in seeking a good spiritual friend and good outward support, nothing surpasses not forgetting mindfulness; where mindfulness is not forgotten, no bandit of affliction can find a way in. … This is called unforgetting mindfulness."
Meditative absorption: "You monks, one who gathers the mind thereby has a mind abiding in samādhi; because the mind abides in samādhi, one is able to know the world's own marks of arising and ceasing. You should therefore constantly and diligently cultivate every form of samādhi … This is called meditative absorption."
Wisdom: "You monks, one possessed of wisdom is free of clinging attachment, constantly examining oneself and never allowing any lapse — this alone is able to bring liberation within my own Dharma … True wisdom is itself the sturdy vessel that crosses the sea of old age, sickness, and death; it is the great lamp that lights the darkness of ignorance; it is the fine medicine for every sickness and suffering; it is the sharp axe that fells the very tree of affliction. … This is wisdom."
Freedom from idle debate: "You monks, a mind given over to every kind of idle debate is thereby thrown into disorder, and even one who has left home in this state has still not found freedom. You should therefore urgently set aside a disordered mind's idle debate; if you wish to attain the bliss of utter stillness, you must simply and thoroughly extinguish this very affliction of idle debate. This is called freedom from idle debate."
Daopei reads these eight qualities as a single connected chain rather than eight independent virtues to be cultivated in any order: few desires makes contentment possible, since a mind still wanting more can never actually be satisfied by what it already has; contentment makes solitude bearable, since only a mind no longer chasing after more finds quiet company rather than deprivation; solitude clears the ground for diligence, since a crowded life leaves no space for sustained effort; diligence sustains the unforgetting mindfulness that keeps affliction locked out; mindfulness stabilizes into meditative absorption; absorption gives rise to genuine wisdom; and wisdom, finally, is what actually dissolves the mind's own idle debating, the eighth and last quality closing the circle back to where the whole sequence of five faculties and one mind was first raised, several sections earlier. The four similes clustered around wisdom in the seventh item — a sturdy vessel, a great lamp, fine medicine, a sharp axe — Daopei reads as answering four separate registers of what wisdom is actually needed for: the vessel crosses a *journey* (through old age, sickness, and death), the lamp addresses a *lack* (ignorance), the medicine treats an *affliction* already present, and the axe destroys something that must be actively felled rather than merely endured — four different relationships to suffering, met by the very same single quality.
The Physician Who Cannot Force the Cure
「汝等比丘，於諸功德，常當一心，捨諸放逸，如離冤賊。大悲世尊所說利益，皆已究竟，汝等但當勤而行之。若於山間、若空澤中、若在樹下、閒處、靜室，念所受法，勿令亡失。常當自勉，精進修之，無為空死，後致有悔。我如良醫，知病說藥，服與不服，非醫咎也。又如善導，導人善道，聞之不行，非導過也。」
「汝等若於苦等四諦有所疑者，可疾問之，無得懷疑不求決也。」爾時，世尊如是三唱，人無問者。所以者何？眾無疑故。
時，阿㝹樓馱觀察眾心而白佛言：「世尊！月可令熱，日可令冷，佛說四諦不可令異……是諸比丘於四諦中決定無疑。」
"You monks, hold every meritorious quality always in a single, undivided mind, and set aside every heedlessness exactly as you would flee a hated bandit. Whatever benefit the greatly compassionate World-Honored One has taught is already complete and entire — you need only apply yourselves diligently to putting it into practice. Whether in the mountains, in an empty marsh, beneath a tree, in a quiet place or a silent room, hold in mind the Dharma you have received, and never let it be lost. Always exert yourselves, cultivating it with diligence, lest you die having accomplished nothing at all, and come afterward to bitter regret. I am like a good physician, who knows the illness and prescribes the medicine — whether it is actually taken is no fault of the physician's own. I am also like a skillful guide, who shows a person the good road — if, having heard it, they do not walk it, that is no fault of the guide's own."
"Should any of you hold any doubt at all regarding the four noble truths — suffering and the rest — ask it now, without delay; do not harbor doubt and fail to seek its resolution." The World-Honored One made this same call three times, and no one asked anything at all. Why was this so? Because the whole assembly held no doubt whatsoever.
At that time Aniruddha, observing the state of the whole assembly's mind, said to the Buddha: "World-Honored One — the moon could be made to give heat, and the sun could be made to give cold, before the Buddha's own teaching of the four truths could ever be made otherwise. … Every monk here is decisively free of doubt regarding the four truths."
The physician-and-guide simile, Daopei notes, is the sūtra's own final, explicit statement of where responsibility actually lies once the teaching itself has been given in full — a claim he reads as neither cold nor dismissive, but the necessary complement to everything preceding it: eight qualities, ten specific dangers, a herdsman's vigilance over five faculties — all of it offered completely and without withholding, and none of it able to act on a listener's behalf. On why the Buddha calls for questions three times before Aniruddha finally speaks, he reads this repetition itself as a final act of compassion rather than mere formality — "the Buddha's own great compassion, unwilling to let a single doubt go unaddressed, even now, in these very last moments" — and Aniruddha's own answer, framed as a comparison so extreme it verges on the impossible (sooner the sun turning cold than the four truths ever proving false), as the assembly's collective way of assuring the Buddha, in his own final hours, that nothing has been left unresolved.
The Last Teaching
「汝等比丘，勿懷憂惱。若我住世一劫，會亦當滅，會而不離終不可得。自利利人法皆具足，若我久住更無所益。應可度者，若天上人間皆悉已度，其未度者，皆亦已作得度因緣。自今已後，我諸弟子展轉行之，則是如來法身常在而不滅也。是故當知，世皆無常，會必有離，勿懷憂也。世相如是，當勤精進早求解脫，以智慧明滅諸癡闇。世實危脆無牢強者，我今得滅如除惡病。此是應捨罪惡之物，假名為身，沒在生老病死大海，何有智者得除滅之，如殺怨賊而不歡喜？」
「汝等比丘，常當一心勤求出道，一切世間動不動法，皆是敗壞不安之相。汝等且止，勿得復語，時將欲過，我欲滅度，是我最後之所教誨。」
"You monks, hold no sorrow or distress. Even were I to remain in the world for a full kalpa, this gathering, too, would still come to an end — a meeting without any eventual parting has never once been found anywhere. Every dharma of benefiting myself and benefiting others is already complete and entire; my remaining here longer would add nothing further at all. Every being fit to be liberated, whether in the heavens or among humankind, has already been liberated; and for those not yet liberated, the very cause and condition of their eventual liberation has already been established. From this day forward, my disciples, carrying this teaching onward from one to the next, are themselves the Tathāgata's own Dharma-body, ever present and never extinguished. Know, then, that everything in the world is impermanent, that every meeting must end in parting — hold no sorrow over this. The nature of the world is exactly this; apply yourselves diligently, and seek liberation without delay, extinguishing every darkness of ignorance with wisdom's own light. The world is, in truth, fragile and without any real strength — my own passing now is like the removal of a terrible sickness. This thing that must be set aside, this offense-laden object given only the provisional name 'body,' sunk in the great ocean of birth, old age, sickness, and death — what person of true wisdom would not remove it gladly, exactly as one would rejoice at the slaying of a hated enemy?"
"You monks, always with a single, undivided mind, diligently seek the way that leads out of this world; every conditioned thing in the world, moving or unmoving alike, bears only the mark of decay and unrest. Be still now, and speak no further — the time is nearly past, and I am about to enter final extinction. These are my very last words of instruction."
Daopei reads the Buddha's own closing words about his body — "an offense-laden object given only the provisional name 'body'... what person of true wisdom would not remove it gladly" — against a question the passage itself anticipates a careful reader will raise: if the Tathāgata's body is, as the tradition holds, itself the Dharma-body, arising from no real birth and subject to no real death, why does the text have him speak of his own passing in language this plainly, almost jarringly, negative? His answer is that the Buddha is here speaking deliberately from within the very frame ordinary beings mistake for real — "since beings wrongly take the four elements as their own self, and, from that mistaking, generate affliction and karma and sink into the sea of suffering, the Buddha displays a body identical in form to theirs, and speaks of its faults at length precisely so that its passing can be shown as something to rejoice in rather than mourn" — the same strategic identification with an ordinary listener's own mistaken premises this collection's other translation-notes pages have traced elsewhere in this tradition, here carried all the way to the Buddha's own final words. The sūtra's closing command — "be still now, and speak no further" — is, on Daopei's reading, not an abrupt cutoff but the necessary end of an already-completed teaching: nothing further remains to be said, and the silence that follows is itself the last instruction.
Sūtra of the Buddha's Bequeathed Teaching. Complete.