“Hard to do, hard to endure, is the ascetic life for the inept, for it has many narrow passes where the fool founders.”

“How many days could an ascetic live without controlling the mind? They’d founder with each step, under the sway of thoughts.

A mendicant should collect their thoughts as a tortoise draws its limbs into its shell. Independent, not disturbing others, quenched: they wouldn’t blame anyone.”

Linked Discourses 1.18 2. The Garden of Delight Conscience

“Can a person constrained by conscience be found in the world, who is cognizant of blame, like a fine horse of the whip?”

“Few are those constrained by conscience, who live always mindful. Having reached the end of suffering, smoothly they walk in the rough.”

Linked Discourses 1.19 2. The Garden of Delight Little Hut

“Don’t you have a little hut? Don’t you have a little nest? Don’t you have any networks? Aren’t you free of shackles?”

“Indeed I have no little hut. Indeed I have no little nest. Indeed I have no networks. Indeed I’m free from shackles.”