When things have come to this, it’s not easy these days to realize what has not yet been realized, or to preserve what has been realized.

When shoeless on a thorny path, one would walk very mindfully; that’s how a sage should walk in the village.

Remembering the meditators of old, and recollecting their conduct, even in the latter days, it’s still possible to realize freedom from death.”

That is what the ascetic, whose faculties were fully developed, said in the sāl tree grove. The brahmin, the seer, became fully extinguished, putting an end to all future lives.

Verses of the Senior Monks 17.1 The Book of the Thirties Chapter One Phussa