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Thig 6:1 Paṭācārā’s 500 Students
[Paṭācārā recounts the Buddha’s words:]
“You don’t know
the path
of his coming or going,
that being who has come
from where?—
the one you lament as ‘my son.’
But when you know
the path
of his coming or going,
you don’t grieve after him,
for that is the nature
of beings.
Unasked,
he came from there.
Without permission,
he went from here
—coming from where?—
having stayed a few days.
And coming one way from here,
he goes yet another
from there.
Dying in the human form,
he will go wandering on.
As he came, so he has gone—
so what is there
to lament?”
Pulling out
—completely out—
the arrow so hard to see,
embedded in my heart,
he [the Buddha] expelled from me
—overcome with grief—
the grief
over my son.
Today—with arrow removed,
without hunger, entirely
unbound—
to the Buddha, Dhamma, & Saṅgha I go,
for refuge to
the Sage.