Thag 10.5 - Thag 10:5 Kappa
Translated by Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu
Source: https://www.dhammatalks.org/suttas/KN/Thag/thag10_5.html
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Copyright: Copyright 2014 Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu, Revised edition 2017
License notice: Copyright 2014 Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu, Revised edition 2017 This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 Unported. To see a copy of this license visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/. “Commercial” shall mean any sale, whether for commercial or non-profit purposes or entities. Questions about this book may be addressed to Metta Forest Monastery Valley Center, CA 92082-1409 U.S.A. Additional resources More Dhamma talks, books and translations by Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu are available to download in digital audio and various ebook formats at dhammatalks.org. Printed copy A paperback copy of this book is available free of charge. To request one, write to: Book Request, Metta Forest Monastery, PO Box 1409, Valley Center, CA 92082 USA.
Attribution: From Handful of Leaves, Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu; https://www.dhammatalks.org/Archive/Writings/Ebooks/SuttaPitaka_251113.epub. Copyright 2014 Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu, Revised edition 2017 This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 Unported. To see a copy of this license visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/. “Commercial” shall mean any sale, whether for commercial or non-profit purposes or entities. Questions about this book may be addressed to Metta Forest Monastery Valley Center, CA 92082-1409 U.S.A. Additional resources More Dhamma talks, books and translations by Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu are available to download in digital audio and various ebook formats at dhammatalks.org. Printed copy A paperback copy of this book is available free of charge. To request one, write to: Book Request, Metta Forest Monastery, PO Box 1409, Valley Center, CA 92082 USA.
Publisher references (not part of the sutta): See also: AN 7:48; Sn 1:11
Changes: Presentation only: original HTML markup reflowed into plain text; wording, numbering and source repetitions retained. No repetitions expanded.
Completeness: ABBREVIATED. Every source-unit character is preserved, including introductions, notes and verse structure. Thanissaro's collection-level note explicitly states that repetitions were cut: https://www.dhammatalks.org/suttas/about.html. This is evidence about the translation method, not an assertion that every individual unit contains an omission; no repetitions reconstructed.

Thag 10:5 Kappa

Full of the many clans of impurities,
the great manufacturer of excrement,
like a stagnant pool,
    a great tumor,
    great wound,
full of blood & lymph,
immersed in a cesspool,
trickling liquids, the body
is oozing foulness—always.
Bound together with sixty sinews,
plastered with a stucco of muscle,
wrapped in a jacket of skin,
this foul body is of no worth at all.
Linked together with a chain of bones,
stitched together with tendon-threads,
it produces its various postures,
from being hitched up together.

Headed surely to death,
in the presence of the King of Mortality,
the man who learns to discard it right here,
    goes wherever he wants.

Covered with ignorance,
the body’s tied down with a four-fold tie,1
    sunk in the floods,2
    caught in the net of obsessions,3
    conjoined with five hindrances,4
    given over to thought,
    accompanied with the root of craving,
    roofed with delusion’s roofing.
That’s how the body functions,
compelled by the compulsion of kamma,
    but its attainment ends
        in ruin.
    Its many becomings go
        to ruin.

These who hold to this body as mine
—blind fools, people run-of-the-mill—
fill the horrific cemetery,
taking on further becoming.
Those who stay uninvolved with this body
—as they would with a serpent
    smeared with dung—
disgorging the root of becoming,5
will, without effluent,
    totally unbind.

Notes

1. The four-fold tie: greed, ill will, attachment to habits & practice, and dogmatic obsession with views.

2. Floods: sensuality, becoming, views, and ignorance. See SN 45:171. These are identical with the four yokes. See AN 4:10.

3. Obsessions: sensual passion, resistance, views, uncertainty, conceit, passion for becoming, and ignorance. See AN 7:11–12.

4. Hindrances: sensual desire, ill will, sloth & drowsiness, restlessness & anxiety, and uncertainty. See DN 2 and SN 46:51.

5. The root of becoming: craving.