All beings tremble before violence.
All fear death.
All love life.

See yourself in others.
Then whom can you hurt?
What harm can you do?

He who seeks happiness
By hurting those who seek happiness
Will never find happiness.

For your brother is like you.
He wants to be happy.
Never harm him
And when you leave this life
You too will find happiness.

Never speak harsh words
For they will rebound upon you.

Angry words hurt
And the hurt rebounds.

Like a broken gong
Be still, be silent.
Know the stillness of freedom
Where there is no more striving.

Like herdsmen driving their cows into the fields,
Old age and death will drive you before them.

But the fool in his mischief forgets
And he lights the fire
Wherein one day he must burn.

He who harms the harmless
Or hurts the innocent,
Ten times shall he fall –

Into torment or infirmity,
Injury or disease or madness,
Persecution or fearful accusation,
Loss of family, loss of fortune.

Fire from heaven shall strike his house
And when his body has been struck down
He shall rise in hell.

He who goes naked,
With matted hair, mud-bespattered,
Who fasts and sleeps on the ground
And smears his body with ashes
And sits in endless meditation –
So long as he is not free from doubts,
He will not find freedom.

But he who lives purely and self-assured,
In quietness and virtue,
Who is without harm or hurt or blame,
Even if he wears fine clothes,
So long as he also has faith,
He is a true seeker.

A noble horse rarely
Feels the touch of the whip.
Who is there in the world as blameless?

Then like a noble horse
Smart under the whip
Burn and be swift.

Believe, meditate, see.
Be harmless, be blameless.
Awake to the law.
And from all sorrows free yourself.

The farmer channels water to his land.
The fletcher whittles his arrows.
The carpenter turns his wood.
And the wise man masters himself.

~The Dhammapada