The Fool
This chapter describes the fool, a person who does not understand the teaching, and sets them against the wise. The fool clings to sons and wealth when not even the self is truly one’s own, imagines a bad deed is sweet until its effects ripen, and can sit with the wise for a lifetime without tasting the teaching, like a spoon that never tastes the soup. It says the fool who knows they are a fool is wise at least to that extent. The closing verses describe a fool who craves honour, status and authority, and say that a mendicant, a monk or nun, who understands that profit and the path are different things would foster seclusion instead.
A note on these verses. Verse 60 says fools “transmigrate”, that is, wander through repeated lives; verses 66–71 say bad deeds ripen and follow the fool; verse 75 mentions “quenching”, the end of suffering.
Translated by Bhikkhu Sujato · public domain (CC0) · about 2 min · on SuttaCentral
60Long is the night for the wakeful;long is the league for the weary;long transmigrate the foolswho don’t understand the true teaching.
61If while wandering you find no partnerequal or better than yourself,then firmly resolve to wander alone—there’s no fellowship with fools.
62“Sons are mine, wealth is mine”—thus the fool frets.For even your self is not your own,let alone your sons or wealth.
63The fool who thinks they’re a foolis wise at least to that extent.But the true fool is said to be onewho imagines that they are wise.
64Though a fool attends to the wiseeven for the rest of their life,they still don’t understand the teaching,like a spoon the taste of the soup.
65If a clever person attends to the wiseeven just for an hour or so,they swiftly understand the teaching,like a tongue the taste of the soup.
66Fools and simpletons behavelike their own worst enemies,doing wicked deedsthat ripen as bitter fruit.
67It’s not good to do a deedthat plagues you later on,for which you weep and wail,as its effect stays with you.
68It is good to do a deedthat doesn’t plague you later on,that gladdens and cheers,as its effect stays with you.
69The fool imagines that evil is sweet,so long as it has not yet ripened.But as soon as that evil ripens,they fall into suffering.
70Month after month a fool may eatfood from a grass-blade’s tip;but they’ll never be worth a sixteenth partof one who has appraised the teaching.
71For a wicked deed that has been donedoes not curdle quickly like milk.Smoldering, it follows the fool,like a fire smothered over with ash.
72Whatever fame a fool may get,it only gives rise to harm.Whatever good features they have it ruins,and blows their head into bits.
73They’d seek the esteem that they lack,and status among the mendicants;authority over monasteries,and honor among other families.
74“Let both layfolk and renunciants thinkthe work was done by me alone.In anything at all that’s to be done,let them fall under my sway alone.”So thinks the fool,their greed and pride only growing.
75For the means to profit and the path to quenchingare two quite different things.A mendicant disciple of the Buddha,understanding what this really means,would never delight in honors,but rather would foster seclusion.