Sn 4.1 Kama Sutta

Kama Sutta: Sensual Pleasure

translated from the Pali by

Thanissaro Bhikkhu

If one, longing for sensual pleasure, achieves it, yes, he's enraptured at heart. The mortal gets what he wants. But if for that person longing, desiring the pleasures diminish, he's shattered, as if shot with an arrow. Whoever avoids sensual desires as he would, with his foot, the head of a snake goes beyond, mindful, this attachment in the world. A man who is greedy for fields, land, gold, cattle, horses, servants, employees, women, relatives, many sensual pleasures, is overpowered with weakness and trampled by trouble, for pain invades him as water, a cracked boat. So one, always mindful, should avoid sensual desires. Letting them go, he'd cross over the flood like one who, having bailed out the boat, has reached the far shore.