Men are tied up to their families and possessions more helplessly than in a prison. There is an occasion for the prisoner to be released, but householders entertain no desire to be relieved from the ties of family. When a man's passion is aroused nothing prevents him from ruining himself. Even into the jaws of a tiger will he jump. Those who are thus drowned in the filth of passion are called the ignorant. Those who are able to overcome it are saintly Arhats.
Household life is crowded and dusty; life gone forth is wide open... Suppose I shave off my hair and beard, put on the ochre robe, and go forth from the home life into homelessness.
Those who recognize the existence of suffering, its cause, its remedy, and its cessation, have fathomed the four noble truths. They will walk in the right path.
The poisonous serpent of afflictions is sleeping in your mind; just as if a black viper were asleep in your room. You must use the hook of precepts to quickly remove it. When the sleeping snake is gone, then you can rest at ease.
That which goeth up must needs come down; and that which is down must needs go up. But Brahma has ordained that the that that goeth up is seldom the same as the that that hath gone down.