Our Buddha’s Teaching has now traversed more than two thousand five hundred years since the Blessed One passed into Final Nibbāna — since the day He took His leave of us.
Yet before He departed, He entrusted us with a charge. In the language of the ordinary person, it may be expressed thus: “My children, be not heedless. Your father shall no longer be here. Strive with sincere intention to improve and refine yourselves.”
Before taking His final leave, He gave this instruction: Be not heedless — for human life is not long. Before one reaches a hundred years, one dies. Even now, to find a person of a hundred years is no common thing. And even should one surpass a hundred — if asked whether one must still die, the answer remains: yes, one must die all the same. Be not heedless.
Therefore, there are two things that must be done:
The first is to correct oneself — and this is a matter of great importance. What is to be corrected? One’s own habits and dispositions.
The second, beyond correcting one’s habits and faults, is to accumulate goodness with wholehearted dedication — giving it one’s utmost. This may be called the building of pāramī — the cultivation of merit and spiritual perfection. This, too, is a matter of the greatest importance.
May 12th, 2014
Notes on the translation:
- “อย่าประมาท” — appamāda in Pāli — is rendered as “be not heedless,” the canonical English translation of one of the Buddha’s most foundational and final instructions. The Mahāparinibbāna Sutta records the Buddha’s very last words as: “Vayadhammā saṅkhārā, appamādena sampādethā” — “All conditioned things are impermanent; work out your salvation with diligence.” Heedfulness is thus not merely a moral virtue but the culminating charge of the Blessed One’s entire ministry.
- “เสด็จดับขันธปรินิพพาน” — the passing into Final Nibbāna — is rendered using the standard Pāli term Parinibbāna, the complete and irreversible cessation of the five aggregates (khandha) at the death of a fully enlightened being, distinguished from the Nibbāna attained during life.
- “ลูกเอ้ย” — a tender, familial address meaning “my dear children” — captures the Buddha’s role as the spiritual father of humanity, consistent with the epithet Lokavidū (Knower of the World) and Satthā devamanussānaṃ (Teacher of Gods and Humans).
- “บารมี” — pāramī or pāramitā — refers to the ten spiritual perfections cultivated over many lifetimes as the foundation for liberation: generosity, virtue, renunciation, wisdom, energy, patience, truthfulness, determination, loving-kindness, and equanimity. Rendered as “spiritual perfection” with the Pāli term preserved for precision.
- “สั่งสมความดี” — the accumulation of goodness — reflects the gradual path (anupubbasikkhā) of Theravāda practice: merit and virtue are not acquired in a single moment but built steadily, layer upon layer, across time and lifetimes, like water filling a vessel drop by drop.
- The simile of the father departing and entrusting his children with responsibility echoes the Mahāparinibbāna Sutta‘s account of the Buddha’s final days, in which He repeatedly urged the assembled Sangha toward self-reliance, self-correction, and the Dhamma as their sole refuge and guiding light.
