Buddha on Yourself

Ingredients:

Sayings of Buddha on "Yourself".
Rendered in haiku form.

This is twelfth in the series.

The image was originally of "The Mystic Boat" by Odilon Redon, who also painted the boat in my avatar. But now it is "Buddha", also by Redon.

Directions:

If you love yourself,
Then guard yourself throughout life,
Start, middle and end.

Each step of the way,
Guard yourself against evil
For your own well-being.

Establish the way
In yourself, then teach others.
Be impeccable!

Practice what you preach.
In order to teach others,
First master yourself.

None is a refuge,
But you are your own refuge
If you still your mind.

Wrong done by oneself
Destroys the fool as diamond
Cuts rock that bore it.

Like clinging ivy
Strangling life from its own tree,
So wrongs kill oneself.

Fools can do bad deeds,
But to do what’s rewarding
Takes wisdom indeed.

Fools who through wrong views
Scorn teaching are like bamboo
Dying when they flower.

The wrongs that you do
Are yours to choose not to do
Or suffer the sin.

The good that you do
Springs from your own purity
And makes yourself pure.

Your choices are yours.
None can make another pure.
May you choose wisely.

Don’t neglect your task
For another’s, though their need
May be great indeed.

Your task is to find
Your task and with all your heart
Give yourself to it.