Dhammapada Chapter 4: Flowers

The Flowers chapter works a single image through many turns. Who will master this earth and discern the well-taught path, as a skilled gardener selects flowers? (4.1) — the trained disciple will (4.2). But flowers are also the danger: death sweeps away the person absorbed in plucking the flowers of pleasure, as a flood sweeps a sleeping village (4.4), and carries off the one never satisfied in sense-pleasures (4.5).

The centre of the chapter gives Buddhism one of its loveliest ethical images: as a bee gathers nectar and departs without injuring the flower, its colour, or its scent, so should the sage move through the village (4.6) — take what sustains you, harm nothing. The next verse turns the gaze inward: look not to others' faults, to what others have done or left undone, but to your own deeds, done and not done (4.7). Words without practice are a bright flower without scent; words lived are fragrant (4.8–4.9). And virtue outperforms every perfume: no scent travels against the wind, but the fragrance of the good person diffuses in all directions (4.11) — a lotus blooming sweetly on a rubbish heap (4.15–4.16).