Dhammapada Chapter 14: The Buddha

The Buddha chapter begins with the awakened one's untraceability — his conquest cannot be undone, craving's snare cannot lead him anywhere, his range is infinite and his path trackless (14.1–14.2) — and with a reminder of rarity: rare is human birth, rare the hearing of the true Dhamma, rare the arising of Buddhas (14.4). At its centre stands the verse tradition calls the heart of the entire teaching, the Ovada-Patimokkha: not to do any evil, to cultivate the good, to purify one's own mind — this is the teaching of the Buddhas (14.5). Alongside it: forbearing patience is the highest austerity, and one who harms others is no renunciant at all (14.6).

The chapter then addresses fear and where people run with it: to mountains, forests, groves, and shrines (14.10) — refuges that do not free (14.11). The safe refuge is the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangha, through which one sees with right wisdom the Four Noble Truths: suffering, its arising, its overcoming, and the Eightfold Path to its cessation (14.12–14.14). That, the text says plainly, is the refuge by which one is freed from all suffering.