dn23:9.0 2.3. The Simile of the Sewer
BAGIAN 9
dn23:9.1 “Well then, chieftain, I shall give you a simile.
dn23:9.2 For by means of a simile some sensible people understand the meaning of what is said.
dn23:9.3 Suppose there were a man sunk over his head in a sewer.
dn23:9.4 Then you were to order someone
dn23:9.5 to pull him out of the sewer,
dn23:9.6 and they’d agree to do so.
dn23:9.7 Then you’d tell them to
dn23:9.8 carefully scrape the dung off that man’s body with bamboo scrapers,
dn23:9.9 and they’d agree to do so.
dn23:9.10 Then you’d tell them to
dn23:9.11 carefully scrub that man’s body down with pale clay three times,
dn23:9.12 and they’d do so.
dn23:9.13 Then you’d tell them to
dn23:9.14 smear that man’s body with oil, and carefully wash him down with fine paste three times,
dn23:9.15 and they’d do so.
dn23:9.16 Then you’d tell them to
dn23:9.17 dress that man’s hair and beard,
dn23:9.18 and they’d do so.
dn23:9.19 Then you’d tell them to
dn23:9.20 provide that man with costly garlands, makeup, and clothes,
dn23:9.21 and they’d do so.
dn23:9.22 Then you’d tell them to
dn23:9.23 bring that man up to the stilt longhouse and set him up with the five kinds of sensual stimulation,
dn23:9.24 and they’d do so.
dn23:9.25 What do you think, chieftain?
dn23:9.26 Now that man is nicely bathed and anointed, with hair and beard dressed, bedecked with garlands and bracelets, dressed in white, supplied and provided with the five kinds of sensual stimulation upstairs in the royal longhouse. Would he want to plunge back into that sewer again?”
dn23:9.27 “No, worthy Kassapa.
dn23:9.28 Why is that?
dn23:9.29 Because that sewer is filthy, stinking, disgusting, and repulsive, and it’s regarded as such.”
dn23:9.30 “In the same way, chieftain, to the gods, human beings are filthy, stinking, disgusting, and repulsive, and are regarded as such.
dn23:9.31 The smell of humans reaches the gods even a hundred leagues away.
dn23:9.32 What then of your friends and colleagues, relatives and kin who are reborn in a higher realm after doing good things? Will they come back to tell you that
dn23:9.33 there is an afterlife?
dn23:9.34 By this method, too, it ought to be proven that
dn23:9.35 there is an afterlife.”