12. The Self

If you knew your self as beloved, you’d look after it so well. In one of the night’s three watches, an astute person would remain alert.

The astute would avoid being corrupted by first grounding themselves in what is suitable, and then instructing others.

If one were to treat oneself as one instructs another, the well-tamed indeed would tame: for the self, it seems, is hard to tame.

One is indeed the lord of oneself, for who else would be one’s lord? By means of a well-tamed self, one gains a lord that’s rare indeed.

For the evil that is done by oneself, born and produced in oneself, grinds down a simpleton, as diamond grinds a lesser gem.

One choked by immorality, as a sal tree by a creeper, does to themselves what a foe only wishes.

It’s easy to do bad things harmful to oneself, but good things that are helpful are the hardest things to do.

On account of wicked views—scorning the guidance of the perfected ones, the noble ones living righteously—the idiot begets their own self’s demise, like the bamboo bearing fruit.

For it is by oneself that evil’s done, one is corrupted by oneself. It’s by oneself that evil’s not done, one is purified by oneself. Purity and impurity are personal matters, no one can purify another.

Never neglect what is good for yourself for the sake of another, however great. Knowing well what is good for yourself, be intent upon your heart’s goal.