Basic Passages 7

Outside the Walls

kp7:1 Outside the walls they stand and wait, at the junctions and the crossroads. Returning to their former homes they wait beside the door posts.

kp7:2 But when lavish food and drink of many kinds is set out, no one remembers them at all, because of those beings’s deeds.

kp7:3 That’s why those who have compassion give to their relatives food and drink at the right time, that’s clean, delicious, and suitable.

kp7:4 “May this be for our relatives! May our relatives be happy!” Those departed ones who are remembered here, the departed relatives who are remembered

kp7:5 for the lavish food and drink gratefully express appreciation: “May our relatives live long! For those to whom we owe this gain,

kp7:6 who have given honor to us, it will not be fruitless for the donor.” There is no farming there, no cow pasture can be found;

kp7:7 likewise there’s no trading, and no commerce in gold coin. The departed, the dead in that place live on what is given here.

kp7:8 Just as water that rains on high flows down to the plains, so too what is given here benefits the departed.

kp7:9 Just as the rivers full swell the ocean seas so too what is given here benefits the departed.

kp7:10 Thinking: “They gave to me, they did for me, they were my family, friend, comrade”, give charity for departed kin, remembering past deeds.

kp7:11 For neither tears nor grief or other lamentations are of any use to the departed, so long as their relatives stay like this.

kp7:12 This offering that has been given, well placed in the Saṅgha, is for their lasting welfare, and aids them right away.

kp7:13 The relative’s duty has now been shown: how high honor to departed is performed, how the mendicants can be kept strong, and how no little merit is produced by you.