If one, yearning for sensual pleasure,
    achieves it, yes,
he's enraptured at heart.
The mortal gets what he wants.
But if for him, yearning,
the pleasures diminish,
    he's shattered,
as if shot with an arrow.

Whoever avoids sensual desires
as he would, with his foot,
the head of a snake,
goes beyond, mindful,
this attachment to the world.

A man who is greedy
    for fields, land, gold,
    cattle, horses,
    servants, employees,
    many sensual pleasures,
is overpowered with weakness
and trampled by trouble,
for pain invades him
like water, a cracked boat.

So one, always mindful,
should avoid sensual desires.
    Letting them go,
he'd cross over the flood
like one who, having bailed out the boat,
    has reached the far shore.