On sensual desires (from the Arthavargīya / Aṭṭhakavagga)

Śag_40.1

[A verse from the {{Arthavargīya:Aṭṭhakavagga|the 'Octads' section of the Sutta Nipāta}}, taking up sensual desires:] For one who desires sensual pleasures, if that [desire] of his succeeds, then surely he is glad at heart, the mortal, having gained what he longed for.

Śag_40.2

But if, for that being who desires and in whom longing has arisen, those sensual pleasures fail, he is racked with pain as one pierced by a dart.

Śag_40.3

He who shuns sensual pleasures as one [shuns treading on] a serpent's head with his foot—he, being mindful, fully passes beyond this clinging that is in the world.

Śag_40.4

Fields and dwellings and gold, cattle and horses, jewels and earrings, women and slaves—the man who greedily craves these manifold objects of desire,

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him, as the weak, the onrushing floods overwhelm him as the stronger; thereupon suffering pursues him, as water [pours into] a broken boat.

Śag_40.6

But he in whom this [craving] is wholly cut off, struck down like the crown of a [felled] palm tree—his sorrows fall away, like a drop of water from a lotus-leaf.