Chapter 89அதிகாரம் 89 துன்பம் Suffering

In wood where a nail was hammered, even after the hole has closed, the pain takes the shape of the nail.

When the root of a great mango tree gives way and it falls, people stand and talk. And on the day that root stood rotting?

The colour of fire-eaten clay is itself the touchstone that knows how great the fire was that burned it.

Those who see the vine in bloom from end to end do not see that the whole vine is the root’s scar.

A scar is the shape a wound takes as it heals; looking well does not mean being untouched by suffering.

A hand long used to fire knows heat without touching it; those long used to pain know pain.

Those who look at the mud on the feet of the man who ploughed the field: will they see the furrow a storm has ploughed in the heart?

For those it befell, that day never passes: through all their days, the one day it befell is many.

However many days go by, that one day never ends; it becomes all the days there are.

The goad strikes and the ox runs down the road. It hates the goad, not the road.

A patient shows where it hurts to tell of his illness; but there is an illness with no place where it hurts.

Those who struck wiped their sword clean; the scar in the breast of those they struck cannot be wiped away.