Declutter Your Heart

One can live in a cluttered house; one cannot live with a cluttered

heart.

Khmer Proverb

Keep Your Cool

When you are full of anger, you lose wisdom.

King Sri Dharmaraja II of Cambodia (1628-1630)

Distance Only Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

In love, do not visit too often; in yearning, do visit once in awhile.

Khmer Proverb

Keep On Complaining

Do not regret your fate; do not argue your destiny.

Khmer Proverb

Find Your Soulmate

There are men in the land; there are women all over the kingdom.

 Khmer Proverb

A Balance?

Gave charity, felled a tree, killed an animal, followed the law.

Khmer Proverb

Keep Working

One’s goal is achieved by hard work and not by building castles in the air.

Narayana Pandita (1340-1400)

Keep Working

Dreams will get you nowhere; a good kick in the pants will get you a long way.

The Art of Worldly Wisdom (1647) By Baltasar Gracián

Keep Working

Active hands, full bellies.

Khmer Adage 

A Light Touch

Blandness with a handful, saltiness with just a pinch.

Khmer Proverb

King's Codes IV

Consider the case of a good husband,

Having a wife

And a happy home,

Obedient children,

Obeying the father’s orders,

Just like the slaves who show themselves

To the master to receive orders.

Your parents recommend you,

The sages, who have succeeded one another, declare,

The ancients teach you this:

If you want to eat, you have to look for food,

If you want something in the distance, you have to make the journey

If you want affection, invite  

Friends, and treat them as such.

Bad counsels, do not pay them any attention;

Bad acts, do not follow them;

Bad people, do not rub it in;

The ignorant, do not talk to them;

The needy, do not trust them;

The fools, do not rub it in,

And do not consider them as good friends.

Be exact in weighing things.

If you need the services of others,

Speak to competent people.

Do not take the maxims

And compare them to those of the Buddhist texts.

Do not take the words of the venerable ancients

And compare them to those of the fools.

Examine the marks of the dail of the scale,

To arrive at an opinion

Of what is heavy or light.

Do not take women, jewels,

And gold as measures of things.

In your heart, do not develop

An abandonment of the virtuous of dharma.

You have to know how to use tul and hap;

You have to know what is low and high.

Use your eyes to discern the good.

Knowing the degree of purity of gold,

Do not reject the stone;

Knowing what white chalk is,

Do not reject the sheets of paper.

When cultivating rice, pay attention to the grass;

By studying someone's lineage, examine his collaterals;

In judging the servants, their behavior is examined;

Seeing a good behavior,

Do not reject the possibility of a ruse;

By noticing a pure heart,

One does not neglect to appraise his/her behavior.

To judge a queen, one must probe her observances;

To know a king, one must appraise his power;

To know a soldier, one must appraise his exploits;

To know a craftsman, it is necessary to examine the works

Produced by his hands;

If one take a woman,

He must scrutinize her home.

There are three kinds of disappointment

According to our parents’ recommendations,

And the advice of the ancients:

Raw rice, pure whiteness,

Stayed raw after being cooked;

A beautiful person who is a fool;

And a sage without morality!

Likewise, religious without virtuous;

An elderly without good behavior;

A poor man who looks at things with contempt;

A prodigal wife

Who spends out of step;

The foolish soldiers

Who are difficult to train.

Stanzas 30-39 of Chbab Rajaneti (Moral Codes of Conduct: King’s Neti or Royal Codes)

by King Sri Dharmaraja II (1628-1630)

Here are the links to parts I, II, III

Offspring

Love your children one tao (a unit of measurement); love your

grandchildren one thaing (one thaing equals to two taos).

Khmer Proverb

Far and Away

This shore and its opposite

Are as far as eternity

Just like the sky and the earth

Will never meet.

Just as the scientists

Who are opposite in their views

Have never agreed

Not once.

Just like the eight directions

Are far and away from one another

One would never hear

A claim that north meets south.

Composed in Pad Brahmagiti (Brahma’s Song Metre)

For recitation go here

Impossibility?

The gourd sinks, broken pieces float.

Khmer Adage

The Wolf

The story goes,

Recounting from the start, about a wolf.

When the water receded,

The wolf was looking for food.

For seven whole days,

The wolf was ambling and trotting all over the land

Until it came upon a fish,

Which the wolf consumed to satisfy its hunger.

The Wolf, composed in Pad Mandukgati (Frog’s Gait Metre)

You can go here for my recitation

Priority

Wash your hair with clear water; wash your feet with murky water.

Khmer Proverb

Be Ambitious

Cast your fishing rod over the mountain.

 Khmer Adage

Resourcefulness

Ride the water buffalo to cross the muddy field.

  Khmer Adage

A Second Shot?

Seize the chance when one arrives because it never comes twice.

Khmer Proverb

King's Codes III

Soldiers are praised thanks to war;

Rice is cultivated thanks to water;

Soldiers on the march depend on rice;

A pupil becomes educated because his tutor

Criticizes him and chastises him;

Soldiers are superior because their leader

Goes to great lengths to train them.  

In studying various problems, one must think well:

Even adults with good behavior

Are still subjected to distraction;

A good man can become wicked;

A modest man can become grand;

He, of noble lineage,

Can be confused with those of low born.

Sometime you might mistake a horse for a donkey,

A goose for a duck,

A winged bean for a liana,

Lead for silver,

Engraved copper for gold,

Pankuoy for jas*

And a cotton tree for a kapok*.

That is why it is worth thinking,

To reason, to smell the air

To identify the flavor, the fragrance

Good or bad,

Delectable and exciting.

You must take the scents of things

Before you fully enjoy them.

When you read good words,

You should strive to learn more about the author,

And his family and ascendants,

Seek to discover the reason,

Whether good or bad,

After which, you can judge these words

And determine their value.  

A blind man tries to protect his sight with leather patches,

Or a case of a bald man

Who would like oil for his hair,

Or that of a deaf man who listens to songs

By striking his pace with enthusiasm,

That of a paralytic, moving painfully

In sampot chang kben*, attempts to run.

There are three kinds of treacherous behavior.

First is of an elephant

Which is quite ferocious,

But you manage to domesticate.

Under the pressure of the hook,

You rush in pursuit of the herd leader

With six cubits long.

The second is that of a malevolent man

Who is filled with bitterness and pretenses,

Who does not follow the right path,

Nor the words of his seniors,

Who muddles his speech

Without thinking about the perils,

And exposes himself to imminent destruction.

The third is that of a courtesan

Who practices continence,

By holding her beautiful speeches,

These three phenomena

Are examples of dangerous perfidy.

All of you, you good people,

Do not conform to them.

An intelligent man can be defeated by deceitful;

The one who serves his master with veneration

Can be the favorite;

The one who has qualities, the one

Who is lucky;

The one who tries to study the law,

By the one who has a good heart.

A high-ranking man is not worth the one who has the glory;

Whoever has property

Is not worth whoever has power.

It is better to lose fortune

Than to infringe the higher authority,

It is better to contract a disease

Than to be an object of contempt.  

It is better to ask than to take;

Among equal people, do not try to

Differentiate between servants and masters;

It is better to endure an injustice

Than to sound it off.

All problems and troubles,

Do not allow them to spread.

This dharma serves as a prescription

That will protect and defend sentient beings,

And will ensure their success.

It is better to lose one’s fortune

Than to perish oneself;

But it is better to perish

Than to lose the essence of the dharma.

Your parents recommend you,

The sages, one after another, teach you

That the boat follows the shore,

That the junk goes in the direction of the wind.

But the rudder, used to guide

The pennant of the ring in the right position,

And the compass are of prime importance.

Stanzas 16-29 of Chbab Rajaneti (Moral Codes of Conduct: King’s Neti)

by King Sri Dharmaraja II (1628-1630)

For part one and two go here and here

Show, not Tell

Tell me a thousand times, and I still wouldn’t understand; show me

just once, and I would know for the rest of my life.

Khmer Proverb

To Our Children II

As for the precious holy dharma,

Once brilliant, it shines the most

In this world

And to the far beyond;

Its perfection gleams very far

And its gradual glare

Never dims.

O, my children!

Here is another sage’s advice.

The honey of the bees itself

Is sweeter than all sweet things,

Exquisitely sweet as the other Shore.

But this sweetness once passed

We have no more to hold on, no more memories.

On the other hand, the words of the sage,

The sage, out of compassion,

Proclaims to educate you and to exhort you,

These words are infinitely sweeter

Than sugar from honey and cane.

You must hold them within yourself

As long as you are alive.

The sage says, about figs,

That their outer skin

Is brilliant, shining like a mirror,

But that the fruit interior

Contains only wasps

Which are abound,

That's why, the sage goes on.

Some people peddle gossip,

Indulge in slander,

Are dishonest and envious,

Engage in sycophancy,

Have a false and misleading language,

Just like the appearance of the figs

So pretty, only on the outside.

On the other hand, take the jackfruit

The bark is dry and hard,

Bristling with thorns;

But the interior contains pulpy quarters

Sweet and sweet, until

The fruit heart, without imperfection,

And the delicious flavor.

People faithful to the dharma,

Good people faithful to the Texts,

The sage compares them

To the jackfruit that has fragrant pulps,

Sweet and delicious,

Outside covers with thorns,

But inside full of sweetness.

On the other hand, the sage says:

The bumblebee and the flower

Belong to separate worlds.

But precisely because of the first’s desire to sip

And collect the scent (of the second),

It travels distances to the flight,

And hastens in quest of the flower.

It is similar to a man

Whose heart aspires to acquire

Codes and treaties;

This man goes in search of the one

Who owns science,

And applies to study with zealous,

Diligence and boldness.

Another case is that of the fly

Who gets lured by the stinky things,

Disgusting and infamous;

Like a man without virtue,

Eager for the affairs of justice,

Without thinking about the difficulties,

Nor have fears for the future.

Another case (according to) the treaties:

The sage forbids to imitate

The treacherous conduct of jrai*

(Because) when they occur and develop,

They take sustenance at the expense of the trees.

Whatever the place,

Their guests are subject to ruin.

Another case that the sage is noticing:

The treacherous behavior of the tiger who,

At the sight of abundance meat,

Wants to eat as much,

Without ever being satisfied.

O, all human beings!

Do not imitate this behavior of the tiger.

Humans born in this world are

Like a cartwheel.

Turning, the wheel touches all;

Sometime, it touches others,

In which case we have respite.

Which is why the sage declares,

And recommends to pay attention to the way of the wheel.

It is in the nature of the trees

Growing in the forest

To be twisted, to be righted.

As for the inhabitants of the kingdom

Protect by the good sovereign,

Some are just and honest,

Others are stupid and vile.

All the animals

Ferocious and cruel,

We can force them and command them.

But the ferocious people,

Foolish and abusive,

The sage tells us to turn them away,

And to get away from them.

O, my children! Listen carefully!

These words form a code,

A discourse on education;

These words form a path of passage

That must be kept piously.

O, my children!

Together, listen carefully!

O, all children!

In the future generations

Of your family,

Learn to care for each other,

And to stay together.

Whether false or righteous, wicked or good,

Know how to endure and forgive.

O, my children!

Your father being well aged

Will not be long among you.

Who will stay

To guide you, my children?

Who then will be able

To replace your father?

But your father once gone

Leaves behind a word

To guide and inform you.

This word, your father

Will make a bridge

To allow you all

To reach the other Shore.

That word in question, then,

Should you reject it,

You will likely incur blame for a long time.

But, if your boat breaks,

If your junk rips apart,

Even in the distant Lanka,

You can always come home.

Chbab Kun Cau stanzas 11-30 (Moral Codes of Conduct: Children and

Grandchildren) Composed in Pad Kakagati (Crowe’s Gait Metre)

17th Century or earlier

Go here for stanzas 1-10