Cattāri Brahmavihārā

148 Lust for a woman mostly comes
From thinking that her body is clean,
But there is nothing clean
In a woman’s body in fact.
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149 The mouth is a vessel of foul saliva
And scum between the teeth,
The nose a vessel of snot, slime, and mucus,
The eyes are vessels of tears and other
excretions.
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150 The abdomen and chest is a vessel
Of feces, urine, lungs, liver, and so forth.
Those who through obscuration do not see
A woman this way, lust for her body.
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151 Just as some fools desire
An ornamented pot filled with what is unclean,
So ignorant, obscured
Worldly beings desire women.
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152 If the world is greatly attached
Even to this ever-so-smelly body
Which should cause loss of attachment,
How can it be led to freedom from desire?
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153 Just as pigs are greatly attached
To a site of excrement, urine, and vomit,
So some lustful ones desire
A site of excrement, urine, and vomit.
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154 This city of a body with protruding holes
From which impurities emerge
Is called an object of pleasure
By beings who are stupid.
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155 Once you yourself have seen the impurities
Of excrement, urine, and so forth,
How could you be attracted
To a body composed of those?
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156 Why should you lust desirously for this
While recognizing it as an unclean form
Produced by a seed whose essence is impure,
A mixture of blood and semen?
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157 One who lies on this impure mass
Covered by skin moistened
With those fluids, merely lies
On top of a woman’s bladder.
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158 If whether beautiful or ugly,
Whether old or young,
All female bodies are unclean,
From what attribute does your lust arise?
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159 Just as it is not fit to desire
Filth although it has a good color,
Is very fresh, and has a nice shape,
So is it with a woman’s body.
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160 How could the nature of this putrid corpse,
A rotten mass covered outside by skin,
Not be seen when it looks
So very horrible?
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161 “The skin is not foul,
It is like a garment.”
Like a hide over a mass of impurities
How could it be clean?
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162 A pot though beautiful outside,
Is reviled when filled with impurities.
Why is the body, filled with impurities
And foul by nature, not reviled?
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163 If you revile against impurities,
Why not against this body
Which befouls clean scents,
Garlands, food, and drink?
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164 Just as one’s own or others’
Impurities are reviled,
Why not revile against one’s own
And others’ unclean bodies?
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165 Since your own body is
As unclean as a woman’s,
Is it not suitable to part
From desire for self and other?
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166 If you yourself wash this body
Dripping from the nine wounds [The nine orifices are eyes, ears, nostrils, mouth, genitalia, and anus]
And still do not think it unclean,
What use is [religious] instruction for you?
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167 Whoever composes poetry
With metaphors elevating this body—
O how shameless! O how stupid!
How embarrassing before [wise]beings!
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168 Moreover, these sentient beings—
Obscured by the darkness of ignorance—
Quarrel most over what they desire,
Like dogs for the sake of some dirty thing.
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169 There is pleasure when a sore is scratched,
But to be without sores is more pleasurable
still.
Just so, there are pleasures in worldly desires,
But to be without desires is more pleasurable
still.
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170 If you analyze thus, even though
You do not achieve freedom from desire,
Because your desire has lessened
You will not lust for women.

-Nagarjuna,- Precious Garland