Thought-habits can harden into character. So watch your thoughts.

He who walks in the company of fools suffers much. Company with fools, as with an enemy, is always painful. Company with the wise is pleasure, like meeting with kinfolk.

"All conditioned things are impermanent" - when one sees this with wisdom, one turns away from suffering.

Don't indulge in careless behaviour. Don't be the friend of sensual pleasures. He who meditates attentively attains abundant joy.

The world is full of suffering. Birth is suffering, decre- pitude is suffering, sickness and death are sufferings. To face a man of hatred is suffering, to be separated from a beloved one is suffering, to be vainly struggling to satisfy one's needs is suffering. In fact, life that is not free from desire and passion is always involved with suffering.

When a man is stimulated by his own thoughts, full of desire and dwelling on what is attractive, his craving increases even more. He is making the fetter even stronger. But he who takes pleasure in stilling his thoughts, practising the contemplation of what is repulsive, and remaining recollected, now he will make an end of craving, he will snap the bonds of Mara. His aim is accomplished, he is without fear, rid of craving and without stain. He has removed the arrows of changing existence. This is his last body.

Cut down the forest, not just a tree. Out of the forest of desire springs danger. By cutting down both the forest of desire and the brushwood of longing, be rid of the forest, bhikkhus.