Dhammapada verse 115
Chapter 8, The Thousands (Sahassavagga) · verses 100–115
“Better to live a single day seeing the supreme teaching than to live a hundred years blind to the supreme teaching.”
Yo ca vassasataṁ jīve, apassaṁ dhammamuttamaṁ; Ekāhaṁ jīvitaṁ seyyo, passato dhammamuttamaṁ. Sahassavaggo aṭṭhamo.
English by Bhikkhu Sujato (CC0, via SuttaCentral)
What does Dhammapada verse 115 mean?
Verse 115 belongs to chapter 8, The Thousands (Sahassavagga), which gathers verses 100–115 on comparisons with a thousand. It is filed under good & evil. Read it with the verses around it: the Dhammapada arranges chapters as short runs, not as isolated lines, so verse 114 and verse 116 are part of the same passage.
Sixteen verses that keep comparing one thing to a thousand. A single meaningful saying beats a thousand meaningless ones, one day of the disciplined life beats a hundred years of the undisciplined, and the chapter turns that arithmetic toward what a person does rather than what they recite.
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