Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
Listen, little deer: why lose your heart to that tempting orchard?
Its fruit tastes sweet for a few short days, then turns bitter in your mouth. Like waves that rise and vanish, like a flash of lightning, it doesn't last — so keep your heart with what does.
This Chhant teaches through gentle animal fables, the way the best children's stories do. The first is the black deer lured into an orchard of passion — drawn by fruit that's sweet for only a few days and then turns bitter. The deer stands for any of us pulled toward something tempting that can't last. The images pile up to make one point kindly: like waves, like lightning — the glittering thing flashes and is gone. It isn't a scolding; it's the warning you'd give someone you love before they wander somewhere that will only hurt them. Keep your heart, it says, with what stays sweet.
Have you ever really wanted something that turned out to be a letdown once you got it?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI