Buddhacarita by Ven Asvaghosa - Ancient Buddhist Texts

Buddha-carita, or Life of Buddha - 87
20. ‘The penance is full of pain and of many kinds, and the fruit of
the penance is mainly heaven at its best, and all the worlds are subject
to change; verily the labour of the hermitages is spent for but little
gain.
21. ‘Those who abandoning wealth, kindred, and worldly objects,
undertake vows for the sake of heaven, – they, when parted, only
wish to go to a still greater wood of their own again.
22. ‘He who by all these bodily toils which are called penances, seeks
a sphere of action for the sake of desire, – not examining the inherent
evils of mundane existence, he only seeks pain by pain.
23. ‘There is ever to living creatures fear from death, and they with
all their efforts seek to be born again; where there is action, there
must inevitably be death, – he is always drowned therein, just because
he is afraid.
24. ‘Some undergo misery for the sake of this world, others meet toil
for the sake of heaven; all living beings, wretched through hope and
always missing their aim, fall certainly for the sake of happiness into
misery.
25. ‘It is not the effort itself which I blame, – which flinging aside the
base pursues a high path of its own; but the wise, by all this common
toil, ought to attain that state in which nothing needs ever to be done
again.