When the wise expels negligence with vigilance, having ascended to the palace of wisdom, without sorrow one contemplates the sorrowing people, like the wise from the summit looks at those on the plain.

Pañña pāsādamāruyha — having ascended to the palace of wisdom: pāsāda is a high palace, an elevated terrace. Wisdom is an elevation of perspective that allows one to see the whole that is not visible from the plain of ordinary experience.

Asoko sokiniṃ pajaṃ — without sorrow one contemplates the sorrowing people: the sage’s compassion is not condescending pity but clear vision of the cause of others’ suffering and the genuine desire for its cessation. Asoka — without sorrow, without the reactive suffering that contaminates itself from the other’s suffering — does not mean indifference but equanimity that can be useful without being dragged down.

Pabbataṭṭhova bhūmaṭṭhe — like one on the summit looks at those on the plain: the image of perspective. One who has genuinely ascended sees patterns of movement that are invisible from within them. One does not judge but understands.

Compassion without wisdom exhausts the compassionate; wisdom without compassion becomes cold. The sage of this verse has cultivated both: the elevation of perspective and the heart that beats for the liberation of all beings.