Buddhism
Dhp146-156
Text
Minor Collection
Sayings of the Dhamma 146–156
11. Old Age
What is joy, what is laughter,
when the flames are ever burning?
Swathed in darkness,
would you not seek a light?
See this fancy puppet,
a body built of sores,
diseased, obsessed over,
in which nothing lasts at all.
This body is decrepit and frail,
a nest of disease.
This foul carcass falls apart,
for life ends in death.
These dove-grey bones
are tossed away like
dried gourds in the autumn—
what joy is there in such a sight?
In this city built of bones,
plastered with flesh and blood,
old age and death are stashed away,
along with conceit and contempt.
Fancy chariots of kings wear out,
and even this body gets old.
But the truth of the good never gets old—
so the good proclaim to the good.
A person of little learning
ages like an ox—
their flesh grows,
but not their wisdom.
Transmigrating through countless rebirths,
I’ve journeyed without reward,
searching for the house-builder;
painful is birth again and again.
I’ve seen you, house-builder!
You won’t build a house again!
Your rafters are all broken,
your roof-peak demolished.
The mind, set on demolition,
has reached the end of cravings.
When young they spurned the spiritual path
and failed to earn any wealth.
Now they brood like old cranes
in a pond bereft of fish.
When young they spurned the spiritual path
and failed to earn any wealth.
Now they lie like spent arrows,
bemoaning over things past.
Translation: Bhikkhu Sujato, dedicated to the public domain (CC0), via SuttaCentral.
✦ Connected Across Traditions
Impermanence & Letting Go
Tao Te Ching 76 (trans. James Legge)
“Man at his birth is supple and weak; at his death, firm and strong. (So it is with) all things. Trees and plants, in their early growth, are soft and brittle; at their death, dry and withered.”
Ecclesiastes 3:1
“To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.”
Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 2 (trans. Edwin Arnold)
“Nay, but as when one layeth His worn-out robes away, And taking new ones, sayeth, "These will I wear to-day!" So putteth by the spirit Lightly its garb of flesh, And passeth to inherit A residence afresh.”
Quran 55:26-27
“Everyone that is thereon will pass away; There remaineth but the Countenance of thy Lord of Might and Glory.”
The Path to Wisdom
Proverbs 4:7
“Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding.”
Analects 2:11 (trans. James Legge)
“If a man keeps cherishing his old knowledge, so as continually to be acquiring new, he may be a teacher of others.”
Tao Te Ching 33 (trans. James Legge)
“He who knows other men is discerning; he who knows himself is intelligent.”
Quran 39:9
“Are those who know equal with those who know not?”
Good vs Evil / Light vs Darkness
Yasna 30:3
“Now the two primal Spirits, who reveal themselves as Twins, are the Better and the Bad, in thought and word and action.”
John 1:5
“And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.”
Genesis 1:3
“And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.”
Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 16 (trans. Edwin Arnold)
“The Doors of Hell Are threefold, whereby men to ruin pass, The door of Lust, the door of Wrath, the door Of Avarice. Let a man shun those three!”