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Dhp XI
PTS: Dhp 146-156
Jaravagga: Aging
translated from the Pali by
Thanissaro Bhikkhu
© 1997
Alternate translation: Buddharakkhita
Alternate format:

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##### 146

What laughter, why joy, when constantly aflame? Enveloped in darkness, don't you look for a lamp?

##### 147

Look at the beautified image, a heap of festering wounds, shored up: ill, but the object of many resolves, where there is nothing lasting or sure.

##### 148

Worn out is this body, a nest of diseases, dissolving. This putrid conglomeration is bound to break up, for life is hemmed in with death.

##### 149

On seeing these bones discarded like gourds in the fall, pigeon-gray: what delight?

##### 150

A city made of bones, plastered over with flesh & blood, whose hidden treasures are: pride & contempt, aging & death.

##### 151

Even royal chariots well-embellished get run down, and so does the body succumb to old age. But the Dhamma of the good doesn't succumb to old age: the good let the civilized know.

##### 152

This unlistening man matures like an ox. His muscles develop, his discernment not.

##### 153-154

Through the round of many births I roamed without reward, without rest, seeking the house-builder. Painful is birth again & again. House-builder, you're seen! You will not build a house again. All your rafters broken, the ridge pole dismantled, immersed in dismantling, the mind has attained to the end of craving.

##### 155-156

Neither living the chaste life nor gaining wealth in their youth, they waste away like old herons in a dried-up lake depleted of fish. Neither living the chaste life nor gaining wealth in their youth, they lie around, misfired from the bow, sighing over old times.

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