The Sutta Nipata
The "Sutta Collection"
---o0o---
Sutta Nipata IV.6
Jara Sutta
On Decay
Read an alternate translation by Thanissaro
Bhikkhu
"Short indeed is this life, this side of a hundred years
one dies; whoever lives long even he dies from old age. People grieve for things
they are attached to, yet there exist no permanent possessions but just a state
of (constant) separation. Seeing this one should no longer live the household
life. That which a man imagines to be his will disappear at death. Knowing this
a wise man will have no attachment (to anything).
"As a man awakened from sleep no longer sees what
happened in his dream, similarly one does not see a loved one who is dead. Those
people who were seen and heard and called by their names as such and such, only
their names remain when they have passed away. Those greedy for objects of
attachment do not abandon sorrow, grief and avarice, but sages having got rid of
possessions, live perceiving security. For a bhikkhu with a detached mind,
living in a secluded dwelling, it is right, they say, that he no longer shows
himself in the abodes (of existence).[1]
"A sage who is completely independent does not make
close friends or enemies. In him sorrow and selfishness do not stay, like water
on a lotus leaf. As a lotus is not wetted by water, so a sage is not affected by
what is seen or heard, nor by what is perceived by the other senses. A wise man
is not deluded by what is perceived by the senses. He does not expect purity by
any other way.[1] He is neither pleased nor is
he repelled (by the six sense-objects)."
-- vv. 804-813
Notes
1. There is a play on words here:
"bhavana," besides meaning "an abode of existence" also
means "a house". So as well as saying, he is not reborn into any realm
of existence, the passage also indicates he lives secluded and does not
associate with people in the village.
[Go back]
2. By any way other than the Noble
Eightfold Path (Comy).
[Go back]
---o0o---
Contents
| Ch I
| Ch II |Ch
III | Ch IV|
ChV
