Snp 4.6
PTS: Sn 804-813
Jara Sutta: Old Age
translated from the Pali by
Thanissaro Bhikkhu
© 1994–2012
Alternate translation: Ireland
How short this life! You die this side of a century, but even if
you live past, you die of old age. People grieve for what they see
as mine, for nothing possessed is constant, nothing is constantly
possessed.[1] Seeing this separation simply as it is, one shouldn't
follow the household life. At death a person abandons what he
construes as mine. Realizing this, the wise shouldn't incline to be
devoted to mine. Just as a man doesn't see, on awakening, what he
met in a dream, even so he doesn't see, when they are dead — their
time done — those he held dear. When they are seen & heard,
people are called by this name or that, but only the name remains
to be pointed to when they are dead. Grief, lamentation, &
selfishness are not let go by those greedy for mine, so sages
letting go of possessions, seeing the Secure, go wandering forth. A
monk, living withdrawn, enjoying a dwelling secluded: they say it's
congenial for him he who wouldn't, in any realm, display self.
Everywhere the sage independent holds nothing dear or undear. In
him lamentation & selfishness, like water on a white lotus, do
not adhere. As a water bead on a lotus leaf, as water on a red
lily, does not adhere, so the sage does not adhere to the seen, the
heard, or the sensed; for, cleansed, he doesn't construe in
connection with the seen, the heard, or the sensed. In no other way
does he wish for purity, for he neither takes on passion nor puts
it away.[2]
Notes
1.
"Nothing possessed is constant, nothing is
constantly possessed" — two readings of the phrase, na hi santi
nicca pariggaha.
2.
Nd.I: An arahant has put passion totally away
once and for all, and so has no need to do it ever again. An
alternative explanation is that, as Sn 5.6 points out, the arahant
has gone beyond all dhammas, dispassion included.