The inevitable and ever returning problem: Death!

All health ends in sickness, all youth ends in ageing, all life ends in assured death!
All worldly being begins with birth, is haunted by ageing, surprised by sickness,
and struck down by death, often in a state of desperate panic and frantic fear...
As though if huge mountains made of rock so vast that they reach up into the sky,
were to attack from every side, grinding & crunching beneath them all that lives,
so indeed do Ageing and Death roll over all beings, whether gods, kings, warriors,
priests, merchants, craftsmen, poor, or animals, crushing all beings, sparing none!
And neither armies, nor guards, nor medicines, nor spells, or riches, can even delay
this by a single second! (SN I 102). Death should thus be remembered as the ruin
of success by seeing it as the final & unavoidable wrecking of any life's success!
Vism I 232

How short this life!
You die this side of a century,
but even if you live past,
you die of old age...
Sutta Nipāta 4.810

SURPRISE!
Death carries off the man while distracted
by gathering flowers of sensual pleasures,
exactly & even so as a great flood carries
away a sleeping village.
Dhammapada Illustration 47 Background Story 47

OFF GUARD
Death sweeps away the man distracted,
not yet had his fill of sensual pleasures,
even as he gathers these flowers.
Dhammapada Illustration 48 Background Story 48



DRIVEN
Exactly as a cowherd drives the cows forward,
even & exactly so do aging, sickness & death
drive all beings forwards towards the End.
Dhammapada Illustration 135 Background Story 135

BEYOND
But those who listen and act accordingly
when the depth of Dhamma is revealed,
they indeed cross beyond this realm of
Death so hard to overcome
Dhammapada Illustration 86 Background Story 85_86



END-MAKER
Neither in the distant space, nor in the deepest ocean,
nor in the darkest cave, can anyone escape the crushing
fact of Death ...!
Dhammapada Illustration 128 Background Story 128

AWARE OF FACTS
The man who understands this inevitable death, if clever,
lives morally pure, while keenly clearing with great urge
his path to Nibbana.                                 
Dhammapada Illustration 289 Background Story 288-289
 

More on this inevitable Facts: Ageing - Sickness - Decay - and Death (Marana):
Death, Death_Contemplation, Game_Over, Momentary_Life, End_Making
The_Problem, Inevitable_but_not_the_End, Ageing_Again

Ageing and Death!