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
