Old Age
These verses look hard at ageing and the body. They ask how there can be laughter when the flames are always burning, and describe the body as a fancy puppet, a nest of disease, a city of bones plastered with flesh and blood, with discarded bones like dried gourds in autumn. Against this they set the truth spoken by the good, which never grows old. Two verses speak in the first person of finally seeing the “house-builder” and breaking its rafters, the mind having reached the end of cravings. The chapter ends with people who wasted their youth, brooding like old cranes at a pond with no fish.
A note on these verses. The body is described in deliberately unflattering terms, and verse 153 speaks of transmigrating through countless past lives.
Translated by Bhikkhu Sujato · public domain (CC0) · about 1 min · on SuttaCentral
146What is joy, what is laughter,when the flames are ever burning?Swathed in darkness,would you not seek a light?
147See this fancy puppet,a body built of sores,diseased, obsessed over,in which nothing lasts at all.
148This body is decrepit and frail,a nest of disease.This foul carcass falls apart,for life ends in death.
149These dove-grey bonesare tossed away likedried gourds in the autumn—what joy is there in such a sight?
150In this city built of bones,plastered with flesh and blood,old age and death are stashed away,along with conceit and contempt.
151Fancy chariots of kings wear out,and even this body gets old.But the truth of the good never gets old—so the good proclaim to the good.
152A person of little learningages like an ox—their flesh grows,but not their wisdom.
153Transmigrating through countless rebirths,I’ve journeyed without reward,searching for the house-builder;painful is birth again and again.
154I’ve seen you, house-builder!You won’t build a house again!Your rafters are all broken,your roof-peak demolished.The mind, set on demolition,has reached the end of cravings.
155When young they spurned the spiritual pathand failed to earn any wealth.Now they brood like old cranesin a pond bereft of fish.
156When young they spurned the spiritual pathand failed to earn any wealth.Now they lie like spent arrows,bemoaning over things past.