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## Dhammapada XI

# Aging

Translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu.
For free distribution only.

Read an alternate translation by Acharya Buddharakkhita

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146:

> What laughter, why joy,
> when constantly aflame?
> Enveloped in darkness,
> don't you look for a lamp?

147:

> Look at the beautified image,
> a heap of festering wounds, shored up:
> ill, but the object
> of many resolves,
> where there is nothing
> lasting or sure.

148:

> Worn out is this body,
> a nest of diseases, dissolving.
> This putrid conglomeration
> is bound to break up,
> for life is hemmed in with death.

149:

> On seeing these bones
> discarded
> like gourds in the fall,
> pigeon-gray:
> what delight?

150:

> A city made of bones,
> plastered over with flesh & blood,
> whose hidden treasures are:
> pride & contempt,
> aging & death.

151:

> Even royal chariots
> well-embellished
> get run down,
> and so does the body
> succumb to old age.
> But the Dhamma of the good
> doesn't succumb to old age:
> the good let the civilized know.

152*:

> This unlistening man
> matures like an ox.
> His muscles develop,
> his discernment not.

153-154*:

> Through the round of many births I roamed
> without reward,
> without rest,
> seeking the house-builder.
> Painful is birth
> again & again.

> House-builder, you're seen!
> You will not build a house again.
> All your rafters broken,
> the ridge pole destroyed,
> gone to the Unformed, the mind
> has come to the end of craving.

155-156:

> Neither living the chaste life
> nor gaining wealth in their youth,
> they waste away like old herons
> in a dried-up lake
> depleted of fish.

> Neither living the chaste life
> nor gaining wealth in their youth,
> they lie around,
> misfired from the bow,
> sighing over old times.

Revised: Wed 16 May 2001