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### Sutta Nipata IV.6

# Jara Sutta

# Old Age

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

Read an alternate translation by John D. 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 A monk, living withdrawn,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. [Go back]

2. Nd.I: An arahant has put passion totally away once and for all, and so has no need to do it ever again. [Go back]

Revised: Wed 16 May 2001