རྒྱལ་པ་ལ་གདམས་པ་ཞས་བྱ་བ་ཐག་པ་ཆན་པའ་མད 2

2

“Blessed One, with what should I be dissatisfied and disillusioned?”

“Be dissatisfied and disillusioned with saṃsāra,” replied the Blessed One.

“Why should I be dissatisfied and disillusioned with saṃsāra?” asked the king.

“Because saṃsāra is impermanence and suffering,” he replied.

“How is saṃsāra impermanence, Blessed One?” inquired the king.

“This container, the world, is impermanent, and its contents, sentient beings, are also impermanent,”¹⁰ replied the Blessed One.

“How is this container, the world, impermanent?” asked the king.

The Blessed One replied:¹¹

“When the time of destruction and the fires at the end of the eon rise,
Nothing will remain, not even ashes,
Of this container-world with its Mount Meru and the continents.
So too shall it be with the destructions by water and by wind.¹²

“Or again, that which grows in warm summer rain dries up in the cold of winter.
Good crops, bad crops, drought, or deluge—there is no certainty.
As the months and years pass, the time of destruction draws ever nearer.

“Impermanence is evident from these and other examples,
For if there were permanence, how could there be change?”

“How are the contents, sentient beings, impermanent?” asked the king.

The Blessed One replied:

“For the contents, for sentient beings, this life is just the same—
Counting off the days, the months, and years,
With every day that passes, death draws ever nearer.

“Though we would like not to die, it is beyond our control.
Birth, old age, sickness, and death are like pictures we draw ourselves,
While Māra, Lord of Death, looks on like a black heron waiting for fish.¹³

“Causes of death are more numerous than can be conceived.
There is nothing at all that has not been a cause of death.
This body is sustained by eating, but choke on your food, and you will die.
In this world there are none—neither great nor small, neither rich nor poor—
Who have power over the Lord of Death.

“Those people who have died in the past,
They too hoped that things would last.
They gathered children and wealth around them,
But neither their children nor their wealth,
Nor even, in the end, their bodies, were of any use,
For in death we are accompanied by our good and bad deeds alone.

“Even now, while still living,
Haven’t you seen, or haven’t you heard,
Of friends or relatives—
Those you like or those you do not,
Those your own age, or older, or younger—