Human Life  -  From Songs of Milarepa

‘youth is like a summer flower

suddenly it fades away.

Old age is like a fire spreading

Through the fields –– suddenly, it’s at your heels.

The Buddha once said, ‘Birth and death

Are like sunrise and sunset

Now come, now go.’

Sickness is like a little bird

Wounded by a sling

Know you not, health and strength

Will in time desert you?

Death is like a dry oil lamp

(After its last flicker)

This world is impermanent;

Nothing, I assure you

Can remain unchanging.

Evil karma is like a waterfall

Which I have never seen flow upward.

A Sinful man is like a poisonous tree ––

If you lean on it, you will injured be.

Transgressors are like frost –– bitten peas ––

Like spoilt fat, they ruin everything.

Dharma practicers are like peasants

cultivating in the fields.

The law of Karma is like Samsara’s wheel

Whoever breaks it will suffer a great loss

Samsara is like a poisonous thorn

In the flesh – if not pulled out

The poison will increase and spread

The coming of death is like the shadow

Of a tree at sunset –

It runs fast and none can halt it.

When the time comes,

What else can help but the Holy Dharma?

Though Dharma is the fount of Victory,

Those who aspire it are rare

Scores of men are tangled in

The miseries of Samsara

Into this misfortune born,

They strive by plunder and theft for gain.

When you are strong and healthy

You ne’er think of sickness coming,

But it descends with sudden force

Like a stroke of lightening.

When involved in worldly things

You ne’er think of death’s approach

Quick it come like thunder

Crashing round your head

Sickness, old age and death

Ever meet each other

As do hands and mouth

Do you not fear the miseries

You experienced in the past?

Surely you will feel much pain

If misfortunes attack you?

The woes of life succeed one another

Like the sea’s incessant waves –

One has barely passed, before

The next one takes its place.

Until you are liberated, pain and

Pleasure come and go at random

Like passers-by encountered in the street.

Pleasures are precarious,

Like bathing in the sun;

Transient, too, as the snow storms

Which come without warning.

Remembering these things

Why not practice the Dharma?’

© "Dhamma" (October, 2002) published by The Manager, Buddha Vachana Trust, 14 Kalidasa Road, Gandhinagar, Bangalore 560 009.

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