Salla Sutta (8)
On the Nature of Beings in the World
[380] The lives of beings in this world are without any certainty or guarantee — hard to fathom, brief, and filled with suffering.
Once born, no being can avoid death by any effort whatsoever. Even if one lives to old age, death is certain, for such is the nature of beings.
Just as a ripe fruit is always in danger of falling at any moment, so too beings once born are always in danger of dying.
As all clay vessels made by a potter end in being broken, so too the lives of beings — the young and the old, the foolish and the wise — all come under the sway of Death; all move toward Death as their destination.
When beings are seized by Death and must depart to the next world, neither father can protect his son, nor relatives protect their kin.
Behold how the relatives of one who must die stand around lamenting in many ways, yet the dying person is carried off by Death alone, as a cow led to slaughter is taken away alone.
In this way, aging and death overcome all beings in the world. Thus the wise, knowing well the true nature of the world, do not grieve.
One does not know the path of those who come or those who go; the two ends are unseen. What use is crying? If lamentation merely afflicts oneself, what benefit can it bring? The wise, clearly seeing, would abandon such lamentation.
Not by weeping, not by sorrow, does one come to inner peace. Rather, suffering increases, and the body withers.
One who afflicts himself with grief becomes weak, thin, pale. Those who have departed are not protected by your sorrow. Lamentation is futile.
He who sighs over the departed and cannot abandon grief, being overcome by sorrow, only increases his own suffering.
Behold others too, standing ready to depart according to their own karma, and beings throughout the world struggling under the power of Death.
Whatever beings grasp and cling to, will later become otherwise. Separation inevitably occurs. Behold the nature of the world.
Even if a young man were to live for a hundred years or even longer, he would still be parted from his kin and have to leave his life behind.
Thus, one who hears the Dhamma of the Arahants and sees those who have passed away, should understand clearly: “No matter what I wish, I cannot say of the departed, ‘Let them remain.’”
One should abandon lamentation — just as one puts out a spreading fire with water. The wise person, sharp in understanding, should quickly dispel sorrow like a strong wind scattering cotton.
One seeking one’s own welfare should abandon lamentation, craving, and grief, and should remove the arrow — the kilesa — from oneself.
When the arrow of defilement is removed, and craving and views no longer support it, one attains peace of mind, transcends all grief, and dwells without sorrow, serene. Thus it is.
End of the Salla Sutta (8)
Short Pāli Glossary (concise · intensive)
salla — arrow, dart (metaphor for mental pain) dukkha — suffering; unsatisfactoriness anicca — impermanent; subject to change jarā-maraṇa — aging & death paraloka — the next world kilesa — defilements (lobha, dosa, moha) taṇhā — craving diṭṭhi — (wrong) view āyusaṅkhāra — life-processes; forces maintaining life amatā / amata-dhātu — the Deathless arahanta — one whose āsavas are ended nibbāna — extinguishing; liberation parinibbāna — final Nibbāna after death bhava — becoming; existence kamma / kamma-vipāka — action and its result