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.
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.
On seeing these bones
discarded
like gourds in the fall,
pigeon-gray:
what delight?
A city made of bones,
plastered over with flesh & blood,
whose hidden treasures are:
pride & contempt,
aging & death.
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.
This unlistening man
matures like an ox.
His muscles develop,
his discernment not.
Through the round of many births I roamed
without reward,
without rest,
seeking the house-builder.
Painful is birth again
& again.
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.
Origin URL: https://www.dhammatalks.org/suttas/KN/Dhp/Ch11.html