Chapter XI. Old Age & Chapter XII. Self · 1
146. How is there laughter, how is there joy, as this world is always burning? Why do you not seek a light, ye who are surrounded by darkness? 147. Look at this dressed-up lump, covered with wounds, joined together, sickly, full of many thoughts, which has no strength, no hold! 148. This body is wasted, full of sickness, and frail; this heap of corruption breaks to pieces, life indeed ends in death. 149. Those white bones, like gourds thrown away in the autumn, what pleasure is there in looking at them? 150. After a stronghold has been made of the bones, it is covered with flesh and blood, and there dwell in it old age and death, pride and deceit. 151. The brilliant chariots of kings are destroyed, the body also approaches destruction, but the virtue of good people never approaches destruction,--thus do the good say to the good. 152. A man who has learnt little, grows old like an ox; his flesh grows, but his knowledge does not grow. 153, 154. Looking for the maker of this tabernacle, I shall have to run through a course of many births, so long as I do not find (him); and painful is birth again and again. But now, maker of the tabernacle, thou hast been seen; thou shalt not make up this tabernacle again. All thy rafters are broken, thy ridge-pole is sundered; the mind, approaching the Eternal (visankhara, nirvana), has attained to the extinction of all desires.
Chapter XI. Old Age & Chapter XII. Self · 2
155. Men who have not observed proper discipline, and have not gained treasure in their youth, perish like old herons in a lake without fish. 156. Men who have not observed proper discipline, and have not gained treasure in their youth, lie, like broken bows, sighing after the past. Chapter XII. Self 157. If a man hold himself dear, let him watch himself carefully; during one at least out of the three watches a wise man should be watchful. 158. Let each man direct himself first to what is proper, then let him teach others; thus a wise man will not suffer. 159. If a man make himself as he teaches others to be, then, being himself well subdued, he may subdue (others); one's own self is indeed difficult to subdue. 160. Self is the lord of self, who else could be the lord? With self well subdued, a man finds a lord such as few can find. 161. The evil done by oneself, self-begotten, self-bred, crushes the foolish, as a diamond breaks a precious stone. 162. He whose wickedness is very great brings himself down to that state where his enemy wishes him to be, as a creeper does with the tree which it surrounds.
Chapter XI. Old Age & Chapter XII. Self · 3
163. Bad deeds, and deeds hurtful to ourselves, are easy to do; what is beneficial and good, that is very difficult to do. 164. The foolish man who scorns the rule of the venerable (Arahat), of the elect (Ariya), of the virtuous, and follows false doctrine, he bears fruit to his own destruction, like the fruits of the Katthaka reed. 165. By oneself the evil is done, by oneself one suffers; by oneself evil is left undone, by oneself one is purified. Purity and impurity belong to oneself, no one can purify another. 166. Let no one forget his own duty for the sake of another's, however great; let a man, after he has discerned his own duty, be always attentive to his duty.