{"collection":"Buddhism","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/bud/dhp/11.htm","path":"bud/dhp/11.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/bud/dhp/11.htm","text":"146:\nWhat laughter, why joy,\nwhen constantly aflame?\nEnveloped in darkness,\ndon't you look for a lamp?\n147:\nLook at the beautified image,\na heap of festering wounds, shored up:\nill, but the object\nof many resolves,\nwhere there is nothing\nlasting or sure.\n148:\nWorn out is this body,\na nest of diseases, dissolving.\nThis putrid conglomeration\nis bound to break up,\nfor life is hemmed in with death.\n149:\nOn seeing these bones\ndiscarded\nlike gourds in the fall,\npigeon-gray:\nwhat delight?\n150:\nA city made of bones,\nplastered over with flesh & blood,\nwhose hidden treasures are:\npride & contempt,\naging & death.\n151:\nEven royal chariots\nwell-embellished\nget run down,\nand so does the body\nsuccumb to old age.\nBut the Dhamma of the good\ndoesn't succumb to old age:\nthe good let the civilized know.\n152*:\nThis unlistening man\nmatures like an ox.\nHis muscles develop,\nhis discernment not.\nThrough the round of many births I roamed \nwithout reward,\nwithout rest,\nseeking the house-builder.\nPainful is birth\nagain & again.\nHouse-builder, you're seen!\nYou will not build a house again.\nAll your rafters broken,\nthe ridge pole destroyed,\ngone to the Unformed, the mind\nhas come to the end of craving.\n155-156:\nNeither living the chaste life\nnor gaining wealth in their youth,\nthey waste away like old herons\nin a dried-up lake\ndepleted of fish.\nNeither living the chaste life\nnor gaining wealth in their youth,\nthey lie around,\nmisfired from the bow,\nsighing over old times.","title":"Dhammapada X: The Rod","type":"page"}