Deep Commentary

The Buddha warns us of the impermanence of the body. 'This body is truly fleeting.' Compared to the endless flow of time, a human life is shorter than the blink of an eye. Here today, gone tomorrow. As past masters have said: 'Birth, old age, sickness, and death make no appointments. Alive in the morning, gone by evening, suddenly passing to another life. Like morning dew on a blade of grass, here one moment, gone the next.' Truly, human life is like a flower that blooms and quickly fades. The Buddha continues: 'It will sleep a long sleep under the earth, unconscious, cast away like a useless dry log.' How sorrowful! Everyone will eventually sleep that endless sleep buried deep in the cold earth. Knowing this, while people still have breath, why do they still fight for fame and wealth, arguing over trifles, harming one another without a shred of compassion? They forget that the pursuit of wealth and status is but an empty dream; we wake up to find our hands empty. Worldly glory is like a floating cloud. No matter how rich or noble, we only enjoy it for one lifetime. In the end, it is all just a picture of impermanence. To live without realizing the swift impermanence of human life is what the Buddha calls living 'unconsciously.' If so, how are we different from a useless dry log cast aside? We must examine ourselves: are we truly awake to the truth of impermanence? If not, we must contemplate it deeply through our own experiences and by observing others. Only then can we practice diligently to escape the suffering of birth and death.