Saṃyutta Nikāya
5. Mahā-Vagga
48. Indriya Saṃyutta
5. Jarā Vagga
Sutta 41
Jarā Suttaṃ
Old Age
Translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu.
Proofed against and modified in accordance with the revised edition at dhammatalks.org
Provenance, terms and conditons
[1][pts] I have heard that on one occasion the Blessed One was staying near Sāvatthī in the Eastern Monastery, the palace of Migāra's mother.
Now on that occasion the Blessed One, on emerging from his seclusion in the evening, sat warming his back in the western sun.
Then Ven. Ānanda went to the Blessed One and, on arrival, having bowed down to the Blessed One, massaged the Blessed One's limbs with his hand and said, "It's amazing, lord.
It's astounding, how the Blessed One's complexion is no longer so clear and bright; his limbs are flabby and wrinkled; his back, bent forward; there's a discernible change in his faculties — the faculty of the eye, the faculty of the ear, the faculty of the nose, the faculty of the tongue, the faculty of the body."
"That's the way it is, Ānanda.
When young, one is subject to aging; when healthy, subject to illness; when alive, subject to death.
The complexion is no longer so clear and bright; the limbs are flabby and wrinkled; the back, bent forward; there's a discernible change in the faculties — the faculty of the eye, the faculty of the ear, the faculty of the nose, the faculty of the tongue, the faculty of the body."
That is what the Blessed One said. Having said that, the One Well-Gone, the Teacher, said further:
"I spit on you, wretched old age —
old age that makes for ugliness.
The bodily image, so charming,
is trampled by old age.
Even those who live to a hundred
are headed — all — to an end in death,
which spares no one,
which tramples all."
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