The mind, left to itself, helplessly becomes prey to restless thoughts, much like a child who, in innocence, is given over to the flames. In this vulnerable state, various faults—subtle and hard to conquer—begin to erode the freshness and purity of youth, while those faults that are apparent to the eye do not have such power, O sage. Indeed, among all the dangers that beset a person, none is as ruinous as youth. It is the very seed of great suffering, casting beings into ceaseless wandering. Those who are not destroyed by the force of youth are unlikely to be destroyed by anything else. Truly wise is the one who has crossed the dreadful realm of youth, a domain teeming with countless stories and adorned with a multitude of events. As I reflect, I find no delight in youth. It flashes like lightning, roars with the restlessness of storm clouds, and shines only for a fleeting moment. Its surface is full of whirlpools, mired in mud, dull in its very nature, and terrifying with its fragile, breaking waves. Though youth is sought by all and is enchanting for an instant, it is as insubstantial as a city of the Gandharvas—illusory and ever-shifting. The pleasure youth brings lasts but as long as it takes for an arrow to fall; it glows with suffering and always brings burning faults in its wake. Sweet and pleasant, yet bitter at its core, youth is adorned with faults and defects—like the froth atop wine, intoxicating yet unwholesome. It does not please me. Youth appears true, but is false; it soon brings disappointment, like the embrace of a woman in a dream—so close, yet not real. Flickering for a moment, built on nothing but illusion, it is like a wheel drawn in the air—visible, but without substance. Outwardly soft, swelling, and grand, it is empty within and wounded in an instant, like a fragile autumn cloud. Youth delights only in the present moment, lacking any true essence within; it is like union with a courtesan—momentarily pleasing but ultimately unsatisfying. All difficult undertakings, every kind of sorrow, gather in youth, just as great calamities gather at their end. Even the Blessed Lord is wary of the night of youth’s ignorance, which brings darkness to the heart and takes on a dreadful form. This bewildering force makes one forget good conduct and brings confusion to the mind, giving rise to delusion in its highest degree. In youth, the living being is burned by the fierce fire in the heart, a fire born from separation from the beloved, just as a tree is consumed by a forest fire. Even if the mind is vast, clear, and pure in youth, it becomes tainted, like a river growing turbid in the rainy season. A river, though wild with dense waves, can still be restrained; but the inner thirst, made unsteady by youth and agitated by craving, is not so easily controlled. Thoughts of youth—of the beloved, her full breasts, her charms, her face—wear a person out in longing and exhaustion. The good do not honor a youth afflicted by the swift, insatiable thirst of desire, just as they do not value a worthless blade of dry grass. Youth is always yoked to the destruction of those blinded by pride, adorned with the pearls of faults, like a great elephant intoxicated with arrogance. It is a new forest for the trees of anger and sorrow, whose roots run deep in the mind, bearing the serpents of faults. Know youth to be like a lotus, crowded with the filaments of pleasure, filled with the petals of wrong imagination, and swarming with the bees of anxious thoughts. New youth is the abode for the birds of affliction and disease, which wander along the banks of the lake of the heart, fluttering with the wings of action and inaction. Full youth is an ocean, unconcerned with boundaries, where the waves of countless inert and playful ones rise and fall. The wind of youth, uneven and clever, sweeps away the dust of passion from all the leaves of virtue. The harsh sands of youth rise to the highest peak, making the face pale and causing distress and agitation. The exuberance of youth in men awakens a multitude of faults, cuts down the garland of virtues, and becomes the very splendor of misdeeds. The moon of youth binds the restless bee of the mind with the dust of the body’s lotus, deluding the person. The delightful creeper of youth, sprung from the mound of the body, intoxicates the bee of the mind that clings to it, especially when youth is at its height. The mirage of young women, arising from the heat of bodily desires, causes the deer of the mind to run and fall into dangerous ravines. The radiance of youth, like moonlight in the night of the body, the mane of the lion called mind, a wave on the ocean of life—this young woman no longer pleases me. For only a few days does youth flourish in the wilderness of the body; but in this autumn of youth, one should not place their trust. Swiftly does the bird of youth fly away from the body, just as, in a moment, the wish-fulfilling gem slips from the hand of one with little fortune. Whenever youth reaches its highest peak, desires surge forth abundantly, but only to bring about destruction. So long as the night of youth endures, the goblins of passion and aversion continue to dance; all this does not end until youth itself sets. In this pitiable youth, filled with many duties and vanishing in a moment, one should show compassion, just as one would for a dying child. The man who, out of delusion, rejoices in fleeting youth, utterly infatuated, is regarded as a human beast. He who desires youth, intoxicated by pride, delusion, and arrogance—such a foolish one soon meets with regret.