Listen, O noble one, to the reflection on youth as it arises in the heart of a wise seeker. Youth, so often praised and longed for, is but a flicker—momentary, built upon illusion, as insubstantial as a wheel traced in the air. It does not bring delight to one who discerns its true nature. Outwardly, youth appears soft and full, swelling with grandeur, but within it is hollow, easily wounded in an instant, like an autumn cloud—beautiful to behold, yet empty and fleeting. It delights only in the present moment, lacking any enduring essence, much like a fleeting union with a courtesan, pleasing only for an instant and then gone. Thus, youth fails to please the wise. All manner of difficult undertakings, which bring every sorrow, gather together in youth, just as great calamities collect and manifest at the end of their course. Even the Blessed Lord Himself regards the night of youth’s ignorance with fear, for it brings a deep darkness to the heart and takes on a dreadful form. Youth is a bewilderment that makes one forget the path of good conduct, filling the mind with confusion and giving rise to the greatest delusion. The living being, in the heat of youth, is scorched by the fierce fire of longing in the heart—especially from separation from the beloved—just as a forest fire consumes a tree. Even if the mind is vast, clear, and pure in youth, it becomes tainted, like a river that turns muddy during the rains. A river, for all its terrifying waves, can be restrained, but not the inner thirst agitated by youthful craving, which remains wild and unsteady. The thoughts of youth dwell constantly on the beloved—her charms, her full breasts, her face—so that a person becomes worn out by longing. The virtuous do not honor a youth who is tormented by the swift and burning thirst of desire, just as they do not value a worthless blade of dry grass. Youth is always yoked to the destruction of one blinded by pride, adorned with the pearls of faults, like the great elephant of arrogance trampling all virtue. It is a new forest for the trees of anger and sorrow, whose roots grip deep in the mind and whose branches bear the serpents of faults. Know youth to be a lotus, crowded with the filaments of pleasure, filled with the petals of false imagination, and swarming with the bees of anxious thoughts. It becomes the abode for the birds of affliction and disease, who wander along the banks of the heart’s lake, fluttering with the wings of action and inaction. Full youth is an ocean, heedless of boundaries, surging with the waves of countless inert and restless beings. The wind of youth, skilled yet uneven, blows away the dust of passion from every leaf of virtue. The harsh sands of youth rise up to the highest peak, making the face pale and causing distress and agitation. The exuberance of youth in men awakens a multitude of faults, severs 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, springing from the mound of the body, intoxicates the bee of the mind attached to it, especially when it reaches its full height. The mirage of young women, arising from the heat of the body’s wind, causes the deer of the mind to run heedlessly, only to fall into dangerous ravines. The radiance of youth, like moonlight shining in the night of the body, is the mane of the lion called mind, a wave on the ocean of life—but even this young woman, once so pleasing, no longer brings joy. For only a few days does youth flourish in the wilderness of the body; do not place your trust in this autumn of youth. 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 who is unfortunate. Whenever youth reaches its highest peak, desires surge forth in abundance, but only to bring about destruction. So long as the night of youth endures, the goblins of passion and aversion continue their dance; all this does not end until youth itself sets. In this pitiable youth, filled with many duties and vanishing in a moment, show compassion, as you 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, is bound for swift regret. Those are the righteous ones, the great souls, the true men on earth, who have easily crossed over the peril of youth, O noble one. The ocean, with its splendid shoals of mighty fish, can be crossed with effort, but not the ocean of ruined youth, agitated with waves of faults. Adorned with humility, a refuge for noble people, radiant with compassion and endowed with virtues—such excellent youth is rare in this world, like a forest in the sky. Consider, then, the object of youthful desire. What beauty is there in a woman, whose body is but a puppet of flesh, whose limbs move by mechanism, whose frame is full of knots of sinew and bone? If you separate the skin, flesh, blood, vapor, and tears from the eye and observe what remains, where is the charm? Why be deluded in vain? Here is hair, there is blood—such is the body of a woman. What can a person of broad mind do with this contemptible thing? The limbs, repeatedly adorned with clothes and perfumes, are ultimately devoured by flesh-eating creatures in all bodies. On whose breast pearls are seen, shining with the splendor of a necklace, resembling the waves of the Ganges gleaming on the slopes of Mount Meru—at the cremation grounds and at the edges of the quarters, that same cherished breast is devoured by dogs in time, like a small lump by the blind. Just as the limbs of a calf in the forest are smeared with blood and flesh, so too are the limbs of a woman. What, then, is there to be gained from them? Thus, O noble one, is the true nature of youth and the objects of its desire—transient, deceptive, and ultimately unsatisfying for the wise.