See, O sage, how the journey of life unfolds with relentless certainty. Childhood, so brief and insufficient, is soon consumed by the vigor of youth; yet youth itself is quickly overtaken by the onset of old age. Each stage follows the other with a harsh inevitability, leaving none untouched. Just as frost withers a blooming lotus or a sudden storm scatters the clouds of autumn, so too does old age erode the body, wearing it down like a river gradually undermining a tree on its bank. As the body withers and stretches under the weight of years, women regard such a man with the same indifferent curiosity they might show an elephant—neither drawn nor repelled, but simply unmoved. When old age seizes a person, breathless and exhausted, wisdom itself abandons him, just as a co-wife, defeated and outcast, departs from the household. In this state, servants, sons, wives, relatives, and friends laugh at the trembling elder, mocking him as though he were mad. Without discernment, bereft of vigor and virtue, the aged one is approached by old age as a vulture circles a dying tree, sensing its time has come. In the heart of old age, longing does not fade; instead, it grows, filled with misery and faults, burning fiercely within, the sole companion in all calamities. Terrible fear arises, impossible to counter, as the mind wonders, “What painful duty awaits me in the next world?” In the grip of old age, dejection settles in: “Who am I, so wretched? What do I do, and how do I even exist?” Silence and loneliness become his only companions. Hunger may still arise with excitement, but the body can no longer enjoy; the heart burns with frustration at this utter lack of strength. The old, decrepit crane of age sits atop the tree of the body, coughing and croaking, afflicted by the serpents of disease; and as it cries out, the owl of death, longing for the dense, blind darkness, is seen swiftly approaching. Just as evening twilight, once arisen, is quickly followed by darkness, so too does death pursue the body once old age has set in. When the tree of the body is seen from afar, blossoming with the signs of age, the bee of death eagerly approaches, eager for its nectar. An empty city, a tree with its branches cut, a land without rain—these may still appear as they are, but the body battered by old age is beyond all comparison. In an instant, old age seizes a man with the sound of coughing, just as a vulture snatches flesh. It swiftly grasps the head and destroys the body, as a maiden plucks a waterlily. With a hissing sound, rough with dust, old age shreds the worn-out body like a storm tearing at the tender leaves of a tree. The body, struck by old age, becomes ruined—a lotus whose beauty has faded, covered with frost and clusters of ice. This old age rises like moonlight, spreading from the crown of the head and unfolding a feverish wind of coughs, like the night-blooming lotus opening in the darkness. When time, the lord of affliction, sees the head pale and ripe with the ashes of old age, he devours it without hesitation. Old age, aided by the daughter of the river—the goddess of death—swiftly cuts the roots of the body-tree, causing the vital forces to tremble. Old age, the sweeper, having consumed youth and kindled the fire of suffering, delights in its greed for the flesh of the body. There is nothing so inauspicious as old age, the jackal of the body-forest, howling with lamentation. Coughs, breathlessness, and sighs, together with the smoke and darkness of suffering, burn like the flame of old age, scorching the one who endures it. The once slender body, white and fresh like tender shoots, becomes bent, just as a flower-laden vine droops. The body, now white as camphor from the camphor-tree of old age, is lifted away in an instant by the elephant of death. For death is a king, and the white fan of old age precedes him, the banner of disease going forth ahead as he approaches. Even those unconquered by enemies in battle, whose strongholds were mighty, are swiftly defeated by the demoness of old age. Within the dwelling of the body, whitened by the frost of age, even the pupils of the eyes can barely move. In this fragrant chamber of worldly existence, upon the head of the body’s stalk, the splendor of the fan named old age shines forth. When the moonrise of old age appears in the city of the body, the lotus of death blooms in an instant. In the palace of the body, smeared with the ointment of old age, helplessness, pain, and calamity stand as the only companions of pleasure. Where old age prevails among creatures, what comfort can there be for one whose mind is dull? What is gained by clinging to this difficult, unpleasant life, even after succumbing to old age? For old age, unconquered among men, casts aside all desires, O father. Know, O sage, that the delusion of worldly existence arises from the endless fabrications of thought, driven to agitation by imagined divisions among those of little understanding. How can attachment arise for the wise, as if they were caught in a cage of netting? Only children reach for the fruit reflected in a mirror. Even here, what little happiness exists is frail and fleeting; time, like a mouse, cuts through every thread of it. There is nothing in this world that time, the devourer of all, does not consume; it swallows all that is born, just as the submarine fire drinks the ocean. Time, dreadful and supreme, stands poised by its universal power to swallow all this visible existence.