What laughter, why joy, when constantly aflame? Enveloped in darkness, don't you look for a lamp?

Look at the beautified image, a heap of festering wounds, shored up: ill, but the object of many resolves, where there is nothing lasting or sure.

Worn out is this body, a nest of diseases, dissolving. This putrid conglomeration is bound to break up, for life is hemmed in with death.

On seeing these bones discarded like gourds in the fall, pigeon-gray: what delight?

A city made of bones, plastered over with flesh & blood, whose hidden treasures are: pride & contempt, aging & death.

Even royal chariots well-embellished get run down, and so does the body succumb to old age. But the Dhamma of the good doesn't succumb to old age: the good let the civilized know.

This unlistening man matures like an ox. His muscles develop, his discernment not.

Through the round of many births I roamed without reward, without rest, seeking the house-builder. Painful is birth again & again. House-builder, you're seen! You will not build a house again. All your rafters broken, the ridge pole dismantled, immersed in dismantling, the mind has attained to the end of craving.