Timeless Rapture: Inspired Verse from the Shangpa Masters

It will finish as a heap of bones.
All the wealth you accumulate with diligent greed
Will be gained and shared by who knows whom?
Even the clothes and food you now own
Are the shroud and dry food of a corpse.
Even if you amass great power and armies,
When the unpredictable time of your death arrives,
You will give up wealth, power, dominion, and possessions
And see yourself wander in the three miserable existences.
Impermanence is the common nature of composite phenomena.
Think about this and devote yourself to the Teachings.
Train in universal love and compassion
And maintain lack of attachment toward whatever appears.
In this life, the next, and the intermediate state,
What is always precious in every circumstance
Is confidence in your father spiritual master:
Put your trust in him.
Make heartfelt prayers to him, I beseech you.
Surely you will never be deceived.
Disengagement, compassion, devotion,
And lack of distraction within nonattachment—
If you can be diligent in these four points,
You will reach the summit of your aspirations.
A Sea of Blessings 151