Texts from the Buddhist canon : commonly known as Dhammapada

i68 VHAMMAPADA.
your lamentations, and listen to me !
you are inconstant and destined to change !
All things around
Once torn,
then there is death. Sin and its consequences are necessarily
bound up together. And who is this youth, and
who his relations for whom ye weep so pitifully and
without intermission?" And then the Master repeated
these verses :
—
" What is life but the flower or the fruit which
falls, when ripe, but yet which ever fears the un-
timely frost ? Once born there is nought but
sorrow ; for who is there can escape death ? From
the first moment of conception in the womb, the
result of passionate love and desire, there is nought
but the bodily form, transitory as the lightning
flash. It is difficult to dam up the daily flow of
the waters of life. The body is but a thing des-
tined to perish. There is no certain form given
to the spirit conceived with the body. Once dead
it is again born—the connections of sin and of
merit cannot bfe overreached. It is not a matter
of one life, or one death, but from the act of
renewed conception proceeds all the consequences
of former deeds, resulting in joy or misery; the
body dies but the spirit is not entombed !
After these verses were said, Buddha explained that the
cause of the untimely death of the young bridegroom
was, that in former days he had ruthlessly shot a young
sparrow through the body, as he wandered through the
garden of his house with three conlpanions; and then after
explaining the consequences of this proceeding in each
case the World-honoured added these verses
"It is the mind alone (spirit) that determines
:
"