The birth of beings may be likened to a day’s trading in the market, at the end of which we return home (i.e. to death). If we return to the realms of misfortune, we may reckon that we have made a loss in our business. If we return to the human state on the same level as before, we have made as much as we invested, and if we attain a higher human status, then we have made a profit accordingly. If we gain one of the Heaven Realms, then we have made a great profit. If we train our Cittas to attain the Transcendental State this is very good for we will then profit more than we can imagine.
If we are going to sell garden produce in the market place, then we must be energetic about it and sell it quickly while it is fresh, otherwise, towards the end of the day, we will have a lot of unsaleable stock on our hands.
Similarly, we must be energetic while we are yet young, for when we are in our dotage, we will have missed our opportunity for trading and our faculties will be weak and decaying.
In this analogy, our bodily form is the market place, for it is the place where diseases congregate and live in the same way as the market is the place where people congregate. When the market has closed, the remaining stock will have become rotten; the stock being our minds.
When we die our bodies become valueless. When the buffalo dies, his skin is valuable; when the elephant dies, his tusks are valuable; but when we die nobody will give five farthings for our bodies, and even if we were to give our dead body away free of charge, nobody would want it. It is even disliked, for it is troublesome to those who remain and who must spend money dealing with it. Therefore one ought not to seek for pleasure to the exclusion of one’s duties in life.
A Fourfold Teaching of Dhamma.
One ought not to seek for pleasure to the exclusion of one’s duties in life, for this world of beings are bound to grow old and are not permanent. This world of beings are not able to control their bodies in such things as old age, disease and death. This world of beings, we should remember, must in the end be separated from all things which they possess. This world of beings who are in this realm are slaves to craving for which they do not have enongh time.
When they reach the time for them to breathe their last, they call for their relatives and friends, for husband or wife, for children, property and wealth; but none of these things can help them.
“Saddha Dutiyapurisadasa Hoti” (Faith will be a good companion to us).
Faith will also gather together one’s different faculties, guard them and store reserves of good kamma.
“Saddha Yatarati Ogham” (Due to Faith, one may leave the flood of passions).
If one does not develop Faith, then one will follow a tortuous path, which increases one’s suffering endlessly. Then one gets only a little happiness and much suffering, and when pain and death occur, all one’s happiness is ended.
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