Issue 302

“My hair is white and my face is in wrinkles.” Just now didn’t I say his hair is turning snowy white? It means that his hair is white. Very few Indians are fair-haired when they are young, but when they get old their hair turns white. There’s a saying: ‘gradually having the skin of a chicken and hair as white as a crane; looking woozy and wobbly as he walks.’ The skin of the flesh is like chicken skin, one pimple here and one pimple there. This is called ‘chicken skin’. ‘Crane’s hair’ means his hair has turned white. Some may say an elder may have ‘crane’s hair and a youthful face’. But here, he did not have the face of a youth. He had wrinkles. When he was young, he was dark haired and handsome, but now his face has become a mass of wrinkles, more wrinkled than the cowhide. So, he was really ugly.

“And I haven’t much time remaining.” When he said those words, he had endless regrets and certainly heaved a sigh. “I haven’t long to wait. I’m about to die.” “How can I be compared to how I was when I was full of life?” How can I be compared to when I was in my prime? It’s not the same.” As the Cantonese saying: “Your day is close at hand!” Which end is it? The death end. He is close to death!

The Buddha said, “Great King, your appearance should not decline so suddenly.”
The king said, “World Honored One, the change has been a hidden transformation of which I honestly have not been aware. I have come to this gradually through the passing of winters and summers. How did it happen? In my twenties, I was still young, but my features had aged since the time I was ten. My thirties were a further decline from my twenties, and now at sixty-two I look back on my fifties as hale and hearty.

World Honored One, I am contemplating these hidden transformations. Although the changes wrought by this process of dying are evident through the decades, I might consider them further in finer detail: these changes do not occur just in periods of twelve years; there are actually changes year by year. Not only are there yearly changes, there are also monthly transformations. Nor does it stop at monthly transformations; there are also differences day by day. Examining them closely, I find that kshana by kshana, thought after thought, they never stop.”

The Buddha heard King Prasenajit express inexhaustible regret and sigh sorrowfully. He was on the verge of dying. His youth was gone and he had probably lost the vitality he had as a young man. When he was young he liked to exercise, play ball, and perhaps dance. And he was always on the go. Now in his old age he could not do these sorts of things. So, he felt very put out. So, he said, “I’m old now. I cannot be compared to when I was in my youth. That time was truly blissful. The way I am now is really meaningless and boring.”

The Buddha said, “Great King, your appearance should not decline so suddenly.” Your body can’t have gone completely bad. You still have something about you which is not old. You say that you are changing and going bad, but there is still something within you which does not change or go bad! Look within yourself and find it!”

The king said, “World Honored One! the change has been a hidden transformation of which I honestly have not been aware.” This matter of people getting old consists of a hidden transformation. You don’t notice it. Youth becomes middle-aged and then old, and you don’t know it has happened. Silently, imperceptibly, a change takes place. And so, King Prasenajit replies, “I will say quite frankly that I haven’t been aware of aging and I don’t know how it is that I am old, and yet now the mark of old age is upon me. But I don’t know what day I got old.

I have come to this gradually through the passing of winters and summers. Summer and then winter, winter and then summer; one harvests in the autumn and stores for the winter: changing, shifting, and flowing, year by year.” Thus, he gradually got old, with white hair and a face full of uncountable wrinkles. How did I gradually get to be so decrepit and old? I’m so old that my legs don’t cooperate when I try to walk, and my hands shake when I try to eat. His eyebrows were so long that sometimes, when he wanted to look at something, he’d have to part his eyebrows. Imagine what a bother that was!

How did it happen? In my twenties, I was still young, but my features had aged since the time I was ten. At twenty I was no longer the child I was at ten; I was already an adult. My thirties were a further decline from my twenties. As I have just said before: in youth, when one’s vitality is not settled, one should be cautious in lust; in maturity, when one’s vitality is vigorous, one should be cautious in fighting; in old age, when one’s vitality is already weakened, one should be cautious in craving.

And now at sixty-two I look back on my fifties as hale and hearty. At thirty I was already older than at twenty, and at fifty I was a lot stronger than I am now. At fifty I could still lift well over a hundred pounds with my bare hands, but now it would be hard for me to manage thirty or forty pounds! Here King Prasenajit realizes that his old age has rendered him useless.

King Prasenajit again called out to the Buddha, “World Honored One! I am contemplating these hidden transformations. I perceive that the doctrine of these hidden changes and silent transformations is in fact not easily known. Although the changes wrought by this process of dying are evident through the decades: Day by day I am perishing in a process that flows like water in its continual change. Just now I made a comparison decade by decade, time passed quickly. It is said, “Time flies like an arrow; the days and months pass by like a shuttle.” I used to say that, starting from when I was ten, by the time I reached twenty I was already older than I was at ten; at thirty I was older than I was at twenty; at forty I was older than I was at thirty; at fifty I was older than I was at forty; and at sixty I was older than I was at fifty. In this way, time had inevitably caught up with me and made me old.

I might consider them further in finer detail: these changes do not occur just in periods of twelve years; there are actually changes year by year. If I were to carefully reflect and calculate in minute detail the course of this progression, how could its transformation be limited to merely twelve years (after all, one decade spans twelve years) or even twenty-four years? In truth, change occurs every single year, with each year different from the last, and every year I grow older; indeed, I age year after year. Not only are there yearly changes, there are also monthly transformations. How could it stop with just month-by-month changes? There are also differences day by day. Every day I am older than on the day before.

Examining them closely, I find that kshana by kshana, thought after thought, they never stop. I quiet my mind and ponder it deeply. I ask myself, how did I get old? What day did I get old? What year, what month, what time?” Even in the extremely brief space of a kshana, the process of aging never ceases. And so, by now I am so old I’m useless. The food I eat hasn’t any flavor; when I sleep I feel my skin separating from my flesh and it is very painful; the manifestations of old age are suffering indeed!

What is a “kshana”? The Prajna Sutra of the Humane King Who Protects His Country explains that in every thought, brief as a thought is, there are ninety kshanas. In every kshana there are nine hundred productions and extinctions. It is not easy to understand, not easy to detect. To explain it to this point is to get into fine detail.

And so I know my body will keep changing until it is extinct.

Editor’s note: The following ‘And so I know my body will keep changing until it is extinct…spoke to the great assembly in a voice that swept over them like the ocean-tide,’ is a 1974 supplementary lecture incorporated into the supplementary lectures of 1989.

And so I know… King Prasenajit had finished explaining the principle of extinction – how at all times everything is in a state of flux, that the appearance of birth and death is always inherent in things – said he knew his body will keep changing until it is extinct.

The Buddha told the great king, “By watching the ceaseless changes of these transformations, you awaken and know of your extinction, but do you also know that at the time of extinction there is something in your body which does not become extinct?”
King Prasenajit put his palms together and exclaimed, “I really do not know.”
The Buddha said, “I will now show you the nature which is not produced and not extinguished.”

After King Prasenajit finished saying how his body would certainly change and become extinct, the Buddha told the great king, “By watching the ceaseless changes of these transformations you notice that from when you were little you became middle-aged. From middle-age you got old. Once old, you eventually will die. So, you awaken and know of your extinction. You know that in the future you will certainly come to the end of it all. But do you also know that at the time of extinction there is something in your body which does not become extinct?”

King Prasenajit put his palms together, bowed to the Buddha, and exclaimed. When the King heard the Buddha say that, he respectfully said, “I really do not know. I truly do not know this principle.”

The Buddha said, “I will now show you the nature which is not produced and not extinguished. Your inherent nature doesn’t change, but you have not yet realized this to be so. Now I will explain to help make you clear.”

“Great King! how old were you when you saw the waters of the Ganges?”
The king said, “When I was three years old my compassionate mother led me to visit the Goddess Jiva. We passed a river, and at the time I knew it was the waters of the Ganges.”

The Buddha said, “Great King! how old were you when you saw the waters of the Ganges?”

The king said, “When I was three years old my compassionate mother led me to visit the Goddess Jiva. ‘Eternal Life.’ We went to seek for long life at the temple of the Goddess Jiva. At about that location, it was said: ‘May this little child of mine live a hundred years, and may he grow tall and mature quickly, and so on. We passed a river, and at the time I knew it was the waters of the Ganges. When I saw it, I knew at the time it was the Ganges River.”