[182] **"How short indeed is this life"** — "life" (*jīvita*) means: vitality, persistence, sustenance, keeping going, movement, continuance, maintenance — life, the life-faculty (*jīvitindriya*). Moreover, for two reasons life is short, life is brief: life is short because its persistence is limited, or life is short because its intrinsic nature (*sarasa*) is limited.
How is life short because its persistence is limited? In a past mind-moment (*cittakkhaṇa*) it lived; it does not live, it will not live. In a future mind-moment it will live; it does not live, it did not live. In the present mind-moment it lives; it did not live, it will not live.
Life, personal existence, pleasure and pain in their entirety
are conjoined with a single mind (citta); swiftly the moment passes.
Those gods who persist for eighty-four thousand aeons —
even they do not live endowed with two minds at once.
Whatever aggregates have ceased — whether of one dying
or of one still standing here — all alike
are gone, never to be relinked.
Those broken up in immediate succession [before], and those to be broken up in the future —
between them, for those ceased in the interval,
there is no difference in characteristic.
One is not born by [a mind] not yet arisen; by the present one one lives;
with the breakup of the mind the world is dead —
a designation (paññatti) valid in the ultimate sense.
As [waters] flow down to the lowland, so [the aggregates], steered by desire,
proceed; they proceed in unbroken succession, conditioned by the six sense bases (āyatana).
Broken up, they go to no store; there is no heap of them in the future;
those that have arisen stand like a mustard seed upon the point of an awl.
And for dhammas that have arisen, their breakup stands before them;
subject to disintegration they persist, unmixed with the old ones.
From the unseen they come; broken up, they pass from sight;
like a flash of lightning in the sky, they arise and they vanish.
Thus life is short because its persistence is limited.
How is life short because its intrinsic nature is limited? Life is bound up with the in-breath; life is bound up with the out-breath; life is bound up with the in-and-out-breaths; life is bound up with the primary elements; life is bound up with heat; life is bound up with edible food; life is bound up with consciousness. The root of these is weak; their prior causes are weak; whatever their conditions, those too are weak; whatever originates them, those too are weak; what co-exists with them is weak; what is conjoined with them is weak; what is co-arisen with them is weak; even what sets them in motion is weak. These are constantly weak in relation to one another; these are unstable in relation to one another; these cause one another to fall; for there is no protector of one for another, nor do these keep one another standing; and that which would produce them is not found; yet nothing wanes because of anything else. These are in every way liable to breakup. These are brought into being by earlier ones, and those which brought them into being died before; never at any time did the earlier and the later see one another. Thus life is short because its intrinsic nature is limited.
Moreover, compared with the life of the gods of the realm of the Four Great Kings (Cātummahārājikā), the life of humans is short — a limited life, a brief life, a momentary life, a fleeting life, a transient life, a life that does not last, a life that does not persist long. Compared with the life of the Tāvatiṃsa gods … of the Yāma gods … of the Tusita gods … of the Nimmānaratī gods … of the Paranimmitavasavattī gods … compared with the life of the gods of Brahmā's retinue, the life of humans is short — a limited life, a brief life, a momentary life, a fleeting life, a transient life, a life that does not last, a life that does not persist long. For this was said by the Blessed One: "Bhikkhus, short is this life-span of humans; one must go on to the world beyond; it should be touched upon [realized] with wisdom (*mantāya phoṭṭhabbaṃ*); what is wholesome should be done, the holy life should be lived; for one who is born there is no not-dying. Bhikkhus, one who lives long lives a hundred years, or a little more.
Short is the life of humans; a good man should disdain it;
one should live as though one's head were ablaze — there is no non-coming of Death.
Days and nights pass by; life is brought to a stop;
the life-span of mortals wastes away, like the water of small streams."
Hence: "How short indeed is this life."
English translation from the Pali (Siam Raṭṭha edition) — under review, not for citation.