Mārasaṁyutta 10

Linked Discourses 4.10

1. Lifespan

Lifespan (2nd)

1 So I have heard. At one time the Buddha was staying near Rājagaha in the Bamboo Grove, the squirrels’ feeding ground. There the Buddha … said:

2 “Mendicants, the lifespan of humans is short. We are headed for lives to come. We must do what is skillful, we must practice the spiritual life. No one born is immortal. A long life is a hundred years or a little more.”

3 Then Māra the Wicked went up to the Buddha and addressed him in verse:

4 “The days and nights don’t rush by,

and life isn’t cut short.

The life of mortals keeps rolling on,

like a chariot’s rim around the hub.”

5 “The days and nights rush by,

and then life is cut short.

The life of mortals wastes away,

like the water in tiny streams.”

6 Then Māra the Wicked, thinking, “The Buddha knows me! The Holy One knows me!” miserable and sad, vanished right there.