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.