There is, monks, an unborn, unbecome, unmade, unconditioned. If, monks, there were no unborn... no escape would be discerned from what is born, become, made, conditioned. But because there is an unborn..., therefore an escape is discerned from what is born, become, made, conditioned.
If you must look back, do so forgivingly. If you will look forward, do so prayerfully. But the wisest course would be to be present in the present gratefully.
Just as it would be madness to settle on medical treatment for the body of a person by taking an opinion poll of the neighbors, so it is irrational to prescribe for the body politic by polling the opinions of the people at large.
If they [the dead] should speak, it would be found that in matters of opinion no departed person was exactly what he had passed for in life. They would realise, deep down, that they, and whole nations along with them, are not really what they seem to be-and never can be.
I cannot accept any concept of God based on the fear of life or the fear of death, or blind faith. I cannot prove to you that there is no personal God, but if I were to speak of him I would be a liar.
There it is!' he thought with rapture. 'When I was already in despair, and when it seemed there would be no end- there it is! She loves me. She's confessed it.
Without birth and death, and without the perpetual transmutation of all the forms of life, the world would be static, rhythm-less, undancing, mummified.