Birth and Death

Birth and Death are elements of natural time. They help time obscure eternity. They are a mask on the face of our real selves.

Āditta Sutta - the Buddha's 3rd sermon

            At one time the Blessed one was living near Gayā, at Gayā’s head, with a thousand bhikkhus. Then the Blessed One addressed them:

“Everything, monks, is burning. What, monks, is everything that is burning? The eye, monks, is burning, form is burning, eye-consciousness is burning, eye-contact is burning. The feeling that arises dependent on eye-contact, whether pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral, that also is burning. With what is it burning? It is burning with the fire of passion, the fire of hatred, the fire of delusion. I declare that it is burning with the fire of birth, decay, death, grief, lamentation, pain, sorrow, and despair.

The ear, monks, is burning, sound is burning, … and despair.

The nose, monks, is burning, odour is burning, … and despair.

The tongue, monks, is burning, taste is burning, … and despair.

The body, monks, is burning, touch is burning, … and despair.

The mind, monks, is burning, thought is burning, … and despair.

Seeing thus, monks, the well-informed noble disciple is disgusted with the eye, is disgusted with forms, is disgusted with eye-consciousness, disgusted with eye-contact. He is disgusted with the feeling that arises dependent on eye contact, whether pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. He is disgusted with the ear … with the nose … with the tongue … with the body … with the mind, with thoughts, with mind-contact, with the feeling that arises dependent on mind-contact, whether pleasant, unpleasant or neutral.

Being disgusted, he is dispassionate, being dispassionate he is freed. Being freed, he knows he is free, and he knows, “Birth is destroyed, the holy life has been fulfilled, what should be done has been done, there is no more of this.”

Thus spoke the Blessed One. Those monks delighted in what the Blessed One had said. And while this discourse was being delivered the minds of those one thousand monks were liberated from defilements without any remainder.

Eating is a fire, breathing is a fire, the fire is the mouth of the Gods who accept this offering and that to is a burning ... 

Just a frog

There is the absolute and the realization of the expressions of the absolute.   Love is such a realization.  A sunset is such a realization.  Living and dying are such a realization. Time has noting to do with eternity; time is simply what obscures eternity from our perception. A frog can sit on a lily pad for a million culpa and still just be a fucking frog.