Mr. Beal’s translation & mine for Chapter 37, Life & Death:
- What is life but the flower or the fruit which falls, when ripe,
but yet which ever fears the untimely frost?
Once born there is nought but sorrow;
for who is there can escape death?
1 命如果待熟
Life is like a fruit waiting to ripen,
常恐会零落
Always afraid of falling;
已生皆有苦
All that are born have pain,
孰能致不死
For they cannot escape death.
- From the first moment of conception in the womb, the result of passionate love
and desire, there is nought but the bodily form,
transitory as the lightning flash.
It is difficult to dam up the daily flow of the waters of life.
2 从初乐恩爱
At first people were all delighted with love,
可淫入泡影
They made love in an empty bubble;
受形命如电
The shape of life is like lightning,
昼夜流难止
Flowing day and night, can’t be stoped.
- The body is but a thing destined to perish.
There is no certain form given to the spirit conceived with the body.
Once dead it is again born
—the connections of sin and of merit cannot be overreached.
3 是身为死物
This body is a stiff,
精神无形法
The spirit is invisible;
假令死复生
If the dead are reborn,
罪福不败亡
Sin and bliss will not disappear.
- It is not a matter of one life, or one death,
but from the act of renewed conception proceeds all the consequences of former deeds,
resulting in joy or misery;
the body dies but the spirit is not entombed!
4 终始非一世
The end and beginning are not in one life,
从痴爱久长
The foolish love makes it last;
自此受苦乐
From then on through pain and happiness,
身死神不丧
The body dies, and the spirit does not.
————————
- It is the mind alone (spirit) that determines the character of (life in) the three worlds.
Just as the life has been virtuous or the contrary, is the subsequent career of the individual.
Living in the dark, darkness will follow;
the consequent birth is as the echo from the cavern,
8 识神造三界
The spirit made the 3 realms,
善不善五处
And 5 kind or evil places;
阴行而默到
They walk in shadows and arrive in silence,
所往如响应
Their direction is like an echo.
- immersed in carnal desires, there cannot be any thing but carnal appetite;
all things result from previous conduct,
as the traces follow the elephant-step,
or the shadow the substance.
9 欲色不色有
The existence of desire, form and formless,
一切因宿行
Are all caused by past conducts;
如种随本像
Like the seed would grow as its parent plant,
自然报如影
Natually the retribution is like the shadow behind.