Shundo David Haye – Zen Priest

‘If you want to be free from this world of suffering, first you must contemplate impermanence. Those who are born must inevitably die. Even the young are not exempt; even the strong are in danger. Even the rich and prosperous decline, even the noble and exalted cannot remain that way. Even a long life does not last more than eighty years or so. Thus, this world being impermanent, there is nothing enjoyable. The poor suffer from lack, the rich suffer from possessions, the high suffer from their high status, the low suffer from their low status; they suffer over food and clothing, suffer over wives and children, suffer over wealth, suffer over official rank.

Anyway, if you don’t annihilate the nature of afflictions somehow and arrive on the path of liberation, even if you ascend to the rank of sovereign of a nation, great minister, deity, spirit, or wizard, it is still evanescent as lightning and morning dew, lasting only for a while.’ (The Essential Secrets for Entering the Way)