38. All this is either the vacuity of the intellect, or representations of the intellect itself; when then should I be deluded with these false appearances, as a madman or one of a deluded mind is apt to do.
39. The sensibles are causes of our insensibility as poison, and women are deluders of men and provokers of their passions; all sweets are but gall, and all pleasures are only a sort of pleasing pain.
40. And this body which is subject to sickness and decay, with its mind as fickle as a shrimp fish, is hourly watched upon by inexorable death, as the old crane lurks after the skimming fish for his prey.
41. The frail body being subject to instant extinction, likens a bubble of water in the ocean of eternity; it resembles also the flame of lamp, which is put out in a moment, while it burns vividly before us.
42. What is the life any more than a stream of water, running between its two shores of birth and death; flowing on with the currents of passing joys and griefs, swelling with the waves of incidents, and whirling with the whirlpools of dangers and difficulties?
43. It is muddied with the pleasures of youth, and blanched with the hoary froths of old age; and emits but casually a few bursting bubbles of glee and gladness, which are afloat for and flitting in a moment.
44. It runs with the rapid torrent of custom, sounding with the hoarse noise of current opinions; it is overcast by the roaring clouds of envy and anger, and overflows the earth in its liquid form (of evanescent bodies).
45. The word stream of life, is as pleasing to hear and pleasant to the ear, as the term stream of water is soothing to the soul; but its waters are ever boiling with heat of tritápa, and abounding with whirlpools of illusion and avarice, that carry us up and down for ever more.
46. The course of the world is as that of the waters of a river, which bears away the present things on its back, and brings with its current, what was unforeseen and unexpected before. It is thus full with these events.
47. All that was present before us, is lost to and borne away from us, and it is in vain to repine at their loss; and whatever was never thought of before, come to pass upon us, but what reliance can there be in any one of them.