The Sword of Song

THE THREE CHARACTERISTICS 77 the bulk of cases one should certainly abstain from destroying life, that is, wantonly and wilfully: but I cannot drink a glass of water without killing countless m yriads of living beings. If you knew as I do, the conditions of existence: struggle deadly and inevitable, every form of life the inherent and immiti- gable foe of every other form, with few, few exceptions, you would not only cease to talk of the wickedness of causing death, but y ou would perceive the First Noble Truth, that no existence can be free from sorrow ; the second, that the desire for existence only leads to s orrow ; that the ceas ing from existence is the ceasing of sorrow (the third) ; and you would seek in the fourth the Way , the Noble Eightfold Path. “I know, O Arahats, that y ou do not need this instruction : but m y words will not stay here : they will go forth and illum inate the whole system of ten thousand worlds, w here Arahats do not grow on every tree. Little brothers, the night is fallen : it were well to sleep.”