I fear birth, old age,
disease, and death, and so I seek to find a sure mode of deliverance; I
have put away thought of relatives and family affection, how is it
possible then for me to return to the world and not to fear to revive
the poisonous snake, and after the hail to be burned in the fierce fire;
indeed, I fear the objects of these several desires, this whirling in
the stream of life troubles my heart, these five desires, the inconstant
thieves--stealing from men their choicest treasures, making them unreal,
false, and fickle--are like the man called up as an apparition; for a
time the beholders are affected by it, but it has no lasting hold upon
the mind; so these five desires are the great obstacles, forever
disarranging the way of peace; if the joys of heaven are not worth
having, how much less the desires common to men, begetting the thirst of
wild love, and then lost in the enjoyment, as the fierce wind fans the
fire, till the fuel be spent and the fire expires; of all unrighteous
things in the world, there is nothing worse than the domain of the five
desires; for all men maddened by the power of lust, giving themselves to
pleasure, are dead to reason. The wise man fears these desires, he fears
to fall into the way of unrighteousness; for like a king who rules all
within the four seas, yet still seeks beyond for something more, so is
lust; like the unbounded ocean, it knows not when and where to stop.
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