ਅਨਤਾ ਧਨੁ ਧਰਣੀ ਧਰੇ ਅਨਤ ਨ ਚਾਹਿਆ ਜਾਇ ॥
antaa Dhan Dharnee Dharay anat na chaahi-aa jaa-ay.
You bury your temporary wealth in the ground, but how can you love that which is temporary?
ਅਨਤ ਕਉ ਚਾਹਨ ਜੋ ਗਏ ਸੇ ਆਏ ਅਨਤ ਗਵਾਇ ॥੨॥
anat ka-o chaahan jo ga-ay say aa-ay anat gavaa-ay. ||2||
Those who have departed, after craving for temporary wealth, have returned home without this temporary wealth. ||2||
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa
You bury your wealth in the ground -- but how can you give your heart to something that will not last? Everyone who left this world clutching at it went home empty-handed anyway.
You cannot really love what will not last -- and no one takes it with them anyway.
A meditation on attachment and greed: loving the temporary is a category error -- you cannot truly love what is leaving. And the proof: the dead return home without it (cf. the earlier left-behind riches). Attachment to the impermanent is both irrational and futile.
A Question to Sit With
What would you focus on more if you knew it was the part that lasts?
Translation by Dr. Sant Singh Khalsa·How we use AI
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