Sathara Pera Nimithi (The Four Omens)

Sickness stalks the earth in varying forms
Torturous, bed-confining
Dismembering grotesquely disfiguring
Old age gradually sets in.
Losing of faculties; helplessly dependent
Burdensome.
Death is certain.
Longevity yes; but not immortality.
Birth is death.
Realisation
Of the inevitability
Of sickness, old age, death
These limitations of life
The ascetic withdraws to life contemplation
The sight of these
Sickness, old age, death and asceticism
Caused the Holy One
To renounce his princely life
For a life of asceticism
In his search of the truth
Gaining enlightenment.

- Jeannette Cabraal