A mendicant reflects: ‘Currently I’m a youth, young, with pristine black hair, blessed with youth, in the prime of life. But there will come a time when this body is struck with old age. When you’re old, overcome by old age, it’s not easy to focus on the instructions of the Buddhas, and it’s not easy to frequent remote lodgings in the wilderness and the forest. Before that unlikable, undesirable, and disagreeable thing happens, I’d better preempt it by rousing up energy for attaining the unattained, achieving the unachieved, and realizing the unrealized. That way, when it happens, I’ll live comfortably even though I’m old.’ This is the first future peril …

Furthermore, a mendicant reflects: ‘Currently, I’m rarely ill or unwell. My stomach digests well, being neither too hot nor too cold, but just right, and fit for meditation. But there will come a time when this body is struck with sickness. When you’re sick, overcome by sickness, it’s not easy to focus on the instructions of the Buddhas, and it’s not easy to frequent remote lodgings in the wilderness and the forest. Before that unlikable, undesirable, and disagreeable thing happens, I’d better preempt it by rousing up energy for attaining the unattained, achieving the unachieved, and realizing the unrealized. That way, when it happens, I’ll live comfortably even though I’m sick.’ This is the second future peril …