What Is Equal in the Secular World?

Some say the virus is the most equal—it makes no distinction between rich and poor, powerful and powerless, or between men and women, young and old. Yet some people simply do not get infected with the virus and do not fall ill. Death, however, is different: no matter who you are, death is certain. A person who has attained the fourth dhyāna can extend their lifespan, but in the end the body of the five aggregates still ceases. The Buddha could remain in the world for several great kalpas, or even immeasurable kalpas, yet in the end He too had to step down and leave the lands He Himself had established.

If cause and effect belong to this world, then cause and effect are the most utterly equal of all: wholesome actions have wholesome retribution, unwholesome actions have unwholesome retribution, and when the time comes, the retributions for wholesome and unwholesome actions manifest, and there is no escaping them.

In one's lifetime a person can possess everything, but after death, all of it becomes useless—money, power, status, reputation, knowledge, learning, relatives, family, and so on. When it comes to death, none of these can help; there is nothing one can do about it. Observing at this moment, apart from the wholesome and unwholesome karma created over a lifetime, which one can carry away at will according to the mind and experience its retributions, everything else can no longer be enjoyed. Therefore we should know: for the wise living a lifetime in the secular world, what is it that they should most pursue? What can bring them the greatest benefit? What can bring them suffering, poverty, and lowliness? And what can never be obtained, nor carried away?