Here Today, Gone Tomorrow

I saw this Twitter post today by the awesome blog Sententiae Antiquae:

“Alive for a day: What is a person? What is not a person? A human is a dream of a shadow”

ἐπάμεροι· τί δέ τις; τί δ’ οὔ τις; σκιᾶς ὄναρ #Pindar

— sententiae antiquae (@sentantiq) January 8, 2020

This quotation by ancient Greek poet, Pindar, reminded me of a venerable Buddhist text called the Diamond Sutra,¹ quoted here from Thich Nhat Hanh’s The Diamond That Cuts Through Illusion:

“All composed things are like a dream,
a phantom, a drop of dew, a flash of lightning.
That is how to meditate on them,
that is how to observe them.”

I always enjoy seeing examples of wisdom that appear across disparate ancient cultures, and yet still apply today.

¹ Fun fact, the Diamond Sutra was among the first texts to be printed in world history, centuries before Gutenburg.