Sukumāla Sutta
Sukumāla Sutta (AN 3.38)
The first three remembrances are antidotes to the "threefold pride" of youthfulness (yobbana-mada), health (ārogya-mada) and life (jīvita-mada). Nyanaponika & Bodhi (1999) note:
The first three contemplations commended serve to replicate, in the thoughtful disciple, the same awakening to the inescapable realities of the human condition that was thrust upon the future Buddha while he was still dwelling in the palace.
The Sukumāla Sutta (AN 3.38) illustrates the bodhisatta's early insights.[10] For instance, in this discourse, the Buddha is recording as having observed:
...The thought occurred to me: "When an untaught, run-of-the-mill person, himself subject to aging, not beyond aging, sees another who is aged, he is horrified, humiliated, & disgusted, oblivious to himself that he too is subject to aging, not beyond aging.
If I – who am subject to aging, not beyond aging – were to be horrified, humiliated, & disgusted on seeing another person who is aged, that would not be fitting for me."
As I noticed this, the [typical] young person's intoxication with youth entirely dropped away
