Ecclesiastes 3:19 · World English Bible
For that which happens to the sons of men happens to animals. Even one thing happens to them. As the one dies, so the other dies. Yes, they have all one breath; and man has no advantage over the animals; for all is vanity.
Anicca: Impermanence Conditioned things arise and pass without pause. The same "one thing" that comes to the beast in the field comes to the son of man: the breath halts, the body cools, and no rank shifts the hour by a minute.
From the Buddhism reading below.
The same verse, read by one tradition.
BUDDHISM
Anicca: Impermanence Conditioned things arise and pass without pause. The same "one thing" that comes to the beast in the field comes to the son of man: the breath halts, the body cools, and no rank shifts the hour by a minute. Like a candle that lights the room only by burning itself down to nothing, whatever draws breath is already on its way out.
Anattā: Not-self No owner sits behind the breathing. "One breath" passes through man and beast alike, drawn in and let go, the same borrowed air that filled another lung yesterday filling yours today. Follow your own breath for one minute and you find no one holding it, only the coming and the going, a life on loan that is always moving on.
Māna: Conceit The mind's habit of ranking itself above others. "No preeminence above a beast" knocks the footing out from that comparison, the quiet assumption that the sons of men stand a rung higher than the ox and the sparrow. Death keeps no such ladder, taking the herdsman and his herd with the one breath. Lay the measuring stick down and the leveling starts to feel like mercy instead of insult.
Saṃsāra: The wandering on Beings drift on through one birth after another. Man and beast meet the same "one thing" because the door between them turns both ways: whoever is human now may wear fur or feathers next time around, and the beast in the field may have carried a human face before. Fellow travelers on one road come to the same end because they walk the whole of it together.
Dukkha: Unsatisfactoriness A hollow grain runs through everything built in time. "Vanity" here is hevel, a breath of vapor, the mist of your own breath on a cold morning that shows for a second and thins away. Pile up herds, wisdom, and long years, and the same vapor lifts off the heap, warm for a moment and holding nothing you can keep. Seeing it clearly is the first honest step, the ground where the Preacher and the Buddha stand together.
Buddhism lens
If my life is one borrowed breath, what am I still holding too tightly?
The ten thousand things rise and return, and the one who sees this clearly stops setting himself apart from them. Breath, grass, and empire all follow the same turning.
Whatever you are, you are a little breath carrying a corpse, the same stuff as the horse and the vine. Emperor and slave reach the same dust, and remembering it keeps a man honest about his own importance.
The body is a garment the breath wears for a while and then sets down. What lives in the animal lives in you, one life looking out of many shapes.
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Buddhism