Though one live a hundred years of immoral life and without concentration, better is a single day of life for one who has virtue and practices meditation.

Dussīlo asamāhito — immoral life and without concentration: the two elements that make a hundred years of life less valuable than a day are the absence of sīla (virtue) and samādhi (concentration).

Sīlavantassa jhāyino — for one who has virtue and practices meditation: jhāyin is one who practices jhāna, absorptive meditation. The combination of sīla and jhāna represents the two fundamental pillars: virtue provides the stable ethical base; meditation the experiential transformation.

Verses 110-115 use the same comparative structure for different qualities: long life without practice versus one day of genuine practice. This rhetoric forces reconsideration of what truly counts as a “good life”.

The quantity of time lived without the quality of genuine practice does not equal the quality of a single day well lived. This is the logic of sacred versus profane time.