These dove-hued bones
scattered in Fall,
like long white gourds,
what joy in seeing them?
Explanation: In the dry autumnal season, one can see bones and skulls strewn around. These dry grey-hued skulls are like gourds thrown here and there. Seeing this, whoever will lust?
The Story of Adhimanika Monks (Verse 149)
While residing at the Jetavana Monastery, the Buddha spoke this verse, with reference to some monks who over-estimated themselves.
A great number of monks, after taking a subject of meditation from the Buddha, went into the woods. There, they practiced meditation ardently and diligently and soon attained deep mental absorption (jhana) and they thought that they were free from sensual desires and, therefore, had attained arahatship. Actually, they were only over-estimating themselves. Then, they went to the Buddha, with the intention of informing the Buddha about what they thought was their attainment of arahatship.
When they arrived at the outer gate of the Monastery, the Buddha said to the Venerable Ananda, ‘Those monks will not benefit much by coming to see me now; let them go to the cemetery first and come to see me only afterwards’. The Venerable Ananda then delivered the message of the Buddha to those monks, and they reflected, “The Buddha knows everything; he must have some reason in making us go to the cemetery first’ So they went to the cemetery.
There, when they saw the putrid corpses they could look at them as just skeletons, and bones, but when they saw some fresh dead bodies they realized, with horror, that they still had some sensual desires awakening in them. The Buddha saw them from his perfumed chamber and sent forth his radiance; then he appeared to them and said, “Monks! Seeing these bleached bones, is it proper for you to have any sensual desires in you?” At the end of the discourse, the monks attained arahatship.
Then the Buddha pronounced this stanza.