One day, the Buddha was staying on Mount Makula.
At that time, a monk named Rādha, who attended upon the Buddha, approached him and asked, "Blessed One, people often speak of 'sentient beings.' Why are they called 'sentient beings'?"
The Buddha replied:
"One who clings to form—the body and all material phenomena—is bound by it and unable to let it go. Such a one is called a sentient being.
Likewise, one who clings to feeling, perception, mental formations, and consciousness—being tightly bound by these as well—is also called a sentient being."
The Buddha continued:
"I teach that the body and all material phenomena are subject to decay and disappearance. Feelings, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness likewise arise, change, and pass away. When craving and desire are completely abandoned, craving comes to an end; with the ending of craving comes the ending of suffering. And the ending of suffering is the realization of its final cessation.
"Suppose there were children in a village playing together. They built walls and houses out of mud.
As long as they delighted in those mud houses, as long as their craving, desire, attachment, and longing had not faded away, they would carefully guard them, saying, 'This is my castle. This is my house.'
But when they no longer cherished those mud structures—when craving, desire, attachment, and longing had all disappeared—they would themselves tear them down with their hands, flatten them with their feet, and scatter them apart.
"In the same way, Rādha, when you truly understand that the body and all conditioned phenomena are destined to decay and perish, you will no longer cling to them. Then craving will cease; when craving ceases, suffering ceases. The cessation of suffering is what I call 'the end of suffering.'"
When the Buddha had finished delivering this discourse, the Venerable Rādha rejoiced in the Blessed One's teaching and practiced diligently in accordance with the Dhamma.
As a boat moves swiftly when emptied of water, so one who has abandoned greed, craving, and ill will reaches Nirvāṇa. — The Dhammapada
“COME UNTO ME, ALL WHO ARE HEAVY LADEN”
This means: “All who bear heavy burdens, come to me.” These words are drawn from Matthew 11:28 in the Bible. The “burdens” referred to here include not only the hardships of life, but also inner sorrow, stress, and spiritual burdens.
Although these words come from Christianity, their spirit of caring for those who suffer and offering comfort and rest to the weary has much in common with the compassion of the Bodhisattva path—helping all beings find freedom from suffering.
One day, the Buddha was staying on Mount Makula.
At that time, a monk named Rādha, who attended upon the Buddha, approached him and asked, "Blessed One, people often speak of 'sentient beings.' Why are they called 'sentient beings'?"
The Buddha replied:
"One who clings to form—the body and all material phenomena—is bound by it and unable to let it go. Such a one is called a sentient being.
Likewise, one who clings to feeling, perception, mental formations, and consciousness—being tightly bound by these as well—is also called a sentient being."
The Buddha continued:
"I teach that the body and all material phenomena are subject to decay and disappearance. Feelings, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness likewise arise, change, and pass away. When craving and desire are completely abandoned, craving comes to an end; with the ending of craving comes the ending of suffering. And the ending of suffering is the realization of its final cessation.
"Suppose there were children in a village playing together. They built walls and houses out of mud.
As long as they delighted in those mud houses, as long as their craving, desire, attachment, and longing had not faded away, they would carefully guard them, saying, 'This is my castle. This is my house.'
But when they no longer cherished those mud structures—when craving, desire, attachment, and longing had all disappeared—they would themselves tear them down with their hands, flatten them with their feet, and scatter them apart.
"In the same way, Rādha, when you truly understand that the body and all conditioned phenomena are destined to decay and perish, you will no longer cling to them. Then craving will cease; when craving ceases, suffering ceases. The cessation of suffering is what I call 'the end of suffering.'"
When the Buddha had finished delivering this discourse, the Venerable Rādha rejoiced in the Blessed One's teaching and practiced diligently in accordance with the Dhamma.
As a boat moves swiftly when emptied of water, so one who has abandoned greed, craving, and ill will reaches Nirvāṇa. — The Dhammapada
Among all forms of giving, the gift of the Dhamma is supreme.
Among all tastes, the taste of the Dhamma is supreme.
Among all joys, the joy of the Dhamma is supreme.
The eradication of craving brings an end to all suffering.
— Dhammapada
Compassion extends to all sentient beings
Unbidden, we come.
Unannounced, we depart.
Back and forth we wander.
Who, indeed, is there to name?
— Samsara
The Four Inverted Views (Four False Perceptions)
1. Taking the Impermanent to Be Permanent: Believing that relationships, age, wealth, health, reputation, life, and other worldly conditions can remain unchanged for a long time and be possessed forever.
All conditioned phenomena are changing from moment to moment. Nothing in the worldly realm can exist eternally; therefore, everything is impermanent.
2. Taking Suffering to Be Happiness: Regarding the pursuit of fame, wealth, romantic love, delicious food, sensual pleasures, and the various enjoyments experienced amid birth, aging, illness, and death as the true happiness of life, and continually clinging to them with craving.
Worldly happiness merely provides temporary relief from suffering. It inevitably changes and is lost, ultimately returning to the various forms of suffering such as birth, aging, illness, and death. Therefore, its essential nature is suffering.
3. Taking Non-Self to Be Self: Believing that the body, thoughts, emotions, memories, and identity constitute the "self," and clinging to the notions of "This is me" and "This is mine."
Body and mind are merely the temporary combination of the Five Aggregates (form, feeling, perception, mental formations, and consciousness). There is no eternal, unchanging, independent self; therefore, all phenomena are non-self.
4. Taking the Impure to Be Pure: Becoming attached to physical beauty, the body, youth, talent, intelligence, and the like, believing them to be pure and beautiful.
The body is composed of material elements and filled with blood, flesh, phlegm, bodily fluids, and bones. It inevitably ages, becomes ill, and decays. External beauty is likewise only a temporary combination of causes and conditions. Therefore, its essential nature is impurity.
When a family member is seriously ill, one may sincerely recite the Kṣitigarbha Bodhisattva Pūrvapraṇidhāna Sūtra (Sutra of the Fundamental Vows of the Bodhisattva Kṣitigarbha). At the same time, one is encouraged to perform wholesome deeds on the patient’s behalf, such as making offerings to the Three Jewels (the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha), practicing generosity, sponsoring the making of Buddha images, offering lamps, and other meritorious acts, then dedicating the resulting merit to the patient.
According to the sutra, if the illness is the result of karma that can still be transformed, the patient may “recover quickly and enjoy an increase in lifespan.” If the person’s lifespan has already come to its natural end, these meritorious deeds can help lessen the weight of negative karma and support a more favorable rebirth.
The Evil of Short Videos
In the past, if someone said something wrong, they might only mislead a few people around them. Today, however, a single short video can influence tens of thousands—or even millions—of people within hours.
What we should truly be concerned about is not the medium of short videos itself, but the fact that many people, in pursuit of views, followers, and advertising revenue, spread distorted values. They gossip about others’ private lives, judge and criticize people, encourage greed and the pursuit of wealth, lust, fame, and personal gain, promote superstition and the worship or fear of spirits, and even distort the authentic teachings of religion. As a result, countless people are misled without even realizing it.
Even adults can be influenced by such content, let alone children and teenagers whose minds are still developing. A single false idea or misleading statement, once amplified by online platforms, can affect countless people and encourage even more people to spread the same misinformation. The wider the influence, the greater the moral responsibility.
From the perspective of the law of cause and effect, misleading others and leading them away from the right path is the continual planting of unwholesome causes. The more people one influences, the greater those unwholesome causes may become, and the heavier the consequences one may eventually have to bear. Therefore, no one should create videos carelessly simply to gain clicks, popularity, or financial rewards. A single sentence or a single opinion can influence another person’s life in ways we cannot imagine.
Likewise, I encourage everyone to spend less time watching short videos. Much of today’s short-form content competes aggressively for our attention, constantly stimulating desire, emotion, and curiosity. Over time, it makes people more restless, more distracted, and less capable of quiet reflection.
Instead of endlessly scrolling through videos, spend more time reading books—books that cultivate wisdom, purify the mind, and help establish right understanding and right views. Read authentic religious teachings if you are a believer, and read healthy, uplifting, and inspiring works. By contrast, immersing ourselves in a constant stream of temptation, sensationalism, and biased information can easily lead us astray.
What our eyes see each day, what our ears hear each day, is what gradually fills our minds. Whatever we expose ourselves to consistently will shape the direction of our lives.
Stay away from deception. Draw close to truth. Stay away from restlessness. Draw close to wisdom.
Create fewer short videos. Watch fewer short videos. Do not plant unwholesome causes for yourself, and do not become the source of unwholesome conditions for others.
“One who has extinguished all defilements is called an Arhat” (Sanskrit: Arhat; Pāli: Arahant).
This means:
An Arhat is a person who has completely eradicated all mental defilements—including greed, hatred, and delusion—and is therefore no longer bound by the cycle of rebirth (saṃsāra).
The principal defilements include:
* Greed (lobha): craving, attachment, and possessiveness.
* Hatred (dosa): anger, ill will, resentment, and aversion.
* Delusion (moha): ignorance, confusion, and not seeing reality as it truly is.
More specifically, an Arhat has eradicated:
* The Ten Fetters (saṃyojana), the ten mental bonds that keep beings trapped in saṃsāra.
* All wrong views and afflictive mental defilements (traditionally referred to as view-delusions and thought-delusions in Chinese Buddhist terminology).
As a result, an Arhat possesses several defining characteristics:
* They no longer create new karma that leads to future rebirth.
* At the end of this life, they attain Parinirvāṇa (Final Nirvāṇa) and are no longer subject to birth, death, or rebirth.
* Their mind is perfectly peaceful, completely free from greed, hatred, and delusion.
“Human life between Heaven and Earth is like that of a traveler on a distant journey, passing by in but a moment.”
— From Qing Qing Ling Shang Bai (“Green Cypresses on the Mound”), one of the Nineteen Old Poems.
While Venerable Mahākassapa was staying at Pipphali Cave, he practised the light kasina and used his divine eye to observe beings in the world:
* who was established in mindfulness;
* who was heedless and negligent;
* who was about to die;
* who was about to be reborn.
At Jetavana Monastery, the Buddha knew through his Buddha-eye what Mahākassapa was doing. Seeing that Mahākassapa was spending his time observing the countless births, deaths and rebirths of living beings, the Buddha emitted a radiant light and appeared before him in a luminous form. The essence of what he told him was:
“Kassapa, the births and deaths of living beings are innumerable and cannot be counted. To comprehend all of this completely is beyond your range; it belongs to the range of the Buddhas.”
The Buddha then recited Verse 28 of the Dhammapada:
When the wise dispel heedlessness through heedfulness,
they ascend the lofty tower of wisdom and, free from sorrow, behold the sorrowing multitude.
Just as one standing on a mountaintop looks down upon those on the plain below,
so the wise look upon the foolish.
This story conveys approximately four levels of meaning.
First, the karmic causes and consequences underlying the births and deaths of living beings are so complex that even an arahant cannot comprehend them exhaustively.
Mahākassapa was already an arahant and possessed the divine eye. He could see the death and rebirth of some beings and whether they were heedful or heedless. Yet living beings are without number, and each has passed through countless former lives involving immensely complex karmic conditions. Trying to trace all of this completely would be an endless undertaking.
Therefore, when the Buddha said, “This belongs to the range of the Buddhas,” he was not denying that Mahākassapa possessed supernatural powers. Rather, he meant:
An arahant can perceive phenomena within a certain range, but only the wisdom of a Buddha can completely understand the full network of causes and consequences involving countless beings.
Second, being capable of knowing something does not necessarily mean that it needs to be known.
This is the most important point of the story.
Although Mahākassapa was capable of observing the deaths and rebirths of certain beings, such observation could not help him any further in eliminating the defilements. He had already attained arahantship and completed his own liberation. Continuing to count who was dying, who was being reborn and who was heedless could easily turn into an endless pursuit of limitless phenomena.
The Buddha was, in effect, reminding him:
The purpose of spiritual practice is not to master all the secrets of the world, but to understand suffering, the cause of suffering, and the way to become free from suffering.
Some kinds of knowledge may be true and even extraordinary, but they are not necessarily “knowledge essential to liberation.”
Third, supernatural powers should not be treated as a substitute for wisdom.
Supernatural powers may reveal certain phenomena—for example, that someone has died, has been reborn, or is in a particular state. Wisdom, however, perceives more fundamental principles:
* all conditioned things are impermanent;
* attachment inevitably leads to suffering;
* no phenomenon contains an eternal and unchanging self;
* heedlessness keeps beings wandering through saṃsāra, while awareness and wisdom lead towards liberation.
Therefore, the emphasis of Verse 28 is not on “observing others,” but on “overcoming heedlessness through heedfulness and ascending the lofty tower of wisdom.”
In other words, the true “height” is not supernatural power, but wisdom. What is truly worth seeing is not every detail of the countless rebirths of innumerable beings, but the fundamental principles governing birth and death.
Fourth, a practitioner’s attention should first return to the self rather than continually judging others.
Mahākassapa was observing who was mindful, who was heedless, who was about to die and who was about to be reborn. The Buddha’s admonition therefore also carries a very practical meaning:
Rather than continually observing the progress of others, one should remain firmly established in one’s own mindfulness and liberation.
This does not mean that practitioners should not care for or help other beings. It means that observing others should have a clear compassionate and instructive purpose. If it is done merely to satisfy the desire, “I want to know,” then even the use of supernatural powers may become an unprofitable expenditure of mental energy.
The central meaning of the story can therefore be summarised as follows:
Human energy is limited, while the phenomena of the world are infinite. Spiritual practice is not about investigating the infinite world exhaustively, but about identifying the fundamental causes of birth and death and attaining liberation from them.
The story also illustrates Buddhism’s basic attitude towards supernatural powers: Buddhism does not necessarily deny them, but it never regards them as the highest attainment. Mahākassapa already possessed supernatural powers, yet the Buddha still admonished him. This demonstrates that, in the Buddha’s teaching, supernatural powers are inferior to the wisdom that leads to liberation.
In modern language, the Buddha might have been telling Mahākassapa:
“The question you are investigating has no end. Even if you knew how a thousand people were reborn, countless other beings would remain. Do not exhaust your limited mental energy in pursuing limitless information. Remain established in the wisdom that can truly bring suffering to an end.”