Lecture Notes on the Sūtra of the Collection of the Father and Son (Pitāputrasamāgamanasūtra) (220)

Why is it so difficult to liberate the rich and powerful?

The Buddha earnestly and patiently exhorted His father: one should not regard the present worldly wealth, pleasure, and free indulgence in the five desires that he enjoys, and thereby give rise to greed and attachment toward the objects of form, sound, smell, taste, and touch, without satisfaction—no longer craving those objects of form, sound, smell, taste, touch, and dharmas. When the mind craves the five desires and the six sense objects, it is not easy to satisfy. The World-Honored One's father had been a king for decades, enjoying the worldly pleasures of the five desires, yet he still did not know their suffering and did not know to seek liberation. The Buddha therefore exhorted him: you should no longer crave the wealth, honor, and pleasures of this world, because the faculties are like illusions and the objects are like dreams. The six faculties are all illusory transformations: the eye faculty should not crave forms, the ear faculty should not crave sounds; do not be lost amid the pleasures of the five desires, living a life of debauchery and extravagance. All of these are illusory transformations; the objects of the six sense dusts are all like dreams, not real, and will vanish into illusion at any moment.

Why did the Buddha repeatedly exhort His father the king? Because the rich and powerful are very difficult to liberate: they have long been intoxicated in the pleasures of the five desires and cannot easily pull themselves out. The poor, however, live lives of hardship and deeply feel the suffering of the world; when they encounter the Buddha's teaching, they will spontaneously and courageously practice and cultivate with diligence—unless their blessings are too meager, and, preoccupied with making a living, they rush about in worldly life, unable to study and practice the Buddha's teaching.