It Is Difficult for Sentient Beings to Awaken

Everyone in this life has experienced suffering, affliction, setbacks, and frustrations, yet the mind consciousness still does not awaken. Even when encountering the Buddhadharma and hearing the Buddha expound the true meaning of the truth of suffering, the mind consciousness still does not awaken, still craving and clinging to suffering, unwilling to escape from it. If the mind consciousness is like this, how much more so the manas? Such is the foolishness and ignorance of sentient beings: no matter how much suffering they personally endure, they do not know to reflect and save themselves, and even when the Buddha comes to rescue them, they refuse to accept it. Those with thin ignorance, deep roots of goodness, and light afflictions, when encountering afflictions, will seek ways to resolve and avoid them; fools will continue to endure, sinking ever deeper and refusing to pull themselves out. They remember the eating but not the beating.

Does the mind consciousness know how to save itself? If it did, there would have been no need for the Buddha to come to the Sahā world and expound the Noble Truth of Suffering. Yet after the Buddha finished expounding the Noble Truth of Suffering, what use is it to us inferior people of the Dharma-ending age? If either the mind consciousness or the manas knew how to save itself, understood suffering, and understood the need to escape from suffering, there would be no need for the Buddha to come and rescue us. But now, even if the Buddha were to come in person again, it would not accomplish much, for sentient beings' ignorance is too deep and heavy, and their foolishness is beyond saving.

The Kṣitigarbha Sūtra describes: 佛告阎罗天子：南阎浮提众生，其性刚强，难调难伏。是大菩萨，于百千劫，头头救拔如是众生，早令解脱。是罪报人，乃至堕大恶趣，菩萨以方便力，拔出根本业缘，而遣悟宿世之事。自是阎浮众生结恶习重，旋出旋入。劳斯菩萨，久经劫数，而作度脱。The sentient beings of Jambudvīpa are heavily bound by evil habits, repeatedly emerging from and re-entering the hells, going out and coming in as frequently as if returning home. "This Bodhisattva toils through long eons to bring about their liberation." The Bodhisattvas are patient enough—yet sentient beings feel no shame whatsoever! How low and degraded they are!