Sentient beings in the Dharma-ending age are deeply mired in ignorance and folly

In the Dharma-ending age, sentient beings' minds are restless and agitated, yet some people deliberately cater to this restlessness and seek to please sentient beings. If one never goes against the bad habits of sentient beings at all, how can they ever turn those habits around and attain liberation?

Sentient beings are not only greedy but also foolish and deluded—they insist on licking that bit of honey on the blade's edge, and what do they end up with in the end? No one stops to consider. Most people chase after the tiny so-called benefits right before their eyes, while risking rebirth in the three evil paths. They may appear bold, but in truth it is because of their foolishness and shortsightedness—they cannot think of the great and lasting benefits of the far-off future.

In fact, most people plan and scheme only for their personal interests, yet what they do not only fails to bring them benefit, but often causes them to lose what they already have. Yet no one thinks of this or sees it. Why? Because of ignorance and foolish delusion, because afflictions have blinded their eyes, so they cannot see themselves clearly and cannot see clearly the true gains and losses, the real advantages and disadvantages.

As for cause and effect, many people do not truly believe in it; they always harbor a fluke mentality, imagining that karmic retribution will fall on others' heads and never on their own. So, for the sake of their own interests, they tell others that if they do not obey their arrangements, some evil retribution will surely befall them—unaware that their own evil retribution is about to arrive, and that they are right now creating the causes of evil retribution.

When I first began studying Buddhism and reading the sūtras, I read some true stories about cause and effect and came to believe that cause and effect is real and infallible, and so I was careful in all my bodily, verbal, and mental actions. But Buddhists nowadays do not read the sūtras at all and do not know what the sūtras are teaching; therefore their minds are blind and they do not understand cause and effect.

Now that the internet is so developed, creating evil karma is far easier than before—with a flick of the fingers, evil karma spreads across the whole country. It is truly lamentable. No one is alert to what evil consequences will follow after they move their fingers. Only the ignorant are fearless. With their minds blocked, they blindly follow others, unable to distinguish wholesome from unwholesome; they commit grave evil karma without any sense of remorse.

Some people create evil karma because they are instigated and egged on by others, without knowing it themselves. For example, someone tells them, "If you do it this way, nothing will happen; I will bear the karma for you—you will have only good results, no bad results." So they believe what this person says, thinking this person can truly bear the cause and effect on their behalf. Little do they know that when cause and effect arrives, each person receives their own retribution, and no one can substitute for another—not even one's own birth parents can do anything about it.