What Is the Substance of Sentient Beings?

Why is the Buddha so compassionate, yet he can leisurely observe sentient beings in the Sahā World suffering various afflictions? How could the Buddha bear to watch?

When my mother passed away, I happened to be practicing the Mirage Observation. Having prepared for many years on how to face my mother’s death, I constantly contemplated what constituted my mother—did “mother” as a person truly exist? During the funeral arrangements, I observed the sixth and seventh consciousnesses in everyone’s minds, examining the psychological states of all present. Through this, I attained the Mirage Observation. All people appeared utterly illusory in my mind. I responded to everything like a walking corpse, though my heart remained deeply sorrowful.

So, when viewed through the Buddha’s immeasurable wisdom, what are sentient beings? What are the universe, the world, human affairs, and the principles of phenomena? Sentient beings’ physical forms are but aggregates of the four elements; their conscious minds are merely seeds of consciousness. To the Buddha, sentient beings do not exist—nor do their affairs or underlying principles. This is the first point. Second, sentient beings possess their own karmic causes and karmic forces that lead to suffering. If the causes and conditions are not ripe, rescue is futile. One can only watch as sentient beings drift in the sea of birth and death, bobbing up and down. Only when causes and conditions mature can the Buddha extend a hand to save them.