In this discourse, the Buddha advises cultivating the qualities of patience, loving-kindness and compassion. For true character is revealed only when tested by disagreeable words and deeds. Using vivid similes culminating with the simile of the saw, the Buddha instructs to not give rise to a mind of hate, even if bandits were to seize and carve one up limb by limb.

The brahmin Subha asks the Buddha why humans experience such inequality in lifespans, health, wealth, and birth. The Buddha gives a detailed exposition of kamma, showing how specific wholesome and unwholesome actions—like killing, anger, generosity, and humility—bring their corresponding results in the human realm.

When the householder Potaliya claims he has “cut off all dealings” by retiring, the Buddha explains that true renunciation lies not in abandoning possessions but in abandoning unwholesome actions and defilements. Through vivid similes, he reveals the futility of sensual pleasures and how the true cutting off of all dealings is accomplished in the Noble Ones’ Discipline.

The Buddha distinguishes pleasant abidings in the here and now from the way of effacement leading upwards to complete quenching. Effacement is shown as the gradual chipping away of defilements through restraint, cultivation of the noble eightfold path, and diligent training, culminating in the complete freedom of Nibbāna.

The Buddha shares the consequences for a person acting with an upset mind based on his direct knowledge.

The Buddha uses the simile of a person being carried down by a lovely and alluring river current to illustrate the painful results of craving and indulgence in the internal sense bases.

The Buddha describes the cause and condition for why a woman neither sits in public assemblies, nor pursues occupations, nor journeys to Kamboja.