The Buddha said :
"There are twenty difficult things which are hard for human beings:
- It is hard to practise charity when one is poor.
- It is hard to study the Way when occupying a position of great authority.
- It is hard to surrender life at the approach of inevitable death.
- It is hard to get an opportunity of reading the sutras.
- It is hard to be born directly into Buddhist surroundings.
- It is hard to bear lust and desire without yielding to them.
- It is hard to see something attractive without desiring it.
- It is hard to bear insult without making an angry reply.
- It is hard to have power and not pay regard to it.
- It is hard to come in contact with things and yet remain unaffected by them.
- It is hard to study widely and investigate everything thoroughly.
- It is hard to overcome selfishness and sloth.
- It is hard to avoid making light without having studied the Way enough.
- It is hard to keep the mind evenly balanced.
- It is hard to refrain from defining things as being something or not being something.
- It is hard to come into contact with clear perception of the Way.
- It is hard to perceive one's own nature and through such perception to study the Way.
- It is hard to help others towards Enlightenment according to their various needs.
- It is hard to see the end of the Way without being moved.
- It is hard to discard successfully the shackles that bind us to the wheel of life and death as opportunities present themselves."