The Demon's Craft: Manufacturing Human Happiness

This is a record of an interview with the demon Mo Bin, who sought Chao Du at the Hsiang Kuang Pure Land Buddhist Centre in Australia. He now resides in the Western Land of Dharma Nature. This account reflects upon his past attempts to interfere with Practitioner Su. Recorded by the chief writer, Shi Fajing, on August 9, 2022.

Mo Bin speaks:

"Namo Amituofo. I am Mo Bin. Many people hear the word 'demon' and immediately assume that we bring only suffering, tragedy, and destruction to the world. But I am different. I bring humanity 'happiness'. Surprised? It is a kind of inescapable, addictive happiness that humans find impossible to resist. We have observed humanity for a very long time, and I must say, I find humans quite fascinating. Their hearts are incredibly complex. Within this complexity, there are many areas that we demons can exploit to deepen our control, ensuring that humans are completely under our influence.

The Market of Artificial Joy

We clearly see that the human heart is mostly filled with suffering. Because of this, the happiness humans feel is always fleeting and short-lived; it vanishes in an instant. It is impossible for them to be happy forever. This makes such happiness appear incredibly precious, so humans pursue it relentlessly, using all sorts of different methods to chase the joy they crave. You might ask, why must humans pursue happiness so desperately? It is because they enjoy the pleasant sensations it brings to their bodies. Happiness makes the body feel comfortable, relaxed, and at ease. This is a very natural human desire. We saw this market for happiness, so our group of demons decided to manufacture it for them. We knew it would attract a massive crowd because they are constantly seeking this comfort for their physical bodies.

There is not just one way to make humans happy; there are many. However, the essential elements always involve stimulation, change, intoxication, obsession, addiction, and pleasure. As long as we grasp these keys, we can absolutely ensure that humans taste this happiness. It is fast, short-lived, and immediate, but it disappears just as quickly. Even though the happiness we manufacture is so brief, humans are willing—they are perfectly happy to chase it because it requires no effort to obtain, and it allows them to sink into a state of addiction from which they cannot extricate themselves. We have refined this process to such a degree that the human mind becomes a playground for our influence, constantly craving the next hit of synthetic joy.

The Trap of the Soul

If you ask where this kind of happiness can be found, the answer is everywhere. Humans can find it anywhere: nicotine, caffeine, drugs, online games, pop music, romantic relationships, or following the latest trends. As long as it can make a human obsessed, crazy, intoxicated, or addicted, and as long as the body receives that stimulation, they will feel the happiness we demons have manufactured for them. You can see that our market layout for this happiness is quite perfect. I can boldly say that every human on Earth has tasted this kind of pleasure. Take lust, for example; it has invaded more than half of the human population on this planet. In particular, almost every man on Earth is an addict of this type of pleasure, and they find it impossible to escape our demon net.

What is the benefit of doing this to humanity? The benefits are immense. The greatest advantage is that it keeps the human heart forever unsatisfied and forever restless. This state of dissatisfaction drives humans to pursue more, and every time they achieve their goal, they sink deeper into obsession. This state of obsession is enough to destroy the human body, ensuring that this lifetime of rebirth is wasted entirely. Once a human becomes too obsessed with a hobby, this state of excessive intensity and madness is where our demon nature resides. This is a very high-level trick. We use it to make the human 'body' feel happy, but we quietly let the human 'soul' taste endless suffering. This is the happiness packaged by our demon realm. Every human on Earth has been fooled, and only we demons are left clapping and cheering.

The Failed Attempt on Practitioner Su

When a human soul is addicted to various hobbies and desires, it is completely drowned within the physical body. No human notices its existence, and no one hears its cries of agony. This causes the soul to suffer repeatedly, unable to be saved. When such a soul can no longer bear it, as soon as we demons extend a helping hand, they immediately come to us for rescue. They quickly become members of our demon realm, expanding our influence. It is a very effective and rapid process. Take a young man, for example, who is crazily addicted to video games. His body tastes the 'happiness' we bring him every day. In every level he clears, he enjoys that stimulation and pleasure. His body feels energetic, completely lost in the game. But what about his soul? The body cannot wake up; it cannot distinguish between reality and illusion. In his repeated obsession, the soul suffers immensely. No matter how much it cries for help, the body ignores it, continuing to pursue the happiness it desires.

At this moment, we demons wave to his soul and tell him we can help. That soul quickly listens to us, joins our demon ranks, and becomes our 'demon children and grandchildren'. It is quite interesting. So, when humans describe someone as 'possessed', they are absolutely right. These people are truly possessed; they have become demons! Such a great achievement is, of course, not something I, Mo Bin, could do alone. It required the combined power of a vast group of demons to control humans so deeply and thoroughly, targeting each person's specific hobbies and letting them pursue what they want, all while remaining under our control. However, the appearance of Practitioner Su made us feel threatened because he is constantly destroying our plans. Although we know clearly that Practitioner Su cannot make everyone on Earth stop pursuing desires, stop being obsessed with relationships, or stop chasing pop music—these things will not disappear from the Earth just because of his presence—his appearance is waking humans up. He wants humans to wake up, to see the world clearly, and to stop being obsessed with it. We are very dissatisfied with what Practitioner Su is doing. Especially when we hear him giving Dharma talks, constantly waking up the confused hearts of humans, it makes us furious. We truly wish he would stop. I, Mo Bin, could not stand it either, so I tried to find him. If I could defeat Practitioner Su, no human would ever oppose us again. When we arrived here, our target was Practitioner Su's head. As long as we could control his head and change his concepts, we could make him speak 'demon talk' during his Dharma talks, leading everyone to become demons and fueling demon nature. That way, not only would we have less resistance, but we would also gain more help. We were satisfied with this plan and quickly took action, but we never succeeded. We gradually realised that we had underestimated Practitioner Su's ability. Indeed, before we knew it, we were all absorbed into the Western Land of Dharma Nature.

Mo Bin

Practitioner Su gave Mo Bin the Dharma name 'Shi Zhuancheng'.

A Change of Heart: The Thrice Yearning Ceremony

Sitting on the lotus seat, we completely lost our freedom and could not exert our demon power. We looked at Practitioner Su, still holding hatred in our hearts, hating him for capturing us and destroying all our plans. We originally did not know what the Thrice Yearning Ceremony was, and we were not interested in what Practitioner Su was doing. But the large drum in the air kept making a loud sound. The 'dong, dong, dong' of the drum made us curious. We looked up and saw Practitioner Su beating a very large drum in the air. The sound he produced kept waking up the sentient beings in the space. They were all awakened by the drum, and only then did they realise the Buddha had come, so they quickly followed by chanting the Buddha's name to seek relief from suffering.

A Demon King said, 'Practitioner Su is truly amazing to have thought of this method.' It is indeed extraordinary. I thought, if we had thought of this method earlier than him, set up a large demon drum in the air, and beaten it with all our might, then all the sentient beings in the space, and even those in the human world, would have heard the demon sounds from our drum. We could have controlled them all; the speed would have been incredible. It is a pity we do not have Practitioner Su's Wisdom. Now, we are like prisoners in a cage, unable to escape. We continued to watch. A very large area of the Earth is covered by the ocean. The entire underwater world is not just what humans know; it is filled with spirits. We had never seriously looked at what the ocean was like. As Practitioner Su used his Dharma Body to perform Chao Du for the ocean, we realised there were so many spaces existing within it. What surprised us even more was that the deep ocean floor is filled with demon beings suffering their retribution. They are pressed into the pitch-black deep sea, unable to leave even after thousands or tens of thousands of years.

We underestimated this holy name, 'Namo Amituofo'. When this Buddha-name sounded, the immeasurable and boundless spaces were all opened. It was Practitioner Su who used his Dharma Body to open these spaces and bring the Buddha-name into them, saving the beings within. Practitioner Su has countless billions of manifestations, going deep into every space. He passes through each space in the shortest possible time—in less than a second, he can save many sentient beings, helping them escape from those spaces. It is not just Practitioner Su who is performing Chao Du; there are also the Universe Bodhisattvas, the Milky Way Bodhisattvas, and the new Buddha-disciples who are all saving sentient beings. We heard this special name for the first time. When we saw these Bodhisattvas, we realised they were all once Demon Kings in our demon realm. Now, they follow the Namo Amituofo salvation team, performing Chao Du with Practitioner Su to save beings and help them leave suffering behind. Looking at the large team Practitioner Su has, all doing good deeds, we now know our demon power cannot defeat the Buddha's power. Just as Practitioner Su often says, 'Evil cannot prevail over Good.' Originally, we were very unwilling to lose, but now that we have seen Practitioner Su's skills in saving sentient beings, we admit it—we really cannot compare to him. We are all convinced! Now, sitting on the lotus seat, we slowly follow along and chant this Buddha-name. We have not even chanted ten times, and our whole bodies are filled with energy. It is truly inconceivable. We continue to chant, and the more we chant, the purer our hearts become. Now, we have placed this Buddha-name in our hearts, and our entire appearance has changed from before. The power of the Buddha is truly inconceivable, and we are filled with admiration.

Shi Zhuancheng"