Bodhirājakumārasutta

mn85:45.1 Then, understanding the Divinity’s invitation, I surveyed the world with the eye of a Buddha, because of my compassion for sentient beings.

mn85:45.2 And I saw sentient beings with little dust in their eyes, and some with much dust in their eyes; with keen faculties and with weak faculties, with good qualities and with bad qualities, easy to teach and hard to teach. And some of them lived seeing the danger in the fault to do with the next world, while others did not.

mn85:45.3 It’s like a pool with blue water lilies, or pink or white lotuses. Some of them sprout and grow in the water without rising above it, thriving underwater. Some of them sprout and grow in the water reaching the water’s surface. And some of them sprout and grow in the water but rise up above the water and stand with no water clinging to them.

mn85:45.4 In the same way, I saw sentient beings with little dust in their eyes, and some with much dust in their eyes.

mn85:45.5 Then I replied in verse to the divinity Sahampati:

mn85:45.6 ‘Flung open are the doors to freedom from death!

mn85:45.7 Let those with ears to hear commit to faith.

mn85:45.8 Thinking it would be troublesome, Divinity, <j>I did not teach

mn85:45.9 the sophisticated, sublime Dhamma among mankind.’

mn85:45.10 Then the divinity Sahampati, knowing that his request for me to teach the Dhamma had been granted, bowed and respectfully circled me, keeping me on his right, before vanishing right there.