Thus I have heard: One time, the Buddha was staying at Anāthapiṇḍada’s Park in Jeta’s Grove of Śrāvastī.

It was then that the Bhagavān addressed Venerable Ānanda, “Suppose some mendicants from another religion were to come and ask you, ‘Ānanda, why does the Bhagavān instruct people to cultivate religious practices?’ How would you answer someone who asks this?”

Ānanda told the Buddha, “If a mendicant from another religion were to come and asked me, ‘Ānanda, why does the Bhagavān instruct people to cultivate religious practices?’ I would answer: ‘The Bhagavān instructs people to cultivate religious practices so that they will cultivate disillusionment with form, part with desire for it, completely cease it, be freed from it, and for it not to arise. He instructs people to cultivate religious practices so that they will cultivate disillusionment with feeling … conception … volition … awareness, part with desire for it, completely cease it, be freed from it, and for it not to arise.’ Bhagavān, if a mendicant from another religion were to question me thus, I would answer them in this way.”

The Buddha told Ānanda, “Good, good! You should answer in this way. Why is that? I really do instruct people to cultivate religious practices so that they will cultivate disillusionment with form, part with desire for it, completely cease it, be freed from it, and for it not to arise. I instruct people to cultivate religious practices so that they will cultivate disillusionment with feeling … conception … volition … awareness, part with desire for it, completely cease it, be freed from it, and for it not to arise.”

After the Buddha spoke this sūtra, the monks who heard what the Buddha taught rejoiced and approved.