Greed, aversion, and illusion are internal impurities that act as one's internal enemies. Though they obscure clarity and injure one from within, most people fail to recognize their true nature.

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

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