Cubibobi wrote, “A friend of mine told me just last week something like: “I listened to a talk of Thero X; I now forget what he was talking about, but I still remember his jokes.”
Yes. I see that all the time. Even though one can get a bigger audience that way, it defeats the whole purpose in two ways:
1. Keeping the audience entertained is what musicians, comedians, etc. do. That helps people relieve their daily stresses.
– But that helps those same people bound to “this world.”
– There is a sutta that says such “entertainers” are destined to apāyā.
– This is the same reason that the Buddha called Māra Devaputta “immoral” (pāpi Māra)
2. Liking “this world” and “liking Nibbāna” are mutually exclusive.
– One CANNOT get out of this world until one realizes the dangers of remaining in this world.
– However, even after “seeing that” at the Sotapanna stage, most people have difficulty in overcoming kāma rāga or liking for sensual pleasures.
– So, it is not helpful to draw people to “entertainment” and “worldly pleasures”
– One should always try to contemplate the dangers of remaining in the rebirth process.
Moreover, if one can climb over the “initial wall” by starting to see the dangers of the rebirth process, then one would get a more permanent “peace of mind”. That is “nirāmisa sukha” that is reached by overcoming the craving for sensory pleasures.
– That is the hardest part in practice for many people. See, “Nirāmisa Sukha”
P.S. I just found the sutta mentioned in #1 above:
“Talaputa Sutta: To Talaputa the Actor”