How can the five constituents of the psychophysical body (pañca-skandha), which belong to Mara the Evil One, be awakened? The answer is they can’t. They are barren and empty. These constituents are like foam, a bubble, a mirage, a coreless plantain-tree, and a magician’s creation. According to the Buddha in the Lankavatara Sutra, the psychophysical constituents “do not really exist; but taking them for realities and getting attached to them, a man may affirm that they are just so and not otherwise.”
Unless one can successfully separate and distinguish the true self from these five unreal constituents, meditation can easily turn into a fool’s errand. In this regard, an insidious deception awaits the careless meditator. Their very body, including their brain is a trap (and this is only the first constituent, form or rupa!).
It is worth pointing out that the Buddha, when he was still a Bodhisattva, had to conquer Mara or the same, the five psychophysical constituents making up the psychophysical being. Only then did he become fully awakened, that is, a Buddha. Incidentally, Mara was also regarded as the king of death, and as a tempter. He was always opposed to nirvana.
From what has thus far been presented, reaching Buddhahood is not an easy undertaking. The difficulty and subtlety is hard to conceive. It might helpful to imagine that when you were just a child an interdimensional predator inserted his mind into yours. Over the years you’ve become increasingly attached to this predator’s mind; believing it is who you really are.
If there is a means of escape from this terrible situation it first demands of us that we become mindful of the psychophysical constituents like our physical body, including our feelings, perceptions, volitional formations and sensory consciousness. We can’t afford to become attached to such phenomena. It comes at a high price.
I think in a previous blog The Zennist spoke about morphic fields and the relationship between what our minds send out into the universe and what the universe feeds back:"Junk in-Junk out".The title of this blog and the metaphor of an interdimensional predator remind me of the ideas of David Icke and Michael Tsarion which suggest that our collective and subjective mis-identification of our true spiritual nature has objectively manifested in both planetary and inter-dimensional parasitic intelligences which are,indeed,attempting to insert their minds into ours,either psychically or psychologically.A reflection of the metaphysical state in the physical if you will.Or are they just talking bollocks?
:-)
Posted by: WuWeiTV | April 30, 2012 at 05:59 PM
"All that we see, or seem, is but a dream, within a dream."
Posted by: Hugh Mussbejokin | April 30, 2012 at 12:59 PM
Nice nuance here...thanks!
Posted by: Mstrinado | April 30, 2012 at 08:37 AM