A huge part of us is a demon

We are inhabiting a system of conditioned being called the five skandhas or in Pali the five khandhas. (They consist of physical form, feeling, perception, volitional formations and consciousness.)  As presented in the cannon, they belong to the demon Māra which the Bodhisattva (Siddhartha) fought and defeated and later became enlightened after going through the four meditations (dhyānas). 

As a matter of spiritual discovery, this really boils down to overcoming the powerful influence of our conditioned organism that we took birth in which is called ‘former karma’ (we made the bed, now we can lie in it). The pressing work before us, is to escape our predicament so we don't end up reborn in another body under the same conditions or something even worse.

A huge part of us is a demon—yes, it’s true.  Let’s put it this way: we are immediate with Māra.  The Tibetan Lamas say this demon is rooted in our primordial ignorance (avidya) which I hasten to add is always conditioned—never unconditioned.  Because of avidya we live in a world of confusion.  We can’t distinguish the conditioned (samsara) from the unconditioned (nirvana) which is our goal.

And who is helping us to stay confused and remain a demon?  Why it’s our close buddy Māra who is very good at overriding our conscience, so that lying and hypocrisy seems like a natural way of life, even though it is not natural, and needs to be corrected—which is what Buddhist training is all about!

Very good Buddhist teachers are good at showing us our demon nature; who make it obvious to us that we are not the good and holy person we imagined that we were.  And this is troubling for a lot of beginners who don't like to be admonished, who are frankly too immature at this point in their lives to be serious Buddhists.  About all they can do is seated meditation, take their meds to calm the demon down, and maybe join a Buddhist chat room.

 

Comments

[TheZennist]

Christian: Māra is a very big part of Buddhism. He is very much like the Christian devil, or should I say, the Christian devil is very much like Māra. I would argue, like so much of Christianity, it came from Buddhism and its missions that were sent to the west by emperor Ashoka and, for example, come to Alexandria, Egypt in the 3rd century BCE. I have reduced Buddhism to its original elements, namely, the conditioned (samsara and all of phenomenal existence including birth and death) and the unconditioned (nirvana, the tathagata, pure Mind, etc.). Māra represents the conditioned world and also the five aggregates (the anti-self) and our demonic attitude. The Buddha represents the unconditioned which rules over the conditioned world; trying to teach us the highest world.

[Christian]

I seem surrounded by people who do not understand this truth, and it makes my practice difficult becasue many Sanghas I visit seem to reinforce our conditioning and aggregates rather than exposing and explaining them to us.

I attend a local group that lets people speak at the end but no one is allowed to reply. This is done to create a "safe space". The only safe space it creates is for is their demons, like you described. It seems like everyone in the room wants to change the outside world instead of investigate and resolve their own clinging nature.

Thank you for this article.