Hold onto your headgear!
Tara Brach has a blog post called “Inviting Mara to Tea.” Now Mara, in case you’re not aware of him, is a character from the Buddha’s life. He’s what we’d call a “supernatural” being (although Buddhism sees him as entirely natural, but not from our realm of existence).
He represents doubt, and so most western Buddhists take his appearances as being a poetic representation of our inner doubts. He frequently appears to the Buddha and to his disciples, often in a very taunting way. One time he visited the Buddha when he was in pain from an injury, and mocked him for just lying around. He famously sent his armies to distract the Buddha from gaining awakening. Here’s a reference to that encounter.
Mara appears to all of us in the form of our doubting thoughts: I can’t do this. No one likes me. Meditation is a waste of time.
In her blog post Tara says the following about the Buddha’s encounters with Mara:
Instead of ignoring Mara or driving him away, the Buddha would calmly acknowledge his presence, saying, “I see you, Mara.”
He would then invite him for tea and serve him as an honored guest. Offering Mara a cushion so that he could sit comfortably, the Buddha would fill two earthen cups with tea, place them on the low table between them, and only then take his own seat. Mara would stay for a while and then go, but throughout the Buddha remained free and undisturbed.
Brach is correct at the beginning. The Buddha doesn’t have to send Mara away, because Mara is a personification of the mental state of doubt. What we do with doubts is to recognize that they are not reality, but are distorted constructs in the mind. When we see our doubts as doubts, they lose their power over us. When we see Mara, Mara vanishes.
But when it comes to having tea with Mara, I’m very skeptical. For a start, there’s the question of tea. According to Wikipedia, tea likely originated in southwest China and wasn’t commercially grown in India until the British arrived. There’s no mention of tea in the Pali canon, and my Pali-English dictionaries don’t even include a word for it. In fact, the only drinks I recall being mentioned in the Pali canon, with the exception of spirits and fermented beverages, which were forbidden to Buddhist practitioners, are water and (more rarely) milk. Fruit juice is allowed in the monastic code of conduct, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen it referred to in any of the discourses (suttas).
Then there’s the question of receiving Mara as an honored guest, which doesn’t fit with any of the encounters that I’ve seen.
Jack Kornfield, in his After the Ecstasy, the Laundry (page 124), has the Buddha regarding Mara not just as a guest, but as a friend:
“Oh, my old friend has come,” says the Buddha, as he warmly greets Mara, inviting him in for tea.
Again with the tea! Jack goes on to say, “In one scripture the story ends when Mara becomes awakened as a Buddha himself.” I think we should leave that one for another time!
Although various monks and nuns addressed Mara as “friend,” as far as I’m aware the Buddha is never depicted as having referred to anyone that way, since doing so would have implied an inappropriate sense of equality. Except for times when the Buddha calls Mara by his alternative name, Namuci (a demon in Vedic mythology), he addresses him as “Evil One,” pāpimant.
It’s Thich Nhat Hanh who’s most prolific with the story about Mara and the Buddha having tea. He refers to this incident in “Awakening of the Heart,” “The Heart of Understanding,” “No Mud, No Lotus,” “A Pebble for Your Pocket,” and “Under the Rose Apple Tree.”
There’s one long passage dealing with the Buddha’s tea-break with Mara in a transcribed talk that’s available online.
Thich Nhat Hanh begins his story in the following way:
I would like to tell you a story that took place a number of years ago. One day I saw the Venerable Ananda—you know who he is? Ananda is a cousin of the Buddha, a very handsome man with a very good memory.
Already this is very peculiar. “One day I saw the Venerable Ananda.” What does this mean? That Nhat Hanh is recalling a previous life? That he dreamed or imagined this incident? That’s he’s making it up as a form of “infotainment”? (That last is the one I’d bet on.)
A little later he says “Sometimes Ananda was so concerned about the happiness of the Buddha that he forgot about himself. Sometimes he did not enjoy what was there in the present moment, being much younger than the Buddha.” The problem here is that tradition has always held that Ananda and the Buddha were exactly the same age — even born on the same day. So where Nhat Hanh is getting this from is rather a puzzle.
We’re told that Mara arrives and asks to see the Buddha, which Ananda is reluctant to allow. But the Buddha welcomes his rival and addresses him as “friend.”
The story goes on to have Mara propose to the Buddha — over tea of course — that they switch roles, since being Mara is apparently hard work. The Buddha points out, though, that being a Buddha is hard work too.
Nothing about this story is familiar to me. Of course there’s a lot of material in the Pali canon about Mara, and it’s quite possible I’ve just never come across this particular one. With unusual elements such as the following —
- Mara asking to see the Buddha (traditionally he just arrives — after all he represents the Buddha’s doubt and isn’t a real person)
- the Buddha calling him “friend” (which he never does, preferring epithets such as “Evil One”)
- Ananda mysteriously shedding a few decades
- the role-swapping proposal
- and the puzzle of this “tea” (which Nhat Hanh calls “herbal tea” in one of his books)
— it seems odd that this amazing story should be so elusive.
At first I wondered if Nhat Hanh made this up for the purposes of entertainment, and that other teachers subsequently assumed that such a respected teacher, referring to an incident about the Buddha’s life, must be referring to a canonical passage. On the other hand, there’s a 1991 book by Jack Kornfield and Christina Feldman that includes this story (predating any TNH reference I’ve found) so perhaps they’re the originators, or took the story from a non-canonical (possibly commentarial) source. I’m honestly baffled!
If you’ve stumbled across a scriptural source for this story, please do let me know about it!
Ohh that’s sharp observation about tea! Seeing how many chai shops are scattered throughout India, one is forgiven when making assumption that there may have always existed a chai culture. Thank you for correcting this misunderstanding!
Ancient India does seem to have had a distressing lack of hot beverages!
Hi, thanks for the great article! As far as i remember from a Dharma talk of Thich Nhat Hanh, he wrote the story about Buddha and Mara as an afterword to the book “Uncommon Prayer: A Book of Psalms” by Daniel Berrigan, to better illustrate the non-dual nature of things. He explicitly said (in the Dharma talk) that he of course invented the story himself, and it’s clear from the text:
http://a.co/df8fi0E
One can read the story in the book preview.
The book was first published in 1978, but the afterword is probably only from 1998…
That was very helpful, Nick. The story you linked to is rather different, but I can imagine it evolving into the version that involves the Buddha and Mara having tea together.
Yes, maybe it’s some old version, that Thich Nhat Hanh made more poetic and added details with time. It already has the elements Mara asking Ananda to see Buddha, mentions of friendship, “role switching”, the difficulty of each others “job”… but not tea yet 🙂
Thank you for this. The Westernization and cute-ifying (yeah, I made that up) of Buddhism are signs that we Westerners don’t want to work too hard at the ferocious work of meditation. The Hopi Native Americans have also had their difficult wisdom rendered fit for an up-scale meditation catalog.
I actually don’t find this story cute at all– it was terrifying to me in its implications, and I chewed over the Thich Nhat Hanh transcript for a long time with many tears. I do work hard at the ferocious work of meditation, especially at not sending away the demons that come to haunt me during those times. It’s way more frightening to try to sit with them, with equanimity. I will in the future offer them a smoothie (how cute is that?), so that no one has any cause to say my meditations are based on apocryphal teachings. 😉
I love your comment. I honestly don’t understand what’s not clear to the writer of this blog about the metaphor of facing your doubts and fears. And why it all needs to be taken so literally, down to the tea…
I’m not sure what makes you think I don’t understand the metaphor, Paulina. I completely understand the point that the story is making. I’m merely pointing out that this story is unlikely to be scriptural.
thanks for your work – it’s much appreciated. i wonder what’s going through people’s mind, as they misquote the Buddha…
here is one passage about mara, i would question in your presentation, though:
He represents doubt… Mara appears to all of us in the form of our doubting thoughts: I can’t do this. No one likes me. Meditation is a waste of time.
there are a very few passages where mara seems to be presented metaphorical in the same way that we would say ‘the devil is in the detail’ or ‘this telephone is cursed!’ but understand this to be a metaphor. however, i wouldn’t be able to think of passages that make him a psychological representation of doubt in the canon or that the students of the Buddha would think of mara in this way. i’d be interested in they types of passages you’d produce to back this up, though.
either way, keep up the good work!
As far as I’m aware Mara is not presented in the suttas explicitly as a metaphor for our inner doubts. The suttas tend to say things like “Then Mara the Evil One went to the Blessed One and recited this verse in his presence” or “Then Mara the Evil One, desiring to arouse fear, trepidation, and terror in [a particular person], desiring to make her fall away from concentration, approached her and addressed her in verse.”
Sometimes Mara’s thoughts are described, including the thoughts that he had before he appeared to a particular person. Since it’s unlikely Mara sat down and narrated his memoirs to anyone, I think we can take it that this indicates that Mara is a literary device.
I’m happy to assume that when early Buddhists talked about meeting Mara they were well aware they were simply personifying doubt.
For the sake of anyone unfamiliar with the kind of passage discussed above, here are a few examples
Here’s Mara talking to the nun, Soma:
Mara to the Buddha as he strove for Awakening:
Mara to the nun Uppalavanna:
Mara to the Buddha, when he was injured and unable to teach:
So Mara is voicing (very convincingly, I think) the kinds of spiritual doubts people (including the Buddha) tended to have.
According to the Dictionary of Pali Proper Names, “the term Māra, in the older books, is applied to the whole of the worldly existence, the five khandhas, or the realm of rebirth, as opposed to Nibbāna.” The PTS dictionary says the same thing. So it seems that Mara was, from the earliest times, often seen as an abstract principle as well as a supposedly existing entity.
ok. thanks for the clarification. first of all i would say that it’s important to clarify that this mara-metaphor is a minority position: in the entire history of buddhism as well as now, it’s probably fair to say that it’s only a few westerners who believe this, probably less than one in thousand of the official 500 million. and there are good reasons for this:
1. the suttas are not like the bible: it’s usually made clear whether something is meant to be taken as fact, simile or a story, pretty much in the same way that we use speech. mara is only in the rarest cases depicted to be a metaphor but in very many as just another being, in the same language in which meetings with other ghosts, deities etc. are described.
2. if you insist on metaphor, what do you make of passages like in M 50 where an extensive narrative shows mara (& past mara) in rather typical action for deity mara but making such a sutta into a metaphor would end up being serious nonsense & very disrespectful to ven. maha moggallana (violent fantasies/psychotic episodes of somebody with a stomach ache?). what do you make of mara preventing the Buddha from getting almsfood, mara being explained to be a visible cloud or disturbance to monks by the Buddha or the events in D 16 with your psychological approach? – that this approach just doesn’t work for very many places is my point.
3. as you know, there are lists like the one in M 115, where women are said to be unable to be buddhas, brahmas, sakkas, maras & wheel turning emperors. which of these do you consider metaphor and which real and how does the text bring this out?
4. this position is found mostly in secular cultures where you don’t have well-known highly respected members of the community (monks, nuns, but also some lay people) who have direct experiences of other realms. the overlap between these psychic experiences is substantial and consistent, the people are known to be otherwise mature. the result is that this cosmology has credibility similar to that which we may have of a continent where we haven’t been yet. my question to you would be this: have you ever had somebody who credibly lay claim to having psychic powers that make him or her able to consistently see other realms tell you that mara doesn’t exist? i bet you haven’t, because this minority position exists only among few scholars & westerners catering to a secular, psychological audience who are just in general ashamed of buddhist cosmology and try to edit it out where they can. big job, by the way: in the rather ‘reasonable’ majjhima nikaya, about two thirds of texts make some mention of it, with quite a few stating that it’s essential right view to have this correct and that you should put your trust in people who claim direct experience.
5. most importantly: the type of thought, doubt, reservations you are attibuting to the Buddha & arahants are thoughts that even reasonably mature people don’t have, let alone people who are done with the world and have good samadhi, not to speak of Buddhas & arahants. the point is that most buddhists would not consider somebody assuming/surmising/accusing a Buddha to have such thoughts to have anything approximating faith in a Buddha as defined by himself.
you may argue that it would still be possible to consider someone like that mature by some freudian, jungian or other psychological standard. personally, i doubt even that, though. if any major player in the field of psychology would publically broadcast having such internal dialogue, let alone bring up this imaginary figure regularly, quite out of the blue, assigning him control over events in his life, he would lose the respect of the community very fast. nobody does this, of course, and i believe they would be correct in dismissing such a weirdo. – you certainly wouldn’t want your kids around him, right?
not everybody who broadcasts such positions takes the time to think through the implications but i think it’s worth looking at the brazenness & insults such positions imply, mostly so that people are a little bit more careful with these ideas.
all the best, p
What a lot of words! Well, you’re free to take everything that happened in the Suttas as literal truth if you want. It doesn’t bother me. To me they are documents that evolved over a long period of time, and I’m quite sure that stories that were originally intended as ironic, joking, or symbolic have come to be presented as literal. And I’m also quite sure that some passages describe events which have been mythologized.
You say, “it’s usually made clear whether something is meant to be taken as fact, simile or a story.” Usually? So not always? So you’re accepting that something that may appear to be a factual event may actually be symbolic?
thanks for your reply. which of the ‘lot of words’ do you find superfluous to make my point, that this is not a buddhist position and in turn would preclude someone with such a view from becoming, for example, a streamenterer?
the passages i’m thinking of would be a very few odd presentations like ‘the partridge brahmafaring’ at Cv 6 or the way the number 84 000 is used – quite obvious outliers. on the whole, the language indicates that what is said by the Buddha is meant to be taken literally. in A 6.62 (somewhat similarly at A 10.75) the Buddha actually comes down quite strongly on those who try to question the literal truth of his words.
in brief: my main point is the one about the ridiculously immature person this position accuses a Buddha to be – quite without evidence.
Apologies if that comment about “a lot of words” sounded snarky. I was just surprised by the volume you wrote, and was trying, not very skillfully, to register that I don’t have the time or desire to respond to what you wrote in detail.
The idea that it’s “not a Buddhist position” to take some passages of the suttas as symbolic or mythologized isn’t one I agree with. At best the suttas contain some verbatim transcripts of some of what the Buddha said. But often I regard them as akin to “lecture notes” — and having lectured I am very aware of how students’ notes can simplify and even distort what was originally said. (The stilted and repetitive nature of the suttas is an example of that.) At worst, some suttas contain material that was invented by later Buddhists in order to justify some doctrinal position they held (that can be seen by comparing the Pali suttas with translations into Chinese).
If a sutta says that what the Buddha said is to be taken literally, that begs the question, since we can’t be sure what the Buddha originally said. It’s not unlike those Christians that say the Bible is the literal word of god. How do they know? Because the Bible says it’s the literal word of god.
Texts are valuable sources of information, but I am always going to treat them as historical documents to be read critically. I dispute the assertion that this means that stream-entry is impossible; in fact I’d say that to insist on the literal truth of ancient documents is a manifestation of the third fetter.
well, bodhipaksa, i’ve been in discussion with people at the helm of this discreditation of the suttas for quite a long time. for almost every idea they develop as possible indicator for late intervention, when you develop a different model that explains it as congruent with a very near continuous model, they have nothing further to say. those speculations about interpolation are just ideas that seem plausible to those who look for them.
usually these critics are dominantly influenced by western academic methods and, to me, they poorly account for the way careers are crafted in that culture, namely by associating ones name with speculations that attack current consensus. and the vast majority of those ideas seem ridiculous to outsiders & history. – from the buddhist point of view, they not only lack direct knowledge but typically also basic integrity to spiritual values, i.e. potential consequences.
personally i’m persuaded so far – like the vast majority of theravada monks in the world – that changes in original Buddhaword have been negligible & augmentation is obvious – i.e. there is not attempt to hide it – in the few places it happens within the four nikayas and a good part of the fifth and the first four books of the vinaya (e.g. D 16 end or M suttas taught after the passing away of the Buddha).
the reasoning behind this faith in the suttas as original is not only a felt internal congruence of the material that later interpolation cultures (e.g. mahayana suttas) lack. it’s dominantly also the way that suttas are preserved within monastic culture. monks may have outside preferences or they may lobby to have a favorite interpreter canonized. but to tinker with the original is quite another matter it’s also not easy to do because of the decentralized preservation. where it has been attempted (we would presume in the agamas), it’s working with sanskrit translations by people foreign to that culture and typically of other persuasions, i.e. interested primarily for academic reasons.
i believe it’s most likely that the Buddha himself established the way the suttas were formatted, since he passed previously given talks on to ven. ananda for decades. ven ananda would then, under the eye of the Buddha, teach these texts to other monks and so they would spread to a multitude of small indepent, decentralized communities.
misquoting the Buddha was considered extremely serious throughout monastic culture and the Buddha enforced this with rules and harsh public trials. to this day, most monks would be very careful with that, whatever other flaws they may have, because this is emphasised throughout moastic training and reiterated every two weeks in the comunal patimokkha recitation.
at the core of the entire debate is, however, that of refuge in the Buddha: within the canonical framework, Buddhas are extremely rare beings that cultivate kamma, i.e. potential, to understand & communicate pertinent truths, to extreme heights. both internal & external aspects of a Buddha’s life are calibrated for the purpose of establishing & maintaining that potential optimally. the Buddha himself says repeatedly that they way this will be destroyed is by (pro-)buddhists, who lack faith in the Buddha as presented in the suttas and then they become careless (e.g. S 20.7; S 16.13 et al).
so here we are: you believe the Buddha and some of his arahants to be full of silly doubts expressed in goofy methaphor with little relevance to time & place (eg ven mahamogallana talking to himself when having a stomach ache) or any indicator that these are his doubts or good solutions. how much more profound can you go with disrespect (i know, the mahayana top that at times)? moreover, this depiction of the Buddha is completely incongruent with the quite homogenous portrayal of the Buddha that the vinaya & nikayas offer.
it’s also obvious how the teaching declines in consequence, if you know that scene of self-appointed slashers: they never have the patience & humility to struggle with counterintuitive instruction, giving it time to ripen. instead, they just pick a few teaching that they find inspiring. then they spend most of their time denigrating the teachings that make no sense to them amongst each other. the way this works as a block is canonically described in different ways but most psychologically at A 10.76 (uparambha-citta, i.e. criticising mind). the condescending tone – without offering substance for your views – that you bring to this discussion is just one aspect of this process but one easy to observe & understand.
furthermore, students of those who hold those views usually don’t know suttas or vinaya to any relevant degree believing the material to be entirely unreliable, which makes this basically a discussion amongst a few rather visible nerds.
not having answered to my previous reservations, i can understand that you find this post unpleasantly long & for reasons mentioned above, i doubt that you will change your position or learn anything from it. – sorry for using up your time!
however, i respect your publishing such dissenting positions and took the time here to develop this position because i haven’t seen it done a lot, even though it’s the view of a majority of experts on the matter and has substantial backing. so thanks for that opportunity!
Wow! So as a newcomer to meditation and the path of Buddhism, thank you for the assured tone of your “to many words”. Doubt and doubts are easy and destructive. I don’t know anything about suttras or what they or any other teachings say, real or implied. What I do know is this morning, coffee in hand, as I read a quote about “there’s not enough darkness to snuff out a little candle”, I was directed to this great site. After clicking through this article and reading the comments related to this post, I have to say thank you to both of you. I have learned a great deal from both of you.
Most importantly, I need not live with fears and doubts. Be it “friend” or “evil one” or whatever you need to call it, I can step through the fear and doubts.
Secondly, confirmation I want to rid myself of my defensible ego. I wish not to be defensive on any front. I gain more knowledge and knowledge of self by being open what possibilities the other “side” might teach me.
Thirdly, respect for each other’s knowledge, contributions and commitment to enlighten for other seekers who are just beginning, or are already well on their paths.
So again, thank you both for who you are and what you do.
hello david,
that’s diligent of you to read through that much text, all the more as it unfortunately has a somewhat cantakerous tone. this tone stems from this being really an insider discussion among people who agree on 99% of content. in this disagreement, one side sees the original source as highly contaminated and in need of purging, the other feels that the source is good and the people who want to purge are just not patient enough to get to the bottom of it. quite a bit of it is about personalities & association, too.
as far as fears & doubts are concerned, i believe both our sides would agree that most human experience is far more deeply permeated with them than is typically acknowledged. fear & doubt are inherent in attachment, that is liking pretty much anything: with it comes the possibility of loss and not knowing how it may occur. the less attachment, the less fear and doubt. works also very specific: anything you don’t care for, will not worry you.
having said that, radical honesty implies and the right kind of non-defensiveness imply a kind of humility (reduction of ego) that signals detachment (from fear of consequence) and is thereby almost magically able to reduce fear & doubt very tangibly. one easy way to effect this is the impression that someone else can see right through you [this is often used by religions].
another way to sublimate fear & doubt is concern about greater things.
yet another is to completely focus on something that you are pretty sure is good & important in the present moment. while this is useful only in the context of a regular look deep into the future, it can help clear the mind of clutter, lead to better decision making and cut waste of energy.
not sure if you plan to get deeper into real buddhism or who māra is but all of these effects are very viscerally supported by the original māra teaching of the Buddha. … that is one reason why ppl like me feel that it’s a shame to just delete because of limited appeal to the adherents of the secular religion of psychology.
Oh please go sit in silence, then go out and do something real to relieve as much suffering as you can.
Who are you talking to?
Interesting article on The Buddha’s Encounters with Mara the Tempter – Their Representation in Literature and Art: https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/guruge/wheel419.html
Thanks, Glen.
concerning the article: i personally cannot consider anybody buddhist, who sees the Buddha or arahants as doubting, sorry figures who talk to themselves, when they have nothing to do. nor does the language in the canon suggest this to be the case.
the [suggestive] lament that encounters with māra do not recor in every account of the bodhisatta’s struggle for enlightenment hints at inexperience in reading the source material. practically no element of that struggle occurs in every account and most have elements that don’t occur in other presentations. – just as the way we describe our earlier years selectively. example: that the first girlfriend isn’t mentioned in a CV, is no indicator for or against her existence at all.
factually wrong i believe to be in the article that māra is said to be a handsome devaputta in the early sources. canonically, there is to my knowledge no instance where māra is called either ‘devaputta’ or ‘handsome.’ – i would be grateful, though, if one could be pointed out to me.
Hi, Piadamo.
I happened to be looking through the site and saw that I hadn’t replied to this comment. Perhaps I was busy at the time it was posted, or perhaps I didn’t pay much attention to it because it was addressed to Glen.
Anyway, you wrote, “i personally cannot consider anybody buddhist, who sees the Buddha or arahants as doubting, sorry figures who talk to themselves, when they have nothing to do. nor does the language in the canon suggest this to be the case.”
I’m not aware that anyone suggested that the Buddha or arahants were sorry figures. But even the Buddha talked to himself, or at least had thoughts. Thinking to himself was one of the first things he did after his enlightenment (SN 4.1 :
And then Māra appeared, which started another kind of conversation, more tinged with doubt.
Māra is certainly depicted mostly as a real being, but there are suggestions in the early scriptures that point to him being psychological. For example Rādha asks the Buddha (SN 23.11), “How is Māra defined?” And the Buddha replies, “Rādha, form is Māra, feeling is Māra, perception is Māra, choices are Māra, consciousness is Māra. Seeing this, a learned noble disciple grows disillusioned with form, feeling, perception, choices, and consciousness.” The Buddha’s certainly not talking about Māra as a real being there.
Māra never, as far as I’m aware, actually directly harms anyone physically, so I assume that although the scriptures mostly talk about him as a real being, he’s always been regarded as more of a psychological projection. The commentaries on the Dīgha Nikāya define Māra in four ways, only one of which is the Deva. The other three are the aggregates (khandhamāra), death (maccumāra), and the defilements (kilesamāra).
Regarding Māra sometimes appearing in attractive forms, I was thinking of the Padhāna Sutta (Sn 3.2), where Māra appears to the Buddha speaking compassionately, and where he drops his lute at the end of the discourse. I’ve always pictured him as presenting himself attractively here, since he was trying to seduce the Buddha rather than frighten him. But you’re right that the text doesn’t explicitly say he’s attractive. The assumption that he was attractive, however, was shared by early Buddhist artists. Guruge’s essay on Māra makes the point that early on Māra is portrayed as a handsome prince. (Although in the scriptures some of the disguises he adopted were explicitly ugly.) But in MN 49, Mara takes over one of Brahma’s retinue, and so he must have been adopting a pleasing form. Similarly when he’s trying to seduce the nun Vijayā, describing himself as a youth in his prrime. And the Buddha says to Māra in the second sutta of the Māra Samyutta, “Transmigrating for such a long time, you’ve made forms beautiful and ugly.” It seems Māra could be attractive when he wanted or needed to be.
But I think you’re right that he doesn’t seem to have been described as a devaputta in the scriptures. That seems to have been a later development.
Perhaps it’s not clear, but in the transcribed dharma talk, Thay is first addressing the children, who leave after the first part of the talk. This is a common format in family retreats. So Thay, who has won a couple of awards for children’s books, is being a storyteller. Does he misrepresent Buddhism? In this age when we have McMindfulness inflicted on us from all sides, I don’t think so.
What was very poignant for me, reading the transcription, is that it brings to life a side of Thay that doesn’t really come across in his books : his gentle, whimsical humour.
I think that practically speaking, the image of sitting down with Mara in a friendly way is excellent. It’s very much in line with what I practice and what I teach. But if it’s presented as how the Buddha is portrayed in the scriptures as relating to Mara, then it’s a misrepresentation.
Hi there! Is there a scriptural source for a story of the Buddha’s battle with Mara at the Bodhi tree? Or is that entirely fabricated by the west? Thanks!
That’s definitely canonical. Here’s where you can find the original source.
It’s a pretty bare-bones account. The more elaborate accounts are, I think, from a later text called the Buddhacarita.
Thank you!
For kindness’ sake, stop commenting and go do something for somebody, an animal, a bird, a fish, the earth.
Are you talking to anyone in particular, Mary? (And being a bit mischievous, since you’re commenting rather than being off somewhere doing something for the earth, I wonder if you might consider that it’s valid for other people to want to comment as well?)
Why you Loki, you! In fact, One of my teacher’s strongest precepts is: “Say nothing of the good you do for others.”
There’s no precept about critiquing.
Critiquing is fine, if done skillfully of course, and critiquing fake Buddha quotes is my little hobby. It does seem to ruffle some feathers, though.
Blessings for your work, Bodhipaksa, I was just wondering if Mary would agree to her version of ‘kindness,’ which she commands to be worshipped with physical deeds to a poetically – i presume – collated list of recepients. – let’s just establish that the Buddha never taught anything like this and would never have had a single enlightened disciple. Unless this ‘kindness’-worship is a purely materialistic doctrine [see the great work ‘strangers drowning’ on people living such a doctrine], I wonder if she – or ‘if you, Mary’… – would concede that this might set up a false dichotomy, not least since – at least by my math – all suffering beings profit much more from others clarification such as the teachings of the Buddha than well-intended actionism, no? … i mean, even the stuff people feed the ducks…
“Strangers Drowning” looks like a fascinating book, bhante. Some of the themes sounded so familiar in the review I read that I think I must have read one of MacFarquhar’s essays someplace.
I can’t speak for Mary, but I didn’t think she was advocating any particular philosophy. There’s a sizable number of people who are annoyed by my pointing out that certain quotes or stories aren’t actually from the Buddha. And some of those like to suggest that I’m acting immorally because I could be doing something “better” instead — not, as I suggested, as a philosophical position, but because any argument will do at a pinch, however inconsistent or illogical.
I guess unqualified – or let’s just say it ‘idiotic’ – comments are the price one has to pay for an open, anonymous comment section on the world wide web. I wonder if having to pass a short IQ cum general Buddhism comprehension test prior to commenting – a kind of Buddhist ‘capture’ [‘to show us you are not a robot…’ :)] would ease the burden on you.
Otherwise: suffice it to you that you are doing the Blessed Ones work [I’m thinking of M 11 & 12; M 108] and that these kinds of attack seem to be the staple of any Buddha [see M 50 or M 81]. And if the witless are drawn to ‘sharing’ their witlessness here, the witty and those commited to the preservation of the Buddha’s teaching are perhaps more delighted by your site than most Buddhist websites. Certainly, your site would appear to be the one any Buddhist would be more likely than any other tell his friends about. So much for a small compliment for some great work that we all ought to thank you for.
Hi, Philipp.
I don’t know if you’ve looked at the “fan mail” page here, which contains a selection of the criticisms and insults that have been directed at me as a result of running this site. It’s interesting how much ire gets aroused.
But I think it’s important to be kind in the face of criticism. I haven’t always managed to do that myself, and some of the ire I’ve referred to I’ve no doubt provoked through my unskillfulness, but becoming kinder is work in progress for me. And so I wouldn’t personally use some of the terms you’ve used. We’re all subject to attachment to the things we like (such as the belief that our favorite quote is by the Buddha). We all have opinions (sometimes strong ones) on things we don’t know much about. We’re all subject to painful feelings when it looks as if something we like is being taken away from us. And we all employ dodgy arguments (aka “motivated reasoning”) when we feel threatened.
I greatly appreciate your appreciation for what I’m doing here. Thank you for that. I’d have appreciated it more, though, if you hadn’t strayed into using hostile language toward my critics. We’re all doing this difficult thing of being human. We’re all in it together. And the kinder we can be, the more it makes life easier for ourselves as well as others.
Anyway, rock on, your good self!
With metta,
Bodhipaksa
Hi, I’m not English, and even though I understood most of the article i’m not sure about its point. So the story about Mara and Budha having tea is invented for entertainment, but it is true that Budha accepted the demon’s presence right? My mom told me the story long time ago, and I’ve always loved the sentence: “I see you Mara” as a way to Accept the doubts, fears and obstacles that we encounter in our lives. Do you think we could consider the part of the story in which Budha accepted Mara’s presence and as a consequence the sentence mentioned before, and forget about the part where they have tea together?
I’m just asking as a person Who has never read or studied anything about budism, just interested. Thank you.
Hi, Pablo.
The whole idea of the Buddha “accepting” Mara is a modern invention. You’re right that in the scriptures the Buddha sees Mara, but as soon as he says “I see you Mara,” Mara vanishes.
A less poetic/mythical version of this would be in the Dvedhavitakka Sutta, where the Buddha explains:
So the Buddha, in effect “sees through” Mara. He sees the bad effects that Mara (i.e. his own thought) is going to have on himself and others, and so he loses all attachment to that thought.
The thought (Mara) therefore disappears. The Buddha doesn’t invite the thought in and have tea with it. It’s like if you were about to pick up a chocolate chip, and realized it was actually a rat dropping. Your desire to eat it immediately vanishes. You don’t “accept” it by putting it in your mouth anyway.
The point Thich Nhat Hanh is really making with his version of the story is that the Buddha doesn’t react to a thought of craving, ill will, or delusion with more ill will (or craving, or delusion), which of course just compounds the problem. So in that sense he “accepts” those thoughts. But they’re destructive, and so he doesn’t invite them to stay. I’m not aware of any teaching in the scriptures that advocates that particular approach to acceptance.
Thank you very much for your answer. It was a great explication, and I enjoyed a lot reading it. Congratulations for your web. Good luck with everything!
You’re welcome, Pablo.
The writer of this blog has a strong ego and needs to drink a lot of tea with Mara. Or rather figure out why he needs to pick apart what’s fake or real with Buddhism. Really? He bought a website called fake Buddha quotes lmao. And then attacks Thich Nhat Hanh who has dedicated his entire life to helping humans. This blog writer only dedicates his time to tearing down the scraps of good we find online. I’ve never read Tara Brach’s book but it appears she put in more effort to helping the world than this guy. I don’t know who Jack Kornfield is but the fact that he’s trying to help people deal with their suffering means he’s a good guy. Only the ego would care whether or not something was really said or wasn’t if it helps people. Helping people meditate and ending suffering is what matters. Who cares how we all get there as long as we get there? The replies this guy gives prove he’s very far away from enlightenment, and he should give up the appropriated Buddhist moniker and go join the debate team at community college.
Hi, Anonymous.
Like everyone, I do have an ego. Unlike some others, though, I don’t feel the need to post anonymous comments online attacking people in order to feed that ego.
I’ve already figured out why I pick apart “what’s fake or real with Buddhism” (actually, here in this site it’s just quotes purporting to be by the Buddha that I examine). The reason is that, as a wise man said, “truth is better than bullshit,” and I believe it’s best if people know what the Buddhist teachings actually say, rather than being mislead by a bunch of misattributed, distorted, or fabricated quotations.
“This blog writer only dedicates his time to tearing down the scraps of good we find online.” Actually, most of this blog writer’s time is spent teaching meditation.
I think the quote was inspired from the Marasamyutta from the Samyutta Nikaya. Mara there appeared all the time trying to scare the Buddha or what not and the Buddha replying that he sees Mara in his many myriad of forms. Even though Mara transformed into an elephant the Buddha still saw through his guise seeing it as Mara.
The Samyutta Nikaya is a great source of stories about Māra. Here’s a link for anyone who’s interested. But I’ve never seen anything there or elsewhere about him being invited to have tea (or any other form of drink) with the Buddha.
I mean, yes its not a real buddha quote . But Marasamyutta is probably where they adapted from . Keep up the good work !
that’s only 25 suttas, so you can probably tell us ‘where they adapted from’, right?
Appreciating the continued discussion and learning from all of you xx
Gracious sakes. ” I believe it’s best if people know what the Buddhist teachings actually say, rather than being mislead by a bunch of misattributed, distorted, or fabricated quotations.” Your Buddha nature will tell you what you need to know – if you sit, stared at a wall, be quiet, get up after a while, go out and be kind to All – human or not.
Here’s a thing. Did you come up with the concept of Buddha Nature for yourself, or is it something you learned? Did you work out what meditation was on your own, or have you had teachers? I think, realistically, that we’re all dependent on receiving teachings.
The reason (according to Buddhist tradition) that the Buddha is so important is that he, against all the odds, managed to discover, for himself, the way to enlightenment. This has always been regarded as an incredibly difficult thing to do — something it took him many thousands of lifetimes to achieve, because he didn’t have anyone to show him the way.
If you think that you, unaided, can find your own way to Enlightenment, simply by listening to your Buddha Nature, it may be that you’re underestimating the difficulty of the task.
I’m all for sitting practice, but it’s also helpful to sit with the scriptures, or to sit with a teacher. Good teachings help. Bad teachings hinder.
This is the most powerful teaching you have shared. The summation, “Good teachings help. Bad teachings hinder.” This distinction is important. And, there is a balance of guidance and direct experience.
Thank you for the question about Thay’s story about the Buddha and Māra. I had looked all over for a canonical citation. I do not just take people’s word, even my teacher’s. I think perhaps the Buddha taught this according to the Tripitaka?
I especially appreciated your references to suttas. It was very helpful.
All the best,