Chapter 2 - The Mara of the Mind

When somebody said that I was a great heavenly devil (Mara), I laughed heartily.

I tell the readers with great honesty,

Devils have no self-nature.

What are devils? Those who harm people and corrupt the Dharma are all devils.

Therefore, all tangible objects such as father, son, brother, wife, friend, servant, teacher and student are possible to become devils, and so are the intangible things such as heavenly devils, mountain spirits, water monsters, ghosts, etc.

The ordinary devils include those who take people s life, obstructing Dharma duties, or disturbing good-doing efforts. The head of the sixth heaven in the realm of desire serves as the mara-king and his relatives are his mara-subjects.

The four devils are:

1. The devil of evil passions;
2. The devil of the five constituent elements of one's existence;
3. The devil of death;
4. The heavenly devil.

(There are also the classifications of the eight devils and the ten devils.) I classify devils as the following:

• The devil of hindrance - All such things as sensual desire arising from feminine charms and being tired of ugly persons come from the six internal sense fields and are considered to be devils.

• The devil of non-hindrance - Although there is no visible hindrance, likes and dislikes come into being from one's mind. Being possessed by thinking of something is the devil of non-hindrance.

• The devil of ego-attachment - Being self-centered is the origin of all kinds of trouble and hindrance.

• The heavenly devil - The king of the Paranirmitavasavartin Heaven.

It has been said,

The devil of benevolence will enter a person with love in his mind.

The heavenly devil will enter a person with pride in his mind.

The devil of greed will enter a person with greed in his mind.

The devil of aggregate will enter a person with possession in his mind.

The devil of death will enter a person with killing in his mind.

Observation over a long period of time make one realize that devils come from the mind. And ego-attachment is the origin of all devils and the beginning of all kinds of transmigration. The devil of hindrance arises from attaching oneself to all sensual forms and the devil of non-hindrance arises from attaching oneself to all kinds of thinking, in which gods or ghosts will come at the thought of them. Therefore, all devils come in consequence of ego-attachment.

As a result of the existence of self, there exist love, hatred, and passion.
Therefore, there exist devils as long as the self stays.
There will be no devils without self.
Without self, there will be neither fear, nor alarm, nor surprises.
In other words, there will be no devils without thinking.

Do I, Living Buddha Liansheng, Sheng-yen Lu, have any pursuit in this Saha world or not? The answer is no.

Because any pursuit means shackles. One can be bound by anything he wants. The Buddhist Dharma is no exception. Only if one has nothing to pursue, will he achieve real liberation.

For a person who strives for fame, profit, sensual forms, official position, houses, cars, etc., he is certain to be shackled by any one of them.

Even when one seeks the Buddhist Dharma, he may also be hindered by it. The eighty-four thousand Dharma gates means eighty-four thousand kinds of fetters.

To recapitulate,
A person with thoughts is certain to incur devils, while a person without will not.
There is no devil for all those empty of Form.
Devils will not appear for those staying in emptiness.

Among the four devils, only the heavenly devil is a parallel to Buddha.

There is an argument which says that the heavenly devil is thought to be one incarnation of a high Bodhisattva.

There is also an argument which says there is no difference between a Buddha and a devil.

In my opinion,

The heavenly devil also has the Buddhist nature.

The heavenly devil also has Dharmakaya,Sambhogakaya,Nirmanakaya bodies, and has his special stages of realization.

Moreover, I hold,

In principle, all the occurrence of devils is accompanied by self. It originates from the six internal sense fields, or from one's own thought. All this is due to the ego-attachment. The coming and going of devils are caused by the mind.

For a real practitioner of Buddhism, once he has got rid of ego attachment, he will not be afraid of the heavenly devil. As long as he stays in emptiness, he will not be alarmed when devils come.

(That is the highest realm of defeating the heavenly devil.)

In the highest realm,

A Buddha is not a Buddha.
A devil is not a devil.
The Dharma is not the Dharma.
A human is not a human.

Because I, Living Buddha Liansheng, Sheng-yen Lu, have got emptiness of all forms, I can get liberation and stay in the realm of great independence. I have perfect understanding of all Dharmas and I can penetrate into all forms of hindrance. I can play all the supernatural games as I wish.

Now I am in a state of corresponding to conditions.
There is a very detailed description in Prajnaparamita Hrdaya Sutra:
The four elements include earth, water, fire and air, which belong to emptiness of pain.
The five aggregates consist of form, sensation, perception, volition and consciousness,
which belong to the emptiness of egolessness.
Form is itself emptiness and emptiness is itself form.

In conclusion, all phenomenal existences are the outcome of combinations of various causations and they are the things produced by causations. There are no such things before they are produced and after they are destroyed.

They exist in the interval between birth and death. They are nothing but temporary appearances corresponding to the combinations of various causations.

In this realm, my mind is not attached to anything anywhere; I have no love, no anger, no greed, no winning, no loss, no distinction between self and other, no unhealthy thoughts, no discrimination. With everything abandoned, all things are quiet, satisfying and empty.

In this realm, the emptiness of mind leads to the emptiness of the five aggregates, the six internal sense fields and six objects of sensation and perception, the emptiness of the eighteen realms, and the twelve causations (Links).

What I attained in this realm are,
They neither come into being nor go into destruction;
They neither become defiled nor can be cleaned;
They neither increase nor decrease.
Such is the Buddha nature.

Prajnaparamita Hrdaya Sutra says:

" There is no more sorrow, cause of sorrow, cessation of sorrow or path to liberation".

There will be no more eight right paths and no more twelve causations (links. This is eradication.

When one gets to the realm, he can get rid of not only ego-attachment, but also attachment to the Dharma, and even the attachment to emptiness. He has come to the realm of no wisdom and no achievement.

All the above is the showing of my self-nature. Is there any wisdom or achievement in it? But I know what permanent silence means.

The two words mean Anuttara-samyak-sambodhi.

I want to tell the readers with great honesty that this realm is beyond the description of words and therefore we can only say it is,

A great spiritual mantra;
A great wisdom mantra;
A supreme mantra;
An unequaled mantra.

In The Vajra Sutra, Sakyamuni says:

"Actually there is no Dharma, what Tathagata got is Anuttara-samyak-sambodhi".

This is just what the words "Dharma is not Dharma" mean.

In The Vajra Sutra, Sakyamuni also says:

"If a Bodhisattva makes the distinction of self, others, sentient beings and people of longevity, he is not a real Bodhisattva".

And this is just what the words "a human is not a human" mean.

Then, I went even further and realized that "A devil is not a devil; A Buddha is not a Buddha".

If a practitioner is free from the worry of birth and death, can eradicate the stupidity and ignorance of sentient beings and fully understand all the Dharmas with no Dharma achieved, no one can be compared with him. For him, "a devil is not a devil and a Buddha is no longer a Buddha".

A Buddha is one who has enlightened himself and can enlighten others and who has achieved perfection both in realization and in practice.

As it cannot be defined in words, it is described as, "During the past, present and future times, Tathagatas, relying on wisdom, have attained Buddhahood by practice". They attained the Bodhi wisdom that there is nothing to realize and there is nothing to acquire and that realization resides in non-realization itself and achievement roots in non-achievement itself. This realm can only be understood by Buddhas.

Others cannot really understand my realm.

Being nothing but phenomenal appearance, devils will not exist in a realm of egolessness.

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