4. Mara always disrupts the
cultivator, what should one do?
Shut the doors of our undesirable habits and self-serving
temperament.
The Mara is a very troublesome thing. It is always destroying that
which is good. When a person's career encounters Mara, then he will
not be successful. When Mara intrudes into the family, the family
breaks up. As a Buddhist, when we encounter Mara, we lose our
wisdom-life. Where is the Mara found? It resides in the heavens of
desire (devalokas). The king of this heaven is King Mara. Moreover,
there are armies of Mara, the children and grandchildren of Mara,
female Mara and many others. Nevertheless, regardless of how strong
and mighty the Mara is, there is no need to be afraid. Human beings
have a weakness - the fear of Mara.
All Maras intrude through the doors of our undesirable habits and
self-serving temperament. Whatever those habits and temperament
are, so long as they are not fully eradicated, the Mara will enter
from there. For example, the Mara will enter a person through his
habit of drinking alcohol. Similarly, it enters a person through
his negative habits and temperaments such as sexual misconduct,
telling lies, being materialistic, being lazy and refuses to learn
or work.
The best way to counter Mara, is to shut the doors of our
undesirable habits and self-serving temperaments. Hence, when we
set the objective of learning and practising the Buddha's teachings
to eradicate our undesirable habits and self-serving temperament,
it is to prevent the Mara from entering us again. Without the
troubles caused by Mara, we will succeed in all our endeavours, be
they our studies, career or building a blissful family.
Many people leave the doors open for Mara, and people in the
society, by and large, are unaware that they have been invaded by
Mara. When Mara takes effect, it can cause people to become
bankrupt, families to break up and even the loss of lives. Now,
this is the secret - eradicate our undesirable habits and
self-serving temperament, thereby shutting the doors through which
the Mara enters. In this way, the Mara will not be able to do you
any harm.
that also said, mara is zhe2 mo2(torture)...either he torture u or
u torture yourself.
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