摩訶止觀 十境 · 觀魔事境

We often assume that once an obstruction disappears, cultivation naturally improves. The Mohe Zhiguan (Great Calming-and-Contemplation) ends by asking more deeply: after demonic disturbance ceases, must wholesome Dharma follow as inevitably as spring after winter? The answer is no.

Māra need not appear in a frightening form. There are poisoned arrows that cause fear, flower arrows that arouse delight, and arrows neither forceful nor gentle—so ordinary that they pass unnoticed. They shoot through eye, ear, nose, tongue, and body and turn into mind in an instant. If inner shooting fails, praise and blame and relations among teachers, disciples, fellow students, and donors can be fanned from outside. The real entrance lies not only in what appears, but in whether mind accepts and grasps it.

The treatise therefore includes brightness, concentration, wisdom, joy, happiness, blessing, good, and love among possible deviant signs. An attractive name does not prove a correct direction. If concentration rigidifies like wood or stone, wisdom becomes mere cleverness, good draws one away from one's original practice, or love becomes entangling attachment, each can destroy the order of the contemplating mind. The subtlest demonic affair does not disguise evil as evil; it disguises deviation as progress.

Treatment is therefore not simply “do not be afraid.” At the first awareness, do not accept. If something has already been accepted, illuminate it everywhere: from where does Māra come, and where is mind? Both disturber and disturbed are sought and found unobtainable. If it still does not leave, resist with firm mind, setting death as the limit and refusing to dwell with it. Refusal, illumination, and steadfastness each close a different entrance.

Yet the highest contemplation says that the Māra realm does not leave the Buddha realm. This neither mixes deviant and correct nor lets disturbance enter at will. It sees that Māra has no fixed intrinsic nature beyond transformation. That eighty billion beings cannot shake mind is calming; penetrating the Māra realm as itself the Buddha realm is contemplation. When mind remains unmoved yet illuminates, and sees nonduality without losing discernment, Māra resembles firewood thrown into a fire and makes the flame of the path shine more brightly.

Finally, to obtain one verse, a bodhisattva is willing to use skin as paper, bone as brush, and blood as ink. After promising the verse, Māra suddenly disappears, but the bodhisattva's mind seeking Dharma does not disappear with him. Precisely because Māra did not manufacture this mind, a buddha emerges from below and teaches the Dharma.

Māra is evoked by unwholesome conditions; good is produced through one's own power of mind. An obstruction's retreat merely removes one stone from the road. It neither arouses mind for you nor takes the next step. What contemplation of demonic affairs must truly preserve is not “at last there is no Māra,” but this: whether Māra comes or goes, the mind directed toward the path still arises from oneself.

Why Demonic Affairs Appear Just as Wholesome Dharma Is about to Arise

The fifth object is contemplating the object of demonic affairs. When practitioners cultivate the four kinds of samādhi, unwholesome dharmas are about to decline and wholesome Dharma about to arise. Māra fears that they will turn away and escape his realm. He also fears that they will later transform others, depriving him of his subjects and emptying his palace. He further worries that after they attain great powers of superknowledge and wisdom, they will enter a great conflict with him, subduing, controlling, and troubling him. Māra therefore comes to destroy wholesome roots before cultivation is accomplished. This is why demonic affairs occur.

While a practitioner's power of the path remains weak, it does not yet alarm Pāpīyas. All ghosts and spirits are governed by the sixth heaven, and ordinarily only defenders of this realm come to interfere. Scripture says that one who does not explain demonic affairs and demonic offenses to bodhisattvas is their evil spiritual friend. If one penetrates the deviant and the correct with a tranquil heart, knows the suchness of the Māra realm and the suchness of the Buddha realm as one suchness rather than two, equal and of one characteristic, neither grieves because of Māra nor rejoices because of Buddha, and abides in the real limit, the deviant cannot invade the correct. Even if disturbance actually arises, Māra's arrival becomes precisely a condition for contemplative illumination.

Demonic affairs are now explained in five parts: first, distinguishing similarities and differences; second, explaining the characteristics of their arising; third, explaining obstruction and damage; fourth, explaining methods of treatment; fifth, cultivating through calming-and-contemplation.

Similarities and Differences among the Four Māras

First are similarities and differences. The Māra of the aggregates has already been included in the object of aggregates, sense fields, and elements; the Māra of afflictions in the object of afflictions; and death-Māra in the object of illness because illness is a cause of death. The present object directly explains Māra as a heavenly son.

The relation between the four inversions and four Māras is this: the four inversions themselves are only the Māra of afflictions. Because the Māra of afflictions exists, there is the Māra of aggregates and sense fields. Because the Māra of aggregates and sense fields exists, there is death-Māra. Since one has not yet left the three realms, one also remains subject to Māra as a heavenly son.

Distinguished beyond the three realms, once the four inversions within them have been broken, the Māras of fragmentary birth and death have been passed beyond. Only the four inversions beginning with impermanence remain; these are the Māra of afflictions beyond the realms. Because that Māra exists, there is form without equal and the like, which is the Māra of the aggregates beyond the realms. Once the Māra of aggregates exists, there is also death. The three worthies and ten nobles abide in retribution. Up through equal awakening, three Māras have been passed beyond and only one portion of death-Māra remains; these are called the three Māras beyond the realms. Beyond the realms there is no Māra of the sixth heaven. The name “Māra as a heavenly son” is only borrowed because the red samādhi has not yet reached culmination. At wondrous awakening, the substance of principle is perfect and ignorance exhausted, so there are no afflictions; one does not abide in retribution, so there is no death; and the red samādhi is perfect. Only this is the culmination of demonic affairs. The ten Māras taught in the Avataṃsaka Sūtra do not go beyond this intent.

Three Kinds of Demonic Sign

Second are the signs arising with Māra. Because all these different classes are governed within the same system, they are collectively called Māra. Examining their collateral differences carefully, they do not go beyond three: first, the Chuiti ghost; second, time-sprite ghosts; third, Māra ghosts. Each has distinct signs when it arises.

When the Chuiti ghost acts, practitioners sitting in meditation may feel something climbing along head and face, or moving down and back up the body repeatedly without stopping. Although not painful, the minute disturbance is difficult to bear. It may bore into ears, eyes, or nose, embrace, strike, and knock against the body, as if a real thing were present. Yet when one reaches for it, nothing can be caught; after being driven away, it returns and makes chirping sounds that disturb the ears. This ghost's face resembles a pipa, with four eyes and two mouths〔and so forth〕.

When a time-sprite ghost acts, the situation differs. The Mahāsaṃnipāta Sūtra says that twelve beasts cultivate loving-kindness conditioned by Dharmas on a jeweled mountain and govern the various sprites. Those manifesting expediently do not necessarily come to trouble people; actual beings of these classes can disturb practitioners. People who sit in meditation with deviant conceptions are often possessed and disturbed by time-sprites. They may transform into young men, young women, old men, old women, birds, or beasts in widely differing forms. Sometimes they entertain people; sometimes they command or admonish them.

To determine which time-beast it is, observe the time at which it repeatedly arrives and identify the beast by that period. The tiger corresponds to the hour of the tiger, continuing in sequence through the ox at the hour of the ox. Each double-hour has three divisions, so the twelve periods contain thirty-six beasts. The three at the hour of the tiger are first the leopard cat, then the leopard, then the tiger. The three at the hour of the rabbit are fox, rabbit, and raccoon dog. The three at the hour of the dragon are dragon, jiao dragon, and fish. These nine belong to the east and wood; according to the beginning, middle, and end of their season, the nine objects are transmitted in this sequence.

The following group of three is cicada, carp, and snake. The three at the hour of the horse are deer, horse, and muntjac. The three at the hour of the goat are sheep, wild goose, and hawk. These nine belong to the south and fire. The three at the hour of the monkey are black gibbon, gibbon, and macaque. The three at the hour of the rooster are crow, rooster, and pheasant. The three at the hour of the dog are dog, wolf, and jackal. These nine belong to the west and metal. The three at the hour of the boar are boar, yu beast, and pig. The three at the hour of the rat are cat, rat, and bat. The three at the hour of the ox are ox, crab, and soft-shelled turtle. These nine belong to the north and water.

The center belongs to earth and rules during the four seasons. When the four directions operate, they are also employing earth, represented by fish, hawk, jackal, and soft-shelled turtle. Three cycles make thirty-six beasts; unfolding three further forms from each makes 108 time-beasts. If one profoundly understands this meaning and calls a sprite's name according to the time at which it appears, the time-sprite retreats. If its possession continues even a little longer, it can make people wild and disoriented, falsely proclaiming good and bad fortune and even becoming heedless of water and fire〔and so forth〕.

Māra's Inner Shooting and Outer Fanning

Next is Māra. To destroy two kinds of good and increase two kinds of evil, Māra delights in attacking through the five faculties in forceful and gentle ways. The Great Perfection of Wisdom Treatise names Māra “flower arrows” and also “five arrows”: each arrow shoots one faculty, and together they damage the mental faculty. Each of the five faculties lasts for only one instant; once the instant turns, it belongs to the mental faculty. If mind is damaged, how could the five faculties be preserved?

The eye seeing an agreeable form is a flower arrow, a gentle thief. Seeing a fearful form is a poisoned arrow, a forceful thief. Seeing an ordinary form is a thief neither forceful nor gentle. The remaining four faculties are the same. Each of the five faculties has three, making fifteen. Once they turn into the mental faculty in an instant, the corresponding mind has another three, making eighteen arrows in all, also called eighteen feelings. One should therefore neither accept nor grasp these feelings. Once grasped, they become illness; after becoming illness they are difficult to treat, permanently obstruct meditative concentration, and after death cause one to fall into the path of Māra.

If Māra shoots arrows internally but cannot enter, he externally fans donors, monastic teachers, fellow students, and disciples and releases another eighteen arrows. Once a monk was troubled internally by Māra while externally receiving praise and blame from donors. Neither the forceful nor gentle side could break him, so Māra departed weeping. Practitioners should carefully notice responses among teachers and disciples and donors. Sometimes the Dharma master says something different and followers become angry; sometimes followers speak resentfully and the master rebukes them. Such causes and conditions are extensively taught in the Large Perfection of Wisdom Sūtra. Eighteen arrows within and eighteen outside make thirty-six arrows from the sides of oneself and others.

Māra is also highly skillful. First he causes people to turn from wholesome Dharma and begin evil conduct. If practitioners do not follow, he instead traps them exclusively in worldly good deeds, keeping them busy building stūpas and monasteries so distraction obstructs meditative concentration. If they still do not follow, he makes them fall into the Two Vehicles. Māra does not actually understand the Two Vehicles; he merely indicates that route so people cannot enter the Great Vehicle. It resembles an ignorant child who initially follows such an indication, abandons the Great Vehicle, and studies the Lesser instead. Once much effort has been spent, later regret is useless. The person making this indication understands neither Great nor Small Vehicle.

Māra also leads people into a view of emptiness without skillful preparatory means, causing them to say there is no Buddha and no being and fall into partial emptiness; or he causes them to fall into partial provisionality. He opens various branch roads so people cannot enter the Perfect path. Ānanda, Gupta, and those studying nonretrogression were all disturbed by Māra. How could people first arousing mind guarantee freedom from the thirty-six arrows of both self and other?

If one knows that both Māra and Buddha enter the real limit, fear no longer arises. The Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra says that disciplining Māra is taught for śrāvakas, while for Great-Vehicle practitioners disciplining Māra is not taught. When one mind accords with the substance of principle, who remains to debate forceful or gentle?

Three Kinds of Harm and Three Hundred Deviant Dharmas

Third are the obstruction and disturbance of demonic affairs. When forceful, gentle, and other arrows first shoot in through the five faculties, they can cause three faults: first, making a person ill; second, causing loss of the contemplating mind; third, causing attainment of deviant dharmas.

Illness has various signs. What enters through the eye faculty makes the liver ill; the other faculties are known by analogy. When the body suffers illness, mind becomes confused and desolate, until meditative concentration is lost and even death occurs. Loss of the contemplating mind means that one's original contemplative and wholesome practices were stable and ordered, but after seeing and hearing through the five faculties, the ground of mind suddenly becomes confused and its former sequence disappears. Attaining deviant dharmas means comparing them with ten classes of correct Dharma and distinguishing twenty deviant signs.

The first pair is existence and nonexistence. “Existence” means that after form enters through the eye faculty, one sees mountains and rivers, stars, the palaces inhabited by sun and moon, and various shapes in darkness, and can point out their directions. This is excessive existence. “Nonexistence” means that after form enters through the eye faculty, one says all dharmas are like annihilated empty space, reduced to ashes with not one dharma remaining, terrifying people. This is excessive nonexistence.

The second pair is brightness and darkness. “Brightness” means that after form enters, one's view constantly opens into brightness like the shining of sun and moon. “Darkness” means pitch-black obscurity and complete lack of clarity.

The third pair is concentration and disorder. “Concentration” means that after form enters, mind resembles wood or stone and remains rigidly still. “Disorder” means that after form enters, mind moves cunningly, flings itself about, and conditions everything.

The fourth pair is foolishness and wisdom. “Foolishness” means that after form enters, mind and intelligence become obscure, shallow, crude, and unknowing, even to the point of standing naked without shame. “Wisdom” means that after form enters, one appears intelligent, clever, quick, and responsive.

The fifth pair is grief and joy. “Grief” means that after form enters, one becomes anxious and distressed, crying and shedding tears. “Joy” means that after form enters, one sings in heedless pleasure and remains joyful for a long time.

The sixth pair is suffering and happiness. “Suffering” means pain throughout the body's hundred joints, as though burned by fire. “Happiness” means bodily ease and intoxication resembling enjoyment of the five desires.

The seventh pair is calamity and blessing. “Calamity” means constantly bringing calamity upon oneself, creating it for others, and knowing the misfortunes afflicting them. “Blessing” means constantly bringing blessed retribution upon oneself and being able to create blessings for others.

The eighth pair is evil and good. “Evil” means committing every evil and causing others to do evil. “Good” means oneself practicing giving and other wholesome conduct and causing others to practice giving.

The ninth pair is hatred and love. “Hatred” means being unable to bear seeing people, withdrawing from them, and living alone. “Love” means profound longing and entangling attachment.

The tenth pair is rigidity and softness. “Rigidity” means that mind is hard; advancing, retreating, entering, and leaving cannot occur freely; one is as difficult to change as tile or stone and does not accord with the wholesome path. “Softness” means that resolve is weak and easily destroyed, like soft clay that cannot be formed into a vessel.

Whether excessive or deficient, all these are called deviant signs. One faculty contacts the three types of object—agreeable, fearful, and ordinary—and produces three feelings. One feeling has twenty deviant dharmas, so three feelings make sixty; extending them through the five faculties makes three hundred deviant dharmas. Although the ninety-five non-Buddhist paths contain different forms of deviance, their deviant dharmas must initially enter through the five faculties. Careful examination among the three hundred will necessarily find correspondence with such deviant signs. Chuiti generally makes people lose meditative contemplation; time-sprites generally make people attain deviant dharmas; Māra possesses both kinds of harm.

Treating the Three Classes of Demonic Affairs

Fourth are methods of treatment. To treat Chuiti, first know its origin. During the final Dharma of Buddha Kanakamuni, a monk delighted in troubling the monastic community. The community expelled him, so he made an evil vow to trouble people sitting in meditation constantly. This was the progenitor of such ghosts. That individual's retribution may long since have ended, yet ghosts born through the same karma can still trouble people. Rebuking their original ancestor now makes them feel shame and leave.

In rebuke say: “I know your name. You are the evil yakṣa Chuiti. In the time of Buddha Kanakamuni, you broke precepts, stole the laji zhi, craved food, and smelled fragrances. I now uphold precepts and do not fear you.” After this rebuke it should leave. If it does not, silently recite the precept preface and the rules. When the spirits of the precepts return to guard one, the precept-breaking ghost departs.

To treat a time-sprite, skillfully recognize the twelve times and thirty-six time-beasts. Know the time at which it comes and call the corresponding name; the time-sprite then departs. Forest hermits and practitioners of dhūta often suspend a square mirror behind their seat. A time-sprite can transform its own appearance but cannot change the colored image reflected in the mirror. Practitioners recognize it by looking into the mirror and can then dismiss it themselves. Calling its name is internal treatment; reflecting it in a mirror is external treatment. Together they are the two treatments, internal and external.

There are three methods for treating Māra. First, rebuke and stop it as soon as it is noticed, like a gatekeeper stopping an evil person and refusing entry. The Buddha tells a monk: “Accept no object that comes from outside.” That is, do not grasp an external object. This method of nonacceptance can treat every demonic affair coming from oneself or another.

Second, if it has already been accepted within, inspect everything carefully from head to foot. Seek Māra and find it unobtainable, then seek one's own mind and find it unobtainable as well. From where does Māra come? What does it intend to disturb? This resembles an evil person breaking into a house and the owner illuminating and inspecting every place, leaving nowhere for the intruder to remain.

Third, if it still does not leave after such examination, strengthen mind and resist with all one's power, setting death as the limit and resolving never to dwell together with it. Skillfully turning among these three treatments is sufficient; nothing more need be said.

Contemplating Demonic Affairs through the Ten Dharmas

Fifth is cultivation through calming-and-contemplation, applying the ten dharmas according to the established pattern.

First, consider the conceivable object. When demonic affairs arise, following Māra's conduct and creating various evils produces the dharmas of the three evil paths. If one follows Māra into good—for example, practicing giving in order to appropriate others and make them one's dependents—one may be born in a wholesome path, yet life after life remain mutually entangled with Māra. Sometimes Māra may possess such a person and speak through that person's mouth. If one consequently abandons body and life, one receives the corresponding retribution. Even if wishing to cultivate the path, one encounters myriad obstructions. Scripture says that some bodhisattvas have Māra and some have no Māra; this is its meaning. These are the three wholesome Dharma realms.

Māra may further urge: “It is enough for you to enter nirvāṇa yourself. What do beings' affairs have to do with you? Rather than suffer in vain, attain realization quickly.” This produces the Dharma realms of the Two Vehicles. Māra may also make people adopt circuitous and awkward methods of liberation so they cannot swiftly enter the path of awakening. Passing from shallow to profound through each separate Dharma realm in this way all belongs to the conceivable object.

Second, contemplate the inconceivable object. Within this very demonic affair, the ten Dharma realms and hundred dharmas are fully present in one thought. All dharmas proceed toward Māra, just as every affair is present in one dream. One Māra is all Māras and all Māras are one Māra, yet they cannot be fixed as one or as all. One may also say one Māra is all Māras and one Buddha all buddhas. No Māra realm exists apart from the Buddha realm; the two realms are nondual and not different. Contemplated in this way, the place where Māra is subdued is itself the place of awakening.

People of sharp faculties and wisdom can reveal principle while treating Māra, make Māra an attendant, and feel no fear, like firewood added to a fire only making it blaze more strongly. Cultivation accomplished only through conditioned practices cannot make quiescence and illumination simultaneous. Bodhisattva Chisui did not detect Māra's scheme and instead said “Welcome.” A person genuinely cultivating quiescent illumination need not wait to form a separate contemplation: one immediately knows the visitor is Māra, not Śakra. Because the Distinct Teaching cannot patiently endure what is contrary to Dharma, it says “This is not what I should receive.” Because the Perfect Teaching settles it within the real limit, it says “This is precisely what I should receive.” Not fearing nonhuman beings and being courageous toward birth and death is the inconceivable object.

Third, arouse loving-kindness and compassion. The Māra realm is originally the Buddha realm, but beings do not know this. Lost within the Buddha realm, they arbitrarily produce the Māra realm; within awakening they produce afflictions. Practitioners therefore arouse compassion. To enable beings to embody the Buddha realm precisely within the Māra realm and embody awakening precisely within afflictions, they arouse loving-kindness. Wishing to enable immeasurable beings to embody the happiness of the Buddha realm within the Māra realm is called loving-kindness toward immeasurable buddhas. Wishing to remove the suffering of immeasurable beings who lose the Buddha realm and arbitrarily produce the Māra realm is called compassion toward immeasurable Māras. This immeasurable loving-kindness and compassion is the one great unconditioned loving-kindness and compassion.

Fourth, settle mind through calming-and-contemplation. To fulfill this vow and reveal this principle, one should subdue Māra and accomplish the place of awakening. That eighty billion beings from Māra's host cannot shake one's mind is calming. Penetrating the Māra realm as itself the Buddha realm is contemplation. Practitioners use only the four siddhāntas to settle mind through calming-and-contemplation.

Fifth, pervasively break through Dharmas. As soon as a demonic affair arises, break it through the four alternatives. Whether horizontal or vertical, single or compound, breaking proceeds without obstruction.

In the Tripiṭaka Teaching, the four Māras are initially subdued. When one sits at the place of awakening, breaking the Māra of afflictions obtains the path of awakening, and obtaining the body of Dharma-nature breaks the Māra of aggregates and sense fields; these two together break death-Māra. Beneath the tree of the path, one attains immovable samādhi, transforms the three jade women, and breaks eighty billion demonic troops. Māra's crown, canopy, and sword each fall; this is breaking Māra as a heavenly son.

In the Shared Teaching, one initially attains patient endurance concerning nonarising; at the sixth ground one attains the path of awakening, as above; at the eighth ground, path and contemplation flow together, which is immovable samādhi and breaks Māra as a heavenly son. Śrāvakas in both Tripiṭaka and Shared Teachings break only three Māras. Gupta was long troubled by Māra and later attained superknowledge, but merely controlled Māra without breaking it〔and so forth〕.

At the ten abodes of the Distinct Teaching, the four Māras within the three realms have been broken. After ascending the grounds, partially attaining the path of awakening breaks the Māra of afflictions; partially attaining the Dharma-body breaks the Māra of aggregates; partially attaining red samādhi breaks Māra as a heavenly son. According to the Sūtra of the Original Acts, three Māras are exhausted at equal awakening and only one portion of death-Māra remains. Yet the three should not already be exhausted first, nor should death-Māra remain alone. This is only a preparatory-means explanation of the Distinct Teaching.

At the first abode of the Perfect Teaching, all eight Māras are broken simultaneously. Attaining the path of awakening breaks the Māra of afflictions〔and so forth〕; only at wondrous awakening are all eight Māras ultimately and permanently exhausted. Although the first abode is said to break them, it cannot be fixed as only the first abode doing the breaking. Although later awakening is said to break them, it cannot be fixed as only later awakening doing the breaking. Yet breaking does not depart from the first abode and later awakening. This is pervasively breaking through Dharmas.

Sixth, discern passage and obstruction. Within each preceding method of breaking Māra, distinguish suffering, accumulation, ignorance, the six obscurations and six perfections, and letters and nonletters.

Seventh, cultivate the factors of the path. The Māra realm possesses all form. Form itself is empty, so form is impure; form itself is provisional, so it is named pure; form itself is the Middle, so it is neither pure nor impure. The remaining four aggregates of feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness are likewise. One establishment of mindfulness is therefore all establishments of mindfulness, continuing in sequence through the three gates of liberation.

Eighth, employ aids to the path. If the three gates of liberation have not opened, phenomenal obstructions must be present. Since distant kalpas, practitioners have been driven by Māra: they practice Māra's giving to seek retribution; maintain Māra's precepts to seek gain and support; cultivate Māra's patience from fear of others; perform Māra's diligence to seek reputation; attain Māra's dhyāna and sink into ghostly dharmas; or delight in Māra's wisdom and fall into the net of discriminating views. Although these six have wholesome names, in reality all are Māra. Precisely because these deviant obstructions conceal them, the three gates of liberation remain blocked.

One should now use the correct six perfections to treat the six obscurations. As the obscurations retreat and the perfections are accomplished, the flame grows brighter like a lamp supplied with abundant oil. If afflictions are mixed in, use the preceding four-division contemplation as an assisting treatment. If karmic obstructions are mixed in, use recollection of the two buddhas as an aid to treatment.

Ninth, know stages. At the Small Vehicle's path of subduing, everything can be called only wisdom through hearing. Even through the five grades of the Perfect Teaching, it remains the stage of wisdom through hearing. Since this stage is not yet accomplished, how could one confuse it with a real stage and produce overweening pride?

Tenth, patiently endure and become free from attachment to Dharma. If one wishes to enter the real stage, one should patiently endure single-mindedly and no longer let Māra shake and disturb one. One must also investigate and illuminate the subtlest points, strengthen mind, rebuke, and resist.

If one enters a stage resembling realization and receives a bestowal of Dharma, one must not produce pride or attachment. A person who has performed great service but is demoted to a small district may lose salary or even life. Producing attachment to Dharma resembles committing an offense: merely arousing semblance-understanding is like being demoted to a small district; losing semblance-understanding, like losing salary; falling into the ground of the Two Vehicles, like losing life, because the Great Vehicle's family enterprise and ancestral shrine have been extinguished. Without attachment to Dharma, one can pass from semblance to the real, discipline Māra as an attendant, and proceed directly to the place of awakening.

At another level, losing wisdom resembles losing merit, losing meditative concentration resembles losing salary, and losing concentration and wisdom together resembles losing life. One general intent may also be applied throughout as a contemplative method. Practitioners of dull faculties first understand the shared intent, then enter each specific contemplation section by section. Every chapter of the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā has a different intent, yet all converge upon nonarising. The general and specific intents mutually reveal one another; once understood, each establishes the other.

Must Wholesome Dharma Arise after Māra Departs?

Question: After demonic disturbance ends and wholesome Dharma next arises, is this an inherent necessity, like winter's cold passing and spring arriving?

Answer: It is not invariably so. Sometimes a difficult pass has already been crossed but wholesome Dharma still does not arise. Māra is evoked by unwholesome conditions; good is created through one's own power of mind.

The Explanatory Treatise says that in a past life Śākyamuni lived during an evil age when no Buddha was present in the world. He diligently sought Dharma but could not obtain it. Māra transformed into a brahmin and deceived him, saying: “I possess one verse of the Buddha. If you can use skin as paper, bone as brush, and blood as ink, I will give the verse to you.” The bodhisattva delighted in correct Dharma, immediately stripped off his own skin, exposed it to dry, and prepared to write the verse. Māra vanished. Knowing the bodhisattva's mind of seeking Dharma, a buddha emerged from below, taught him a profound scripture, and enabled him to attain patient endurance concerning nonarising. This proves that Māra's retreat and the arising of good each have their own causes and conditions. Wholesome Dharma must ultimately be brought forth by one's own power of mind〔and so forth〕.

Mohe Zhiguan, Fascicle Eight〔Lower〕.

As cultivation gradually gains strength, why does clarity not necessarily arrive first, while disturbance may? The Mohe Zhiguan answers directly: just as evil is about to retreat and good to arise, Māra most fears that practitioners will leave his realm. He fears losing his retinue, fears that practitioners will turn to liberate others, and fears that after gaining superknowledge and wisdom they will return to subdue him. Demonic affairs are therefore not merely chance episodes outside the path. They may arise precisely at the pass where wholesome roots are about to mature and the path to turn.

Yet the treatise does not thereby teach people to imagine every adversity as Māra. It first draws the boundaries among the four Māras, then distinguishes three classes of arising signs, three kinds of harm, and three classes of treatment, and only afterward places demonic affairs fully within calming-and-contemplation. This sequence prevents fear from preceding observation and prevents recognition from stopping at pursuit of strange signs. The real questions remain: when an external object arrives, does mind accept and grasp it? Has the contemplating mind lost its order? Even after the demonic sign retreats, does wholesome Dharma genuinely arise through one's own power of mind?

Why One Cannot Expect Only Favorable Conditions as Good Is about to Arise

The rationale for demonic affairs has two sides. From Māra's side, he wishes to keep practitioners in his realm so they can neither leave it nor transform others. From the practitioners' side, when disturbance is seen as it truly is, it instead becomes the place where deviant and correct are made distinct. The treatise therefore first says Māra fears and destroys good, then immediately says, “Māra's coming is very good.”

These two statements do not conflict. If Māra is treated as an absolute enemy, mind is first carried away by hatred. If Buddha is treated as a favorable condition to be coveted, mind is again carried away by joy. Knowing that the suchness of the Māra realm and the suchness of the Buddha realm are equal and nondual, neither grieving because of Māra nor rejoicing because of Buddha, is abiding in the real limit. “Māra's coming is very good” does not praise disturbance itself. It means that when the deviant appears, it reveals whether practitioners can avoid being seized by it.

This object therefore forces an uncomfortable question: do we want wholesome Dharma, or only a path without resistance? If one will cultivate only when things proceed smoothly and comfortably and others provide support, Māra need not even appear in a terrifying form. A slight change in conditions is enough for mind to leave its original direction. Conversely, if deviant and correct are clear, then although external conditions move, the real limit does not. What comes cannot decide where the practitioner goes.

Drawing Boundaries First, So the Strange Does Not Immediately Cause Alarm

The four Māras are the Māra of the aggregates, the Māra of afflictions, death-Māra, and Māra as a heavenly son. The Māra of the aggregates has already been treated within the object of aggregates, sense fields, and elements; the Māra of afflictions within the object of afflictions; and illness as a cause of death within the object of illness. Although the present object reviews the four Māras, it directly discusses Māra as a heavenly son. This boundary matters: one word, “Māra,” can embrace several meanings, but identical terminology does not justify mixing distinct contemplative objects.

The treatise then looks beyond the realms. Although the Māras of fragmentary birth and death have been passed once the four inversions within the realms are broken, the four inversions beginning with impermanence, unequaled form, and one portion of death-Māra remain. There is no other Māra of the sixth heaven; the term is still conceptually applied because the red samādhi has not reached culmination. Only at wondrous awakening, when principle is perfect, ignorance exhausted, retribution not inhabited, and red samādhi complete, are demonic affairs exhausted. This passage may appear far removed from present seated meditation, but it issues a warning: the disappearance of coarse disturbance does not mean that all demonic affairs are exhausted. As long as one's stage is not perfect, its level must still be distinguished.

Returning to immediately arising signs, the treatise lists three classes. Chuiti disturbs through bodily contact and sound. Time-sprites transform according to the time into men, women, old or young people, birds, beasts, and other forms, entertaining or instructing. Māra operates through the five faculties, shooting agreeable, fearful, and ordinary objects into mind. These distinctions do not encourage collecting strange experiences. They show that some disturbance presses through contact and sound, some deceives through forms and language, and some works almost entirely through ordinary faculties and objects.

Why the Most Dangerous Arrow May Appear Ordinary

Māra's arrows include not only poisoned arrows, but flower arrows and arrows neither forceful nor gentle. A fearful form makes one withdraw and is easily recognized as a threat. An agreeable form makes one rejoice and is often mistaken for an aid. An ordinary form neither alarms nor delights and more easily slips by unnoticed. The ear, nose, tongue, and body operate in the same way. As soon as a faculty apprehends an object, it turns into mind in an instant, and an external sign becomes something received and grasped within.

The treatise's real warning concerns not the need to seal the gates of the faculties, but “acceptance and grasping.” Once an object is accepted and clung to, it may become illness; illness then obstructs meditative concentration and can turn the entire course of cultivation. A flower arrow is no safer than a poisoned arrow precisely because it does not compel through pain, but uses delight to make one open the gate oneself. The ordinary arrow is subtler still, because mind does not even feel that it has made a choice.

If inner shooting cannot enter, Māra turns to external fanning. Among donors, monastic teachers, fellow students, and disciples, one word of praise or blame or one disagreement between a Dharma master and followers can become an entrance. “External” does not mean that all responsibility lies with others. It means that demonic affairs flow through relationships. One different statement from the Dharma master angers followers; one resentful word from followers provokes the master to rebuke them. An arrow passes from one mind into another until the whole cultivating community leaves the matter at hand.

More troubling still, Māra does not guide people only into evil; he can also trap them in good. Building stūpas and monasteries can be wholesome, yet if distraction obstructs concentration, good affairs are being used to change the direction of the path. The liberation of the Two Vehicles has its truth, yet if used to persuade people to abandon the Great and study the Lesser, it becomes a branch road preventing entry into the Great. Emptiness and provisionality are Dharma gates, yet falling into partial emptiness or partial provisionality without preparatory means likewise prevents entry into the Perfect. The decisive issue is therefore not only whether an affair appears good or evil, but where it carries mind and whether it makes the original great practice lose its direction.

Why the Twenty Deviant Signs Include Goodness, Wisdom, Blessing, and Happiness

When demonic arrows first shoot through the five faculties, they create three harms: bodily illness, loss of the original sequence of the contemplating mind, or attainment of deviant dharmas. The first two are easier to notice. The third is most difficult, because a deviant dharma need not appear as “deviant.” It may appear as existence or nonexistence, pitch-black confusion or constant opening into brightness, chaotic movement of mind or a mind stopped like wood and stone.

The treatise therefore distinguishes ten opposing pairs: existence and nonexistence, brightness and darkness, concentration and disorder, foolishness and wisdom, grief and joy, suffering and happiness, calamity and blessing, evil and good, hatred and love, rigidity and softness. Judging by names alone, one would assume that brightness, concentration, wisdom, joy, happiness, blessing, good, and love must be correct and their opposites wrong. Yet the treatise places both sides among deviant signs and concludes with “whether excessive or deficient.”

This conclusion reveals what deviant signs share: they take away the freedom and order of the contemplating mind. Concentration that becomes rigid like wood and stone is not genuine stability. Wisdom that becomes only quick cleverness is not genuine wisdom. Good manipulated by an outside force, causing one both to give and to drive others to give, may not be the correct path. Love that becomes profound entangling attachment, like hatred that rejects others and withdraws into solitary dwelling, makes mind lose balance. A negative name is indeed not to be adopted, but a positive name is no talisman exempting something from examination.

One faculty has three feelings; one feeling has twenty deviant dharmas, so three feelings have sixty. Extended through the five faculties, they make three hundred. The number does not create a frightening catalog of strange signs. It forces observation down to every junction of faculty, object, and feeling. Although the deviant dharmas of the ninety-five non-Buddhist paths differ, they must initially pass through the five faculties. If observation is fine enough, the corresponding entrance can be found among these three hundred relations.

Why Treatment Begins with Nonacceptance but Does Not End There

Each of the three classes of demonic sign has a corresponding treatment. For Chuiti, one first recognizes its name and origin and rebukes it through the precepts. If it remains, one recites the precept preface and rules and lets the spirits of moral discipline guard one. This does not rely on a still more terrifying power to overpower a ghost, but stands firmly in one's own maintained moral discipline: it comes through causes and conditions of broken precepts, while one refuses its control through unbroken conduct.

For time-sprites, one recognizes the time and calls the name; one may also use a square mirror to reflect the image they cannot alter within it. Calling the name distinguishes the time from which they come; looking into the mirror distinguishes their reflected form. The internal and external treatments do the same work: they return an obscure and disorienting feeling to an observable sign. A demonic sign gains power through obscurity; recognition deprives it of a hiding place.

Māra has three treatments. First, rebuke and stop him at the initial awareness, like a gatekeeper preventing an evil person from entering a house. The general instruction is “accept nothing belonging to another.” Second, if it has already been accepted, inspect carefully from head to foot. From where does Māra come? Where is mind? Both the visitor and the one disturbed are sought and found unobtainable, like someone carrying a lamp and inspecting each place, leaving an evil person nowhere to abide. Third, if it remains after contemplation, resolutely resist, setting death as the limit and refusing to dwell with it.

These three steps do not replace one another. Resistance without contemplation can nourish fear. Contemplation of emptiness without resolve can mistake retreat for nonattainment. Initial refusal without recognizing that one has already accepted an object misses one's actual conduct of mind. The opening gate must therefore be swift, examination after entry fine, and response to prolonged presence firm. Skill consists in turning according to the stage one occupies, not using one posture for every demonic affair.

The Key Turn from Treating Māra to Contemplating Māra

If one seeks only to drive away an unpleasant object, its departure seems to end the matter. After methods of treatment, however, the treatise opens the ten dharmas. It first distinguishes the conceivable object: following Māra in evil produces dharmas of the three evil paths; following Māra into good can still leave one stained life after life; if Māra persuades one to take only one's own nirvāṇa, one turns into the Two Vehicles; if he makes one employ circuitous and awkward liberation, one cannot swiftly enter awakening. Demonic affairs thus unfold through the ten Dharma realms, each shallow or profound, yet remain within the conceivable.

Only then does the treatise ask how this object is contemplated without making Māra a fixed entity outside mind. It answers that one Māra contains all Māras and all Māras are one Māra; further, one Māra is all Māras and one Buddha all buddhas. The Māra realm does not leave the Buddha realm; they are nondual and not different. In this contemplation, the place of subduing Māra is itself the place of awakening, and Māra resembles firewood thrown into a fire, making contemplative wisdom blaze more brightly.

The Māra realm being the Buddha realm does not conflate deviant and correct. If it did, there would be no need for the preceding fine distinctions among arising signs, harms, and treatments, nor for rebuke, nonacceptance, examination, and resistance. Nonduality of the two realms breaks substantial attachment; it does not erase measured practice. Precisely because Māra lacks fixed intrinsic nature, Māra can be transformed. Precisely because the deviant creates concrete harm, practitioners cannot accept it through empty talk.

This also explains why the treatise presents calming and contemplation together. That eighty billion beings cannot shake mind is called calming; penetrating the Māra realm as itself the Buddha realm is called contemplation. Calming alone may be firm yet rigid. Contemplation alone may speak loftily of nonduality while following objects away. When mind remains unmoved yet illuminates, and illumination sees nonduality without losing its power to reject the deviant, demonic affairs turn from obstruction into the place of awakening.

How the Ten Dharmas Return a Disturbance to the Whole Path

After contemplating the inconceivable object, practitioners arouse loving-kindness and compassion through the nonduality of Māra and Buddha. Beings become lost within the Buddha realm, arbitrarily produce the Māra realm, and generate afflictions within awakening; one therefore has compassion for their delusion. To enable beings to know the Buddha realm precisely within the Māra realm and awakening within afflictions, one lovingly wishes for their awakening. Loving-kindness toward immeasurable buddhas and compassion toward immeasurable Māras no longer incline only toward the preferred side.

To fulfill this vow, settle mind through calming-and-contemplation. As demonic affairs arise, break them through the horizontal, vertical, single, and compound alternatives. The Tripiṭaka, Shared, Distinct, and Perfect Teachings each have shallower and deeper breaking of Māra; no one stage can flatten them. Although the eight Māras are said to be broken at the first abode, they are permanently exhausted only at wondrous awakening. Saying that the first abode breaks them cannot be grasped as one isolated moment of breaking. Saying that later awakening breaks them cannot cancel all preceding stages. Pervasive breaking still does not depart from actual stages of practice.

Within every breaking one must further distinguish passage and obstruction and regulate the factors of the path. Form possessed by the Māra realm is itself empty and therefore called impure, itself provisional and therefore called pure, itself the Middle and therefore called neither pure nor impure. The other four aggregates are contemplated in the same way. If the three gates of liberation have not opened, one must turn back to examine phenomenal obstruction and cannot blame every unopened gate upon an external Māra.

The treatise here presents an incisive self-examination: giving to seek retribution; maintaining precepts to seek gain and support; practicing patience from fear of others; practicing diligence to seek reputation; entering meditative concentration while sunk in ghostly dharmas; and producing wisdom within a net of discriminating views. All six can bear wholesome names while obscuring the three gates of liberation. The problem does not lie in giving, moral discipline, patient endurance, diligence, meditative concentration, and wisdom themselves, but in the motivation to which practitioners have surrendered them.

The correct six perfections therefore do not substitute a more attractive list; each treats one of the six obscurations. When obscurations depart and perfections are accomplished, the flame grows with the abundance of oil. If afflictions are mixed in, contemplation assists; if karmic obstructions, recollection of the Buddha assists. What the object of Māra elicits is not an isolated exorcistic technique, but a renewed correction of aids to the path, motivation, and the whole cultivation.

Why Attachment to Dharma Must Still Be Guarded against after Patient Endurance

If practitioners can resist demonic affairs, have they realized the true? The treatise immediately restrains this thought: the Small Vehicle's path of subduing is generally named wisdom through hearing, and even the five grades of the Perfect Teaching remain at that stage. Since it is not yet accomplished, one cannot confuse it with the real stage and produce overweening pride. The object of Māra tests not only whether fear causes retreat, but whether a little understanding causes self-authorization.

To enter the real stage, one must patiently endure single-mindedly, illuminate the most subtle points, and rebuke and resist with resolve. Even after entering the stage resembling realization and receiving a bestowal of Dharma, one must not produce pride or craving. A person of great merit demoted to a small district may lose salary or life: arousing semblance-understanding resembles receiving the small district, losing that understanding resembles losing salary, and falling into the Two Vehicles resembles losing life, because the Great Vehicle's family enterprise is thereby cut off.

This simile speaks heavily of “attachment to Dharma.” People ordinarily fear only losing what they have gained, but the treatise points out that clinging to an attainment is itself the beginning of loss. Only without attachment to Dharma can one pass from semblance into the real, discipline Māra as an attendant, and proceed directly to the place of awakening. Māra may force people back through a frightening appearance, or remain after a taste of Dharma in the form “I have attained.”

The general and specific intents finally gather one another. People of dull faculties first understand one shared intent, then circuitously enter each specific contemplated object. Each passage has a distinct meaning, yet all converge upon nonarising. The object of Māra thus has its own arising signs, harms, and treatments without leaving the contemplative method established earlier. If the general does not enter the specific, it becomes an empty principle; if the specific is not threaded by the general intent, it becomes a scattering of techniques.

Who Makes Wholesome Dharma Arise after Māra Departs?

The final question seems simple but turns the whole unit back upon the practitioner: after demonic disturbance ends, does wholesome Dharma naturally follow like spring after winter's cold? The answer is no. A difficult pass may be over and good still not arise. Māra is evoked through unwholesome conditions; good is produced through one's own power of mind. Removal of an external obstruction eliminates one resistance; it does not mean one's inner vows and practice are complete.

The treatise verifies this through stripping off skin to seek Dharma. In an evil age without a buddha, a bodhisattva diligently sought Dharma. Māra transformed into a brahmin and demanded skin as paper, bone as brush, and blood as ink before giving one verse. The bodhisattva immediately stripped off and dried his skin, but Māra disappeared. A buddha knew the mind seeking Dharma, emerged from below, taught the profound Dharma, and enabled the bodhisattva to attain patient endurance concerning nonarising.

The turn in this story is not that Māra finally became good, but that after Māra vanished, the mind seeking Dharma did not vanish with him. Skin-paper, bone-brush, and blood-ink press the power of mind to a place where it cannot be feigned. If one acts only because another promises a reward, action stops when that person disappears. If the mind seeking Dharma is genuine, deception can reveal it but cannot manufacture it. The whole unit therefore ends not with “Māra has been driven away,” but with “from what does good ultimately arise?” What contemplation of demonic affairs finally contemplates remains this mind.

Through the Eye of the Fuxing

The reading above unfolds according to the treatise's own five sections, ten dharmas, and final exchange. Zhanran's Zhiguan Fuxing Chuanhong Jue further marks several easily confused levels.

Zhanran explicitly explains: “One Māra is itself all buddhas”〔T1912 0409c16〕.

First, the opening “evil is about to subside and good wishes to arise” follows the preceding karmic object. Zhanran distinguishes phenomenal evil about to subside and good in principle about to arise, and says the entire rationale contains the four siddhāntas: leaving the Māra realm breaks through the worldly siddhānta; the arising of good in principle, the individual; superknowledge corresponding to calming and wisdom to contemplation, the counteractive; abiding in the one suchness of Māra and Buddha, ultimate meaning. He further limits what Māra fears to the good of awakening rather than outflowed good that still belongs to birth and death. These correlations illuminate the opening structure, but they are later interpretive judgments and cannot be reversed into headings explicitly given by the treatise.

Second, the present object directly takes Māra as a heavenly son. Zhanran says that the four Māras conceptually established beyond the realms through the inversions beginning with impermanence are general Māra names, not the Māra distinguished immediately in this object. The so-called Māra as a heavenly son beyond the realms is likewise only conceptually established because the red samādhi has not been exhausted. He further divides the ten Māras of the Avataṃsaka Sūtra into general and specific meanings and ultimately gathers them into the four Māras. Thus the four Māras, ten Māras, and three classes of arising signs each retain a distinct level and are not merged into one table because they share the name Māra.

Third, among the three classes of arising signs, Chuiti and time-sprites are distant subjects of Pāpīyas, while Māra is a close subject. Zhanran also explains the count in “destroying two kinds of good and increasing two kinds of evil”: the four vast vows are good already arisen; the various practices are good not yet arisen; views and thought are evil already arisen; ignorance is evil not yet arisen. The eighteen arrows arise because the five faculties apprehend objects and turn into the mental faculty, producing contact with dharmas; faculties and objects confronting one another make eighteen. External fanning likewise has eighteen, so self and other together have thirty-six. This phrase-by-phrase correlation is established only at the mirror layer; the main text retains the treatise's own numerical wording.

Fourth, the treatise's explicit count is three hundred deviant dharmas. Zhanran separately says that counting their passage into the mental ground yields 360. The later number is an expanded calculation of the commentary and cannot be backfilled into the treatise. The same restraint applies to the time-beasts: Zhanran wonders whether “carp” should be “eel,” and notes doubt concerning “cat” and another work's “swallow-rat.” Because these are only doubtful readings he records, the treatise's original graphs must be preserved rather than silently replaced.

Fifth, Zhanran explains “accept nothing belonging to another” as emptiness and nothing attained, adding that the five objects are Māra's five powers while the one power of non-negligence can repel them. Concerning Māra's six perfections, he gives a clear judgment: these six become perfections for Māra and obscurations for the practitioner. Both interpretations return treatment of Māra from resisting an external enemy to apprehension of objects and motivation, but the additional scriptural evidence and doctrinal judgments of the commentary must remain attributed and not be merged into the treatise's own statements.

Sixth, the treatise says that śrāvakas discipline Māra while the Great Vehicle does not teach disciplining Māra. Zhanran distinguishes the Small Vehicle, which severs delusion and therefore speaks of disciplining Māra, from the Great Vehicle, which embodies and penetrates all dharmas so Māra is originally the Dharma realm. This judgment does not cancel the preceding rebuke, examination, and resistance. It distinguishes whether agent and object of treatment are still grasped as two fixed entities. Rejecting the deviant in phenomena and nonduality in principle cannot replace one another.

Seventh, Zhanran marks each division among the ten dharmas: the Māra realm being the Buddha realm begins arousing mind; wishing to fulfill the vow begins settling mind; following the arising demonic affair enters pervasive breaking; then follow passage and obstruction, factors of the path, aids to the path, stages, patient endurance, and freedom from attachment to Dharma. In the story of Chisui and Vimalakīrti, he classifies the former as Distinct and the latter Perfect. This is a later teaching classification, not a self-label belonging to the figures in the scripture. He further says that a great-carriage simile should have appeared at the end of the ten dharmas but is abbreviated in the present text. Readers may recognize his judgment of abbreviation but may not supplement the treatise themselves.

Eighth, Zhanran judges “general use of one intent” as crowning the following nine objects with the ten dharmas of the object of the aggregates, hence calling it general. At each object one must still enter its specifics according to that object. At the final story of stripping off skin to seek Dharma, he records two proximate versions side by side, saying only that the latter explanation agrees with the present text and differs slightly from the treatise; he does not collapse the differences into one. What this mirror finally preserves is precisely the conclusion of the unit itself: removal of obstruction does not equal the arising of good. Later commentary can illuminate the text, but cannot replace the practitioner's own power of mind.