Mara

[McGettigan]

I've now see mara much like Kyonin. It's that voice telling me to sleep the extra hour instead of getting up and exercising. Things like that. Not to reopen the prior thread, but I was raised Catholic and I've had more than enough fire and brimstone. Not to mention the guilt (more mara), they bring.

This is my personal understanding.

Gassho,
Mc.

[Jundo]

[I]

We are not chasers of Satori, Kensho, or any grandiose moment of "enlightenment". We know that Mara visits us again and again. To paraphrase something that that I believe Jundo said about another topic when Mara visits "I'll sit down with him, I just don't invite him to stay for breakfast."

Hi Arnold,

Actually, we don't chase after, not do we run away from Satori/Kensho and "grandiose moments of enlightenment" either. I might say that if they come, "we invite such to stay for breakfast", but then wash up the dishes and move on our way.

For any of our newer folk, if you are curious as to the view of Kensho and such in the Soto way. I threw this together ... older folks have probably heard it before ...


--------------------------


There are times in Shikantaza, when we come to pierce and experience states [dropping the self-other divide] profoundly. HOWEVER, EXPERIENCING THIS TIMELESS-VASTNESS AND BOUNDLESSNESS IS (STRANGE AS IT SOUNDS) ONLY A VERY LIMITED VIEW ON WHAT ENLIGHTENMENT IS. (Both the Soto and Rinzai folks pretty much say the same). It is like getting on a bus and taking a trip to experience the wide vistas of the Grand Canyon. Well, the Grand Canyon may be mind-blowingly powerful and a sight to see, but do not confuse it with all the rest of life and this world which are no less wide and wondrous when known as such.

In a nutshell, a wondrous and important experience perhaps, but in "Zen Enlightenment" one comes to realize that even this ordinary, dusty, confining, sometimes joyous and sometimes ugly world is just as miraculous, wondrous, and "holy" as anything like that. The "Grand Canyon" or "Top of Mt. Everest" is a wonderful place to visit, but wouldn't want to live there. Scratching one's nose, taking out the trash, feeding the baby ... when we come to perceive this world as such ... is all as much the "Buddhaland" as anything with rainbow colored trees and cotton candy castles in the sky. In fact, the canyon vistas and the mountain top are ever before your eyes even now ... in the trash, your nose, in the hungry baby [(even in Mara!)]... although maybe hard to see. The most "boring and ordinary, beautiful or ugly" of this world is Extraordinary and Beautiful when properly understood.

I once wrote this on such Kensho (Seeing One's Nature) experiences ...

For Kensho is, in fact, special as special ever has been or could be … a sacred jewel, key to the path, life’s vitality realized … nothing other than special!

Yet Kensho is “nothing special” in that each and all facets of this life-world-self, bar none, are vital, sacred, a unique treasure – and every step of the path is central to the path. The “ordinary and mundane” is never ordinary. Every moment and any encounter, each breeze and blade of grass is special, sacred, a jewel in Indra’s Net. Thus, I do not mean to lower the import of Kensho in the least, but just to RAISE UP all of life, and every instant of practice, to one and the same par with Kensho, for such is the wholeness, intimacy, unity that is KENSHO’d in KENSHO.
.
Realizing that fact – that the most “ordinary” is sacred and whole and unbroken – is at the heart of Kensho! Failing to see Kensho as extraordinary insight into the extra-ordinariness and sacredness of both the sacred and ordinary is not to see “Kensho.”

[arnold]

Thank you Jundo. That is a nuanced way of expressing the balance between Kajo and Kensho that I have not encountered before and it is extremely helpful. I wasn't aware that I was "picking sides" until you pointed this out.

With Gratitude,

Arnold

[RichardH]

Like this topic. Mara

As a child is developing one of the good signs is when he shows a little bit of the devil. Intelligence shows early in mischief and defiance. If little angels don't show the imp at some point, it is a concern. So maybe Mara is that, the imp of our own intelligence?

Gassho Daizan

[Oheso]

so, Mara as that bit of spirit not driven out or stultified by the child's keepers? Mara as Individual Imp sounds likes Blake's Genius.