Living with the Devil

by Stephen Batchelor

25 “the wind a fallen cotton tuft”: Ibid., p. 220.

  pp. 25–26 “Long is the life span of human beings . . . Short is the life span of human beings”: SN 1.4.9, p. 201.

  26 Buddhism developed a theory of four maras: In Pali, these are, respectively: khandha-mara, kilesa-mara, yama-mara, and devaputta-mara. The fifth mara is kamma- or abhisankhara-mara.

  27 “A picture held us captive”: Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 115, p. 48.

  28 Over the centuries, this culminated in Buddha’s becoming impossibly perfect: In the discourses of Mahayana Buddhism, Buddha has become so perfect that Mara can no longer get near him. On the rare occasions when the devil appears, it is not as a disheveled farmer with muddy feet but as a remote personification of evil. The translator Conze, in The Large Sutra on Perfect Wisdom, describes Mara as preparing a fourfold army to attack Buddha (pp. 240–1). On becoming aware of the plot, a god in Buddha’s retinue “called to mind the Perfection of Wisdom and repeated it in his memory. Immediately Mara turned back on his path.” All it takes to get rid of Mara are a few thoughts turned over in the mind of a clairvoyant god.

  4. Satan—The Adversary

  29 “command this stone that it be made bread”: Luke 4.3 and Matthew 4.3.

  29 “he need only resolve that the Himalaya . . . exercise rulership righteously”: SN 1.4.20, p. 210. It is striking that these two examples closely follow each other in the respective texts.

  30 “the Destroyer . . . the accursed destructive spirit”: Cited in Russell, The Devil, p. 108.

  30 “Zarathustra was the first to see in the struggle”: Friedrich Nietzsche, Ecce Homo, p. 127. Translated by R. J. Hollingdale. Harmondsworth and New York: Penguin, 1979.

  31 “No one is born a brahmin”: Sn 3.9.650, p. 75.

  32 “From going to and fro in the earth”: Job 1.7 and 2.2; 2.5; 2.7.

  32 “His troops come together”: Job 19.12.

  32 “Why is light given to a man”: Job 3.23.

  pp. 32–33 “Mara Conquering Sage”: Pali: Marabhibumuni. Sn 545, p. 63; and 571, p. 67.

  33 “him that hath the power of death”: Hebrews 2.14.

  33 “You are a human being”: Mahavastu, II, 269; quoted in Boyd, Satan and Mara, p. 114.

  33 “I am nobler than he. You created me from fire”: Koran 7.11–24 (other versions of this story appear in 2.32–7 and 15.26–37).

  pp. 33–34 “Lord, since You have seduced me”: Koran 15.33.

  34 “ruler of this world”: John 12.31.

  34 “the god of this age”: II Corinthians 4.4.

  34 “We are not contending against flesh and blood”: Ephesians 6.12.

  34 “For the demonic is the elevation”: Tillich, Systematic Theology, I, p. 140; see also III, pp. 102ff.

  35 “must suffer many things, and be rejected”: Mark 8.31; 8.33.

  35 “that old serpent, called the Devil”: Revelation 12.9.

  35 “saw Satan fall like lightning”: Luke 10.18.

  35 “fell bodily into the great hell of Avici”: Abhidharmakosa, III, 41; quoted in Boyd, Mara and Satan, p. 115.

  36 “dwells five hundred miles”: Gampopa, Jewel Ornament of Liberation, p. 62.

  36 “We know no time . . . when we were not as now”: Milton, Paradise Lost, Book V, line 859ff.

  36 “perfect image”: Ibid., Book II, lines 764, 795.

  36 “swim in mirth, and fancy”: Ibid., Book IX, lines 1009–10; lines 1121–6.

  38 “this last enemy will not be its nonexistence”: Quoted in Boyd, Satan and Mara, p. 60.

  5. Boredom and Violence

  39 “yapping, yelling, groaning, creeping monsters”: Baudelaire, Les Fleurs du Mal, “Au Lecteur.”

  pp. 40–41 “Stupidity, error, avarice, sin . . . A populace of Demons cavorts in our brain”: Ibid.

  41 “Ceaselessly the Demon races at my side”: Ibid. “Destruction” is the opening poem of the section entitled “Les Fleurs du Mal.”

  42 “When we breathe, Death’s invisible river”: Ibid., “Au Lecteur.”

  43 “We steal a secret pleasure on the side”: Ibid.

  43 “Someone must have been telling lies about Joseph K.”: Kafka, The Trial, p. 7.

  43 “a liar . . . a murderer from the beginning”: John 8–44.

  43 “Suddenly, no, at last, long last”: Beckett, Stories and Texts for Nothing, p. 75.

  44 “It seemed to me pleasant, and all the more agreeable”: Baudelaire, Les Fleurs du Mal, p. 243.

  44 “So he leads me, far from God’s sight”: Ibid., “Destruction.”

  45 “The undependable lord of death”: BCA 2.33.

  46 “It is more difficult to love God”: Baudelaire, Les Fleurs du Mal, p. 242.

  TWO: CREATING A PATH

  6. Fear and Trembling

  51 “All the unhappiness of men”: Pascal, Pensées, no. 126, p. 118 (English: no. 136, p. 67).

  51 “in complete idleness to commune with itself”: Montaigne, Essays, p. 27.

  52 Rather than face the contingency of my existence, I flee it: This notion of existential flight is based on ideas in Heidegger’s Being and Time, in particular those of falling and thrownness (section 38, pp. 219ff). It is treated at greater length in Batchelor, Flight.

  54 Fear is the longing not to be hurt: Despite the widespread use of the term “fear” (bhaya) in the discourses, no Buddhist tradition provides an in-depth analysis or definition of fear. Fear is not treated as a discrete mental event (cetasika) in any of the classical works of Abhidhamma. While it is sometimes regarded as an aspect of hatred (dosa/dvesa), I suggest that it is better understood as a kind of craving (tanha/trsna).

  54 fear pervades all self-centered emotion: Tibetan texts compare confusion’s fear to an ox, arrogance’s fear to a lion, hatred’s fear to a fire, jealousy’s fear to a snake, misconception’s fear to a thief, miserliness’ fear to an iron shackle, desire’s fear to a torrent, doubt’s fear to a cannibal. The fear implicit in these emotions suggests how each is animated by the longing not to be hurt. This list of the eight fears likewise affirms that fear is more than just a feature of hatred. See Rigzin Tsepak, Tibetan-English Dictionary of Buddhist Terminology, p. 87.

  54 “Mara conjured up his host”: Quoted in Boyd, Satan and Mara, pp. 85–6. The Mahavastu is a relatively late Sanskrit text included in the canon of the Mahasamghika school.

  54 “The less the sage feared the frightful hosts”: Ashvaghosa, Buddhacarita, XIII. 55.

  54 “The eternal silence of these infinite spaces”: Pascal, Pensées, no. 187, p. 161 (English: no. 201, p. 95).

  pp. 55–56 “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling”: Philippians 2.12.

  56 For Tsong-kha-pa, writing in Tibet: Tsong-kha-pa (1357–1419) was the founder of the Geluk school of Tibetan Buddhism. This assertion is found in Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment, p. 179.

  56 “in order to arouse fear, trepidation and terror”: See, for example, SN I.4.2 and 3, p. 196.

  57 “Though a hundred thousand rogues just like you”: SN I.5.5, pp. 225–6.

  57 The fantasy . . . is both an anxious flight: For a further discussion of fixation, see Batchelor, Verses from the Center, pp. 61–3.

  7. The Devil’s Circle

  60 A disciple once found the Sufi sage Mullah Nasruddin: Quoted from memory.

  60 “Live like a milk-sucking baby”: SN I.4.9, p. 201.

  61 “Everything . . . endeavors to persevere in its own being”: From the third book of Spinoza’s Ethics, quoted in Russell, History of Western Philosophy, p. 572.

  62 The troops under Mara’s control: See p. 19 for a complete list of the ten “armies” of Mara.

  62 Buddha refused to be drawn on the question: These are among the fourteen questions Buddha refused to answer; see, for example, MN 63.2, p. 533. The fact that Buddha used the terms jiva (soul/life force) and sarira (body) in these passages suggests that the now familiar sp
lit between mind (citta) and matter (rupa) was not a dominant distinction for those to whom the discourses in the early canon were addressed. Later Buddhist traditions, however, inclined toward a body-mind dualism, in part due to the buddhological need to explain the process of rebirth.

  8. A Devil in the Way

  65 “Mara—the enemy of freedom”: Ashvaghosa, Buddhacarita, XIII. 2, p. 137.

  65 “A devil is anything that obstructs the achievement of freedom”: Quoted in Harding, Machik’s Complete Explanation, p. 117.

  65 “can be known here and now”: Sn 5.4.1053, p. 121.

  65 “The safe and good path that leads to happiness”: MN 19.25–6, p. 210.

  65 “saddled his ass and went with the princes of Moab”: Numbers 22.21.

  66 “one who throws something across one’s path”: Pagels, Origin of Satan, p. 39. Also see Arvind Sharma’s essay on Satan in Encyclopedia of Religion, edited by Eliade, vol. 15, pp. 81–2.

  66 “hath fenced up my way that I cannot pass”: Job 19.8.

  66 The Acts of the Apostles: Cf. Geering, Christianity Without God, p. 129. The passages noted by Geering are: Acts 9.2, 18.25, 19.23, 22.4, 24.14.

  66 “I will waylay Your servants” Koran 7.11ff.

  66 “Heaven and earth are ruthless . . . Lord of Slaughter”: Lao-tzu, Tao-te-ching 5, p. 147; 74, p. 234.

  67 “If I think well of my life”: Chuang-tzu, Basic Writings, p. 76.

  67 “become entangled with everything they meet”: Ibid., p. 32.

  67 “running one’s course like a galloping steed”: Ibid., p. 33.

  67 “He can commit an error and not regret it”: Ibid., p. 73.

  67 “puts himself in the background . . . benefits the ten thousand creatures”: Lao-tzu, Tao-te-ching 7, p. 150; 8, p. 151.

  68 “ancient path traveled by the awakened ones of old”: SN 12.65, p. 603.

  9. An Empty Space

  71 “absence of resistance”: In Tibetan, thogs reg dgag rtsam gyi med dgag, or more literally: “the simple negation which is the mere cessation of obstructive contact.” This is the standard definition of “uncompounded space” (dus ma byas kyi nam mkha) in the Geluk school of Tibetan Buddhism. Such space is a negation and as such cannot be imagined as a thing of any kind. If a fence were put across a room, it would eliminate the lack of resistance at the point where it stands. But nothing would have to be removed to make way for it. Space has added significance in serving as the classic example of a “simple negation” (med dgag), i.e., a negation that does not imply the presence of anything else, which is also for the Geluk a defining feature of emptiness (sunyata).

  72 By contrast, in Sanskrit the noun pratipad: I am indebted to Jenny Wilks for this example.

  72 “obstructed” by the devil of compulsions: The Tibetan for the Sanskrit kleshavarana is nyon mongs kyi sgrib pa, which literally translates as the “obstruction which is compulsion.” Only by overcoming this obstruction does one actually enter the path.

  73 “bands of thieves”: BCA 5.27–9. In a different context, Jesus describes the function of the devil in a similar way: “then cometh the wicked one and catcheth away that which was sown in the heart,” Matthew 13.19.

  74 “As soon as I know the mind is distorted”: BCA 5.34.

  75 For the . . . Indian philosopher Nagarjuna, such contingency is emptiness: MMK 24.18. See Batchelor, Verses from the Center, pp. 20–1 and 124.

  10. From Home to Homelessness

  77 “In a home . . . life is stifled in an atmosphere of dust”: Sn 3.1, 406. Cf. Nanamoli, Life of the Buddha, p. 11.

  77 “The foxes have holes”: Matthew 8.20.

  78 “Narrow is the way”: Matthew 7.14.

  78 Buddha recognized that it was not enough: “This noble truth of the path leading to the cessation of suffering is to be developed,” SN 5.56.11, p. 1845.

  79 As Ch’an (Zen) Buddhism evolved in China: Although the origins of Ch’an in China are traced to Bodhidharma in the sixth century, I refer here to the period from the Sixth Patriarch Hui-neng (638–713) onward when the tradition became widespread. The dispute between the advocates of “gradual” and “sudden” paths is a well-known feature of Zen lore, but modern scholarship suggests that the differences between these factions were considerably exaggerated for sectarian reasons. The distinction nonetheless sheds valuable light on the metaphor of the path. See McRae, Northern School.

  80 The path is more than just a task and a gift: This analysis of the path into three components—a goal, unobstructed movement, and a bond with others—corresponds to the threefold refuge in Buddhism. Taking refuge in Buddha is to commit oneself to the goal of the path of awakening; taking refuge in the Dharma is to commit oneself to treading the path itself; taking refuge in the Sangha is to commit oneself to those who inspire and accompany one on the path.

  11. What Is This Thing?

  83 “Where did you come from?” asked Hui-neng: This encounter between Hui-neng and Huai-jang is the basis for the practice of the koan “What is this?” as taught in the Son (Zen) monasteries of Korea. It is cited, for example, in Buswell, Korean Approach to Zen, p. 37. For an account of the historical role of “What is this?” in China’s Ch’an tradition, see Batchelor, Faith to Doubt, pp. 26–35. For a philosophical reflection on this kind of questioning as the foundation of religious consciousness, see Nishitani, Religion and Nothingness, pp. 1–45.

  83 Zen master Dogen declared Hui-neng’s “What is this thing?”: This is found in the Bussho fascicle of Dogen’s Shobogenzo, cited in Abe, Zen and Western Thought, p. 37.

  84 “that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties”: Keats, Letters, p. 43.

  85 According to legend: In Buddha’s own account of his life before his awakening (MN 26), this well-known story of the renunciation is not mentioned. Buddha does, however, recount it in DN 14, when telling his followers of the life of the former Buddha Vipassi. Since this discourse describes the characteristic features of the lives of all those who become Buddhas, it implies that, in outline at least, Gotama likewise underwent a similar sequence of experiences prior to awakening. Such a story is better treated as myth than biography.

  85 “From now on, as soon as a hint of desire”: Cited by Foucher, La Vie du Bouddha, p. 155; and Warren, Buddhism in Translation, p. 64. I follow Foucher here. I have been unable to trace the canonical source. Thanks to Sarah Harding for this reference.

  86 “If you meet Buddha . . . kill him”: LC, p. 25.

  86 “Because it is so very close”: Cleary, translator, Swampland Flowers, p. 71.

  12. The Riddle of the World

  87 The words on this page: The scientific information in the following paragraphs is taken from: Maddox, What Remains to be Discovered; Rees, Just Six Numbers; Damasio, Descartes’ Error, Gould, Wonderful Life; Fortey, Life: An Unauthorised Biography; Ehrlich, Human Natures; and Diamond, Guns, Germs and Steel.

  89 “improbable and fragile entity”: Gould, Wonderful Life, p. 319.

  92 “look solid . . . but they are as fluid as ripples on a stream”: Weiner, Beak of the Finch, pp. 88 and 111.

  13. On Being Conscious

  95 “The fire is at its last click”: Keats, Letters, p. 223.

  96 “the Photograph . . . is . . . the sovereign Contingency”: Barthes, La Chambre Claire, p. 15 (English: Camera Lucida, p. 4).

  97 “the size of a grain of sand”: Ramachandran and Blakeslee, Phantoms in the Brain, p. 8.

  98 Buddhism describes consciousness of the summer sky: Later Buddhist traditions developed forms of meditational practice (such as mahamudra, dzogchen, and Zen) that claim to lead to direct, nonconceptual insight into the nature of “Mind.” While tending to avoid the word “consciousness” (vijnana/rnam shes) in favor of “primordial awareness” (jnana/ye shes), “knowing” (vidya/rig pa), or “Mind” (citta/sems/hsin), these systems talk of an immaterial, transcendent mode of pure knowing that can be accessed by direct subjective experience. S
uch language is, however, largely alien to the discourses attributed to the historical Buddha in the Pali Canon. For a critique of the scientific materialist view of consciousness as an emergent property of the brain and an account of these practices as offering a systematic approach to legitimate insights into the nature of consciousness, see Wallace, Taboo of Subjectivity.

  14. This Body Is Breathing

  103 “ordinary men are deluded”: From Chinul, Straight Talk on the True Mind, in Buswell, The Korean Approach to Zen: The Collected Works of Chinul, pp. 167, 162.

  104 “The way . . . is in the ant”: Chuang-tzu, in Waley, Three Ways of Thought in Ancient China, p. 79.

  105 “If, possessed of such a body”: Sn 1.11.206, p. 21. Although the contemplation of the “foulness” of the body is often presented as a monastic strategy to overcome feelings of sensuous desire, Buddha includes it among the foundations of mindfulness as one of the means to understand life as it is, thereby leading to the realization of nirvana. See MN 10, pp. 145–149. In Tantric Buddhist iconography, the skeleton is an explicit symbol of selflessness.

  106 “the direct path . . . for the attainment of the true way”: MN 10.2, p. 145.

  106 “to the forest, to the root of a tree”: MN 43.33, p. 394.

  107 Breathing meditation renders you intimately aware: For another account of this practice, see Batchelor, Buddhism Without Beliefs, pp. 23–6 and 62–5. The canonical source of this passage is MN 118.15–22, pp. 943–4; see also SN 5.54, pp. 1765–87.

  109 Just as the flame of a candle: This image combines an analogy found in Hui-neng, Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch, section 15, p. 137, with oral meditation instructions in Tibetan Buddhism.

  15. Learning to Wait

  112 “Do you know who it is . . . right there before your eyes”: LC, p. 29. Lin-chi concludes this passage: “If a man has no faith [in this], he’ll waste his entire life.”

  113 “What is the purpose of nirvana?”: SN 3.23.1, pp. 984–5. This passage begins with a discussion of Mara. See also the translator’s footnote 243, pp. 1093–4.

  113 Whether it crystallizes into a question: On the Zen question (Korean: hwadu) “What is this?” see Batchelor, Faith to Doubt, pp. 26–35. The Korean Zen tradition compares the sensation of doubt that emerges from such questioning to the coagulation of milk. Teachers likewise suggest that this sensation be located in the belly.