Compassion for the Devil Part II
What a millennia-old monk has to teach about filling the hole in your soul
In that liminal space between conscious and unconscious, where most of us dream and forget but where serious meditators and occult practitioners lucidly dwell, the devil, aka Mara, finds the enlightened Buddhist monk, Upagupta.
“I have a gift for you, holy man,” says Mara, placing a jade piece around the monk’s neck. It’s a false act of devotion, designed to break Buddhist vows: Monks aren’t allowed to adorn themselves with beautiful things. He’s broken his vow! Look at his hypocrisy!
But the monk remained a monk. Like the Buddha, his world is unaffected by whether or not others see him as holy.
“I have a gift for you, too,” says the monk. Then Upagupta takes the corpses of a man, a dog, and a snake. He turns them into a garland of flowers and places them around the devil’s neck.
Whereas the enlightened one was unmoved by the devil’s gift, the devil panics and does everything he can to get rid of Upagupta’s. When nothing else works, Mara returns submits to the monk. At the monk’s recommendation, the devil takes refuge in “The Three Jewels”: the Buddha, the Dharma (i.e. way), and the Sangha (i.e. community). Mara ceases his attacks on Buddhism and even helps it to spread unopposed from then on.
A garland of flowers made from corpses for a beautiful jade necklace. Who got the better end of the deal?
Compare the two presents: Mara took a dead, unmoving, rock. His world made it seem like something coveted and precious. That’s his whole MO. As a result, we spend our lives chasing after dead things and forget why they are valuable even as our dependence on them grows.
A quick search on the symbology of jade reveals that it’s supposedly worn by those who feel their path to prosperity is blocked. While it isn’t wrong to give jade as a gift, it is wrong if your intention is to entrap somebody in the material world with it.
The enlightened monk, Upagupta, is already prosperous. He has everything he could ever need. Anything extra is superfluous because he’s learned to curb his desires. To place jewels around his neck to suggest he’s lacking is like administering chemotherapy to a healthy person. Instead of making them healthier, you’re trying to make them sick. No surprise coming from Mara, though, he’s pulled that trick before.
An Alternate Take on the Eden Story
Theologians and Bible literalists have long puzzled over which exact fruit Adam and Eve ate to give them the knowledge of good and evil. The bible doesn’t actually say. So what awakened their awareness of sin and led them to cover themselves up with leaves upon realizing their own inadequacy? The answer: you’re fixating on objects again.
The con was never in the fruit, but what the fruit represents: The promise of more. When the serpent told them that eating the fruit will make them “as gods”, he opened up a possibility they hadn’t dreamed of before. How great would it be to be more than who we are now through the simple act of consumption?
So they ate the fruit and waited. And when no godlike transformation happened, they compared what being a god was supposed to feel like to their current experience. Their skin was imperfect, their features less than divine, they had all these sensations and emotions they didn’t understand. And so the gap between what existence was and what it was “supposed to be” widened. The more they thought about it, the more they wanted and were wanting.
Fieldwork and childbirth and being human always required work. When they saw it as a fact of life in balance with what fieldwork and childbirth produced—delicious food and delightful children—it didn’t seem so much like suffering. But once the seed was planted that they could have one without the other, the endless quest for the impossible began. Spoiler: we’re still wanting to this day.
“But I thought the fruit was psychedelics.”
The fruit is whatever object you think will magically solve your problems or give you superpowers.
What the fruit did was nothing. What the fruit represents are things you can’t own. Why is it that want is used both to describe the desire for something we don’t have and the lack of some ability or trait? It’s no coincidence that when you desire something or come up short you are “found to be wanting”. The definitions are only separate in a cursory dictionary sort of way. In reality when you say, “I want” you are simultaneously saying, “I am without.”
Adam and Eve were already divine, connected to “God”, i.e. the oneness that permeates everything. They were already perfect beings, not flawless (nothing in nature ever is), but perfect in the sense that they were exactly the parts of the greater whole that they needed to be at that exact time.
“But Terence McKenna says the fruit is actually mushrooms, Amanita Muscaria are red like apples and…”
Look, while I don’t think people should be put in cages for taking mind-altering substances, psychedelics are not “gurus in plant form”. Ego-death, accelerated thinking, greater openness to ideas, etc. these are the potential effects of psychedelics, not “divine wisdom” or “infinite life”. Nobody has taken drugs and done amazing things they weren’t already inclined to before. The drugs merely produce a series of sensations that cause your less-inhibited thoughts to feel more profound. In some cases, they might break down the barriers between states we normally experience as conscious and unconscious. But you’re not getting anything that isn’t already there.
The Thing You Want Is Never Actually a Thing
The “apple of your eye” could be anything. Fruits, drugs, fast cars, cash wads, tech devices, stock options, even jade necklaces. What matters to Mara and the material world he lords over is that you associate it with values the objects themselves could never hope to possess. Status, luxury, virility, productivity, prosperity… No material thing will fill that hole, but the devil is happy to let you try. Fetishization (in the non-sexual sense) is what Mara’s all about.
That’s how every “deal with the devil” works: you get exactly what you thought you wanted, only to realize you’re no closer to attaining the values associated with it and now you’re an eternity too late.
By giving Upagupta a small jade necklace and the prosperity it represents, Mara’s acting like a dealer handing out samples. “Here’s a piece of the material world, just give me your soul for the rest of it.”
It doesn’t work. What saves Upagupta is that he sees things for what they are. He is totally indifferent to the necklace. To him, gold chains and jewels are just metal and stones. He’s trained himself free from the material world of Mara.
The Devil Doesn’t Get What He Wants, But He Finds What He Needs
Now, look at what Mara gets in return. By making flowers from corpses, Upagupta performs the opposite of a magical illusion. After all, flowers grow from soil and what is soil but decomposing organic matter? Like the old adage about people not wanting to know how their sausage is made, Mara freaks out because he’s shown what his gift actually is. Every object that can be coveted came from dust and dirt and will one day be dust and dirt again. Even demon kings will be forgotten. Those flowers become a millstone around his neck, constantly reminding him of the inescapable nature of existence.
‘Til Death Does Its Part
The memento mori, an object reminder of death, is a common trope. For Stoics and other philosophers in the European tradition, it’s meant to heighten our feeling that life is precious. At its most banal, it’s a productivity hack. A skull you carry around to remind yourself “that’s where you're headed, get your bucket list done while you still can”. It also has its problems. Instead of unattainable desires, memento mori embody burdens you can never shake. If you use the knowledge of death to drive you towards doing more, then you’re no better off than when you were chasing unattainable desires. You’ve merely traded want for fear.
For some, memento mori serves as a way into the present moment. The reminder of death lets them value what they have right now. While this is a healthier approach to our own mortality, something about the need to physically manifest death still strikes me as macabre. Instead of fetishizing Mara’s objects, you’re fetishizing death.
For me, the most satisfying way to make peace with death is by unpacking the symbol of Yin and Yang. Two forces forever becoming one another. Decay and growth, the material and the spiritual, the bad and the good, it’s all connected and nobody can have one without the other. Not even the devil.
Upagupta’s Cure For Want
Knowing the truth isn’t enough, which is why Upagupta recommends that the devil take refuge in “the Three Jewels”. While the three-part solution of “Buddha”, “Dharma” and “Sangha” may seem off-putting at first, it’s a lot less religiously prescriptive than you might think.
To contemplate the Buddha does not require worship. While it carries connotations of submitting to a higher power, it’s really asking you to remember your own context. In therapeutic terms, it’s the recognition that no matter where you’re coming from, you are and have always been enough. What’s more, there is always the potential to be better. I know I’m leaving a lot out, but at its most basic, the Buddha achieved ultimate peace because he truly embodied this wisdom. You don’t have to be a Buddha or even a monk to do the same, you just need to practice cultivating the wisdom and compassion that already exists within.
As for “Dharma” or “the way”, it’s all about skillful practice. Carry this recognition that you are connected with everything, including your adversaries, into your actions. It isn’t enough to be right, one must demonstrate rightness without causing unnecessary damage. Upagupta didn’t try to fight Mara or deceive him. Instead, he chose the perfect gift: truth delivered in a way that would resonate with his adversary. In transforming Mara, he transformed himself.
Finally, the “Sangha” or “community of practitioners” is a major reason churches endure today even though most of the more fantastic elements of religion have been debunked by science. Seeking out those on the same path you’re on doesn’t just foster camaraderie, it gives you access to real people who have been where you are or could use your help getting there. They may have solved the same problems you might be facing or need your help solving theirs. Both are transformative. Last week, we talked about Ashoka’s conversion from a cruel tyrant into a benevolent ruler. It would not have been possible without the monks he met or teachers like Upagupta.
Compassion for the Devil
Just as good and evil are interconnected, so too are you and your demons. Rather than conquer, convert. Recognize that objects are not the desires we associate them with, and we free ourselves from the want and lack that is Mara’s domain. Accept death and decay as a necessary part of life and growth, and calm the fear that drives demonic activity. Finally, through our contemplation, practice, and community, we shift from wanting perfect things to becoming perfect people. By transforming ourselves, we transform our devils.
I think it's clear that this is a parable written by people. One would think that Mara would be more canny and experienced than is portrayed. Moreover, why would someone so powerful be panicked about anything?
Beyond that, though, I agree with your overall point: how that temptation to want "more," is the root of so many of our problems. Your point about yin and yang is good too: you can't get one without the other. So perhaps the problem with "more" is that the more we strive for one side, the faster we pull the other one along with it.