So Siddhartha was sitting under a tree having just vowed never to move again until he solved the problem of what to do about human suffering. And the devil, aka Mara, appears. Regaled in the armor and splendor of a Chakravarthi, the world-ruler, Mara brought with him all his demonic army.
“It’s not too late to become the king of kings,” says the devil. “Just have sex with one of my three impossibly attractive daughters. Heck, you can even have a foursome.”
But Siddhartha did not move.
“Who do you think you are?” roared the prince of the earth, “I demand that you move from this spot.”
But Siddhartha refused.
At Mara’s signal, the legions unleashed a torrent of arrows, but they merely turned to flowers as they entered Siddhartha’s sphere of influence.
“By what right, what authority, can you claim to be worthy of attaining the answer to human suffering?!” Demanded the impossible ruler. “What makes you so special? And if you are indeed someone who has earned this right, you must be the only one. Who could possibly bear witness to your claims of worthiness?”
In reply, the monk touched his hand to the earth, and the ground shook beneath Mara’s feet.
The earth opened up, and a great voice boomed, “THIS WORLD BEARS WITNESS.”
And Mara was defeated.
Not long after, Siddhartha awakened and became the Buddha
What does all this mean? Life, the universe, the material things around us, the emotional and psychological ways we have of getting off, everything is an addiction. Just because you love working out is, while more effective at attaining longevity than the love of crack cocaine, still a problem if you feel a sense of guilt or unhappiness from not working out.
You can’t escape from the whole wanting/wanting to not want loop by resisting. Quitting heroin only makes you want more heroin until one day, five, ten, or twenty years later, you relapse and take too much.
Mara’s Gambit Was That Buddha Would React
If you insist on fighting your demons, then they will be more than happy to oblige. It’s part of the reason why manga/anime with nominally Buddhist source material like Dragon Ball continues to run even after 30 years. Encounter monster, train until stronger, beat the monster, repeat. Even when they ‘awaken’, it’s in the context of ‘a super-awesome technique to own the enemy’. The problem with this fantasy is that we aren’t cartoons. At some point, age beats us all. And Mara’s army is endless.
Modern society suggests replacing one bad habit with a better one. It helps. But getting caught up in one pursuit over another may not actually improve your experience of life. If it did, then the West would be happy. Instead, most of us are more miserable than those in the developing world. The moment you get what you want, you want something else. The obsession with drugs might get replaced by an obsession with moneymaking, and the addict in question might be rich instead of strung out, but if they’re still living under a miasma of perpetual fear, what difference does it make? There’s a reason Mara named his daughters, “Passion”, “Discontent”, and “Craving”. If you’re under the influence of one of the three, then you’re suffering no matter what is causing it.
And it doesn’t really work long-term until you recognize these impulses within yourself. Eating broccoli every time you want a cigarette doesn’t work unless you can figure out what about your subconscious makes you want to inhale cancerous substances several times a day.
You’ve got to figure out your own Mara.
That’s what Buddha’s final temptation is really about: skillfully addressing the drives that make us miserable life addicts in the first place.
Fight Without Fighting
To some extent, we all know we need to figure out why we do what we do to stop doing them. It’s what comes next that is so hard. Everyone determined to “make a change” or “become good” or “overcome adversity” or [insert inspirational quote here] wants to make it performative. We try to do too much. Or worse, we do nothing at all but convince ourselves we are making great progress by downloading new productivity apps, writing out checklists, and forming action plans, all the while putting off taking actual action.
Instead of charging Mara’s army with swords drawn, the real solution is much less interesting. It is to respond skillfully and non-violently. In Taoist terms, it’s to take the path of wu-wei and do just enough.
That’s what the Buddha did.
When he noticed passions, discontentment, and cravings rising within him, he didn’t engage with them. When an enormous army embodying sheer terror struck at him, he remained calm. And when the devil himself barked at him to move, he stayed in the exact same spot. Because he remained true to his cause, he did not need to defend himself or craft arguments to prove it, he merely pointed to the whole world to bear witness to his convictions.
Anyone who’s taken up meditation for any period of time is familiar with the metaphor. Sitting cross-legged, eyes partially open, you vow to work through your problems. And then, errant thoughts start popping into your head. The more you push against them, the stronger they become until you find yourself having spent the entire session embroiled in daydreams, nightmares or both. But with enough practice, you can catch yourself noticing your thoughts. From there you gain the ability to choose whether to let them pass or to act on them in the best possible way.
The Buddha Was Different
Myths being what they are, Buddha’s whole test seems to take place in the span of minutes. But like any epic story, true events have been exaggerated for dramatic effect. In reality, its characters are only able to do what they did after years of practice. Siddhartha had trained in several yogic and ascetic arts and was well-versed with meditation.
That this was the final temptation, to be followed forever by blissful and everlasting inner peace is perhaps possible only to the archetypal ideal of the Buddha himself. For the rest of us, enlightenment is a continual practice. Even arhats, "living Buddhas” who have supposedly attained the highest states of consciousness possible to human beings after rigorous mental and spiritual training, are still susceptible to losing their temper, getting jealous, or feeling lust. The difference seems to be that they’ve trained themselves to such a degree that they’re able to either let it pass or respond with effortlessly appropriate tact.
So while we aren’t likely to attain ultimate enlightenment, we can practice having enlightened moments. By sitting and paying attention, we can notice the source of our errant thoughts to be whispers of Mara himself. By choosing not to take the bait, we avoid getting entangled in the snares of suffering. And by acting as tactfully and as skillfully as possible, the world around us will be proof enough of our goodness.
True addicts will tell you that there is no real rock bottom. That they just keep sinking to deeper and deeper lows. Humiliation follows humiliation. What saves those who make it out alive is the realization that the ultimate hell on earth where they will decide to turn things around is as mythical as the ultimate heaven that people who’ve figured it all out get to inhabit. Instead, there’s only up or down.
Sit down and pick a direction.
Maybe there’s a path that abandons seeing life as a struggle against the bad and instead sees it as a part of life to be transformed.