SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL

by Sarah Harding

It seems simple enough that if the basic ground of the Great Mother mani¬fests as Tara, Machik, dakinis, and all those other lofty beings, then the world of spirits and demons that plays such a big role in the practice of Chod is sim¬ply the opposite: the bad guys. The forces of light versus the forces of the dark. There is no doubt that the universal human tendency to anthropomorphize this cosmic drama of our own consciousness plays a significant part in the

imagery, of Tibetan rituals, a tendency that goes back to the earliest Buddhist scriptures. But a careful reading of Machik’s words will reveal that this is exactly the problem: it is this bifurcation of the phenomenal world into good and bad, gods and demons, that must be severed in the practice that she developed. So in this text, for the most part, god-demons do not necessarily represent the negative half of a duality, but rather duality itself, whereas

the realm of basic space that manifests simultaneously as the pure world of deities and dakiniss represents transcendence of that duality. Our talent for intricately dividing our world into good and bad should gain some transparency with a close reading of this book, particularly chapter 4. But since unseen spirits play such an important role in Tibetan Buddhism, and since modernity has distanced itself from this once-common human language, some investigation of the layers of interpretation might be helpful.

Mara and Evil

The notion of negativity and its personification as Mara date back to at least the beginnings of Buddhism. The term in Sanskrit is a nominalized form of the verbal root wr-, “to die,” and can be associated with actual death or spiritual death. It also comes to -represent anything that impedes spiritual attainment, such as doubt, desire, self-aggrandizement, fear, or obsession. In the life of the historical Buddha, Mara plays a continuing role as tempter and impeder of spiritual practice. He constantly tags after Prince Gautama, the future Buddha, trying to distract him from any virtuous activity, even tempting him with world domination. The prince doesn’t fall for it, but Mara doesn’t give up easily:

“I shall catch you,” thought Mara, “the very first time you have a lustful, malicious or unkind thought.” And, like an ever-present shadow, he followed after, ever on the watch for some slip.33

Notice the use of the word shadow here, which I think is not unrelated to the idea of the “shadow” in the psychological sense. As the shadow, Mara grows with every advance of the “light,” that is, the bodhisattva’s proximity to enlightenment. And true to his word, it is at the final moments before

Sakyamuni’s full awakening that Mara pulls out all the stops, bombarding the meditating future Buddha with aggression, in the form of armies, and passion, in the form of his sexy “daughters.” The defeat of Mara is a major chapter in every account of the Buddhas life and becomes synonymous with the Bud¬dha’s enlightenment itself. The beautiful Lalitavistara Sutra,, in which Mara is “the lord of desire,” recounts exactly how he is defeated:

Seeing the frightful transformations of Mara’s army,

the Pure Being recognizes them all as a product of illusion. There is no demon, no army, no beings; there is not even a self.

Like the image of the moon in the water, the cycle of the three worlds is misleading.34

The Buddha’s defeat of “evil” through his realization of nonself and his sub¬sequent full enlightenment35 is precisely the intent of Machik’s practice, fully titled Dud kyi Chodyul “severing the object (or field) of evil.” It is commonly acknowledged • that she gained enlightenment while reading the section on Mara in a Prajnaparamita sutra, but exactly which one is not known. There are some possibilities cited at the end of chapter 4 of this text, and The Reli¬gious History of Zhije and Chod quotes the “chapter on Mara from the pra- jhaparamita” as follows: “You should understand that anything that impedes you, from embodiment until omniscience, is the work of mara.” 36

The Blue Annals, on the other hand, cites the Prajndpdra'mitdratnagun- asancayagdtha:

If as many beings as there are in the fields—countless as the sands of the Ganges—would all, let us assume, become maras;

And if every single hair on their bodies would again magically create a snare, they could all not hinder the Wise. For four reasons does the powerful and wise bodhisattva Become unassailable by the four maras: Because he dwells in the emptiness; Because he does not abandon other beings; Because he acts as he speaks; Because he is sustained by the Sugatas?7

There are innumerable such references to Mara in the prajnaparamita sutras that may have catalyzed Machik’s realizations. In any case, it is in the context of Mara as spiritual obstruction that we get a breakdown into sets of maras, or “devils” as I have translated, culminating in the four maras specific to Chod practice. In the early literature there were anywhere from one to five maras: “Maras of defilement, of the aggregates, and of kamma [karma]

formations, Mara as deity, and Mara as death.”38 In the Mahayana there are usually four:

1. The mara of the aggregates: the five aspects of embodied experi¬ence—form, feeling, sensation, formation, and consciousness. Just having a body with perception and consciousness can act as an obstacle to full awakening.

2. The mara of the afflictive emotions, the emotional reactions in response to the pleasure, pain, and neutrality of perceptions.

3. The mara of the “child of the gods,” that is, being spoiled and indul¬gent to the extent that any spiritual development is precluded by complacency.

4. The mara of death, or “the lord of death,” an obstacle that needs no description.39

Sometimes these are called the sutra maras, whereas the four we find spe¬cifically in Chod are called tantra maras. These two groups are also referred to as outer and inner maras, respectively. But the maras in most tantric liter¬ature remain as these found in Mahayana, often taking on the form of subju¬gated gods. In the Srihevajravydkhyavivarana, for

instance, they appear as the Hindu gods Brahma, Yaksa, Indra, and Yama, respectively, crushed under the feet of the (Buddhist) deity Hevajra.40 In the Chod of Machik, however, the list seems to be somewhat original. We find it partially suggested _in the short poem by “Aryadeva the Brahmin” 'that is often given as a source text {gzhung) for Chod. The other source text is Machik’s own composition, perhaps one of the earliest, from which the list is drawn:

Devils are classified as four:

Tangible devil and intangible devil,

The devil of exaltation and the devil of inflation.

But all are subsumed under the devil of inflation.41

i. The tangible devil is related to outer objects of perception and can be associated with the mara of aggregates, the perceptions of an embodied being.

1. The intangible devil is the relationship with inner disturbances, sometimes perceived as invisible, external forces, and can be related to the mara of afflictive emotion.

3. The devil of exaltation is the excitement and attachment to positive experiences and qualities that arise in spiritual practice. Although remotely similar to the mara of a child of the gods, it really seems to be unique to Machik’s system and is not mentioned in Aryadeva’s poem.

4. The devil of inflation, or attachment to an existent self, does not spe¬cifically correspond to the previous Mahayana list but is a concept that underlies all Buddhist teachings.

These four are described in detail in the present text, whereas the first set gets no mention. The all-important mara is the last one, which I have trans¬lated as “the devil of inflation.” I have chosen inflation as the closest word that gives a sense of both arrogance and distortion resulting from reification.4 The term as used in modern psychology is pertinent, although we should be cau¬tious in this analysis. Psychologically it indicates an exaggeration that covers up or compensates for the lack of a strong ego structure—the big bully that is hiding a basic insecurity. But in Buddhism, this insecurity results from the creation of and fixation on a false self, a self that isn’t really there in the true sense. This is the inflated devil that we create and try to maintain at all costs— basic ignorance.

This is the conclusion that the Buddha £akyamuni reached in tracing the cause of suffering, revealed in his first teachings of the Four Noble Truths. The cause of suffering is clinging to a false sense of self. In Machik’s in-depth analysis of inflation, she makes the distinction that the practice of Chod (and of Dharma) does not aim to remove the agent that causes inflation (snyems byed), because that in fact is mind itself, or intrinsic awareness. Only the inflation that it creates (snyems by a), the bloated self, is to be severed in the practice of Chod. It is a subtle point and quite disarming of any tendency to interpret mara as an actual entity to be destroyed.

Mara in all the contexts mentioned above is clearly an abstract notion about inner obstacles on the path to awakening, and for that reason it may be appropriate to employ psychological or philosophical notions to describe it. Even in the stories of Buddha’s enlightenment, where the drama of pro¬tagonist and antagonist is reported in the most personified way, the audi¬ence is constantly reminded -of its allegorical nature. It is not a secret kept by ancient mystics. ' So is the choice of the word devil or evil to translate it counterproductive? These words bring in Christian connotations that are not

necessarily present. “Evil” is not a primordial state or entity of any kind, merely a lack of awareness. The personified devil, Mara, is more a descrip¬tion of the sense of struggle that a spiritual seeker faces in trying to be fully awake. This is a significant difference from the theistic notions of human struggle with evil that reflects the cosmic tension between the creator God and his nemesis. On the other hand, the enactment of the interior

strug¬gle in the terms of a humanlike drama with good guys and bad guys has an enormous appeal to people of all religions. It is more than entertainment; it speaks directly to a deep place of mythic sensibility and understanding that might otherwise be untouched by an analytic or even strictly spiritual approach. Therefore, I favor the word devil for mara to reflect the metaphor that the tradition itself has employed.

Gods and Demons

The Tibetans used the word bdud, (pronounced dud, with the last “d” almost unvoiced) to translate the term mara that they found in Sanskrit texts. But with this translation, another world of experience was brought into the story. Dud was already widely used in Tibetan to refer to a category of specific demonic manifestations, and also as a generic word for all negative spirits. I have used the word devils for the generic usage in order to maintain the con¬tinuity that the Tibetan presents, but in the lists of specific subcategories I have stuck mostly to the Tibetan names, including died. It is quite impossible to identify all these invisible beings according to Western demonology unless one is privy to sightings of both Tibetan and Western spirits.

The Tibetan worldview includes multitudes of normally invisible spirits. Some of them trace back to ancient times, some were adopted from Indian Buddhism, and some are a blending of both.43 Foreign observers of old could not but comment on them. Alexandra David-Neel, the intrepid French¬woman who traveled the back paths of Tibet disguised as a Tibetan “insig¬nificant mama,” reported: “There is hardly any country which can vie with Tibet as to the riches, variety and picturesqueness of its folklore regarding ghosts and demons. If we were to rely on popular beliefs, we should conclude that evil spirits greatly outnumber the human population of the ‘Land of Snow.’”4*

Although Tibetans create lists and enumerations at every possible chance, consistency does not seem to be emphasized. I will therefore not try to repro¬duce a manual of demonology here. The current text covers many types of spirits, some of them in alarming ' detail. But this particular conspectus does not necessarily agree in all details with that in other sources. It may be that these spirits don’t always stay in their hordes of origin and that many of them are awfully shape-shifty. Instead, I would like to mention some ideas about the beings that in this text are broadly called gods and demons. Actually, the word in Tibetan is simply lha dre, god-demons—there is no “and.” Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche has suggested that it should be translated as one word:

In Tibetan there is the term “lha ’dre” which is used here, it means ‘god¬demons,’ it is one word actually. It is because, sometimes, when these god-demons are in a positive mood, they will help you, then they are benefi¬cial. But when they are hurt:, they will harm you in turn.*

Machik also describes some of the classes of god-demons this way, such as the gods and demons by worldly designation. However, the significance and benefit of these teachings is to help us understand how we create these catego¬ries by judging a phenomenon as either helpful (god) or harmful (demon) to the all-important self. If the phenomenal world were consciously recognized as relative and changing, as basically good-bad or god-demon, then perhaps a practice such as Chod would be irrelevant. But that is not often the case, regardless of whether actual gods and demons are a part of the scenery. In many ways the

distinctions we make are a natural and crucial function of consciousness. Survival is predicated on the ability to differentiate between potentially harmful and harmless situations—the difference between a lion and a rabbit, for instance. But of course the tendency is to attribute the classifications (pred¬ator or prey, demon or god) as qualities that are inherent and ultimately exist¬ing in the • phenomenon itself, rather than in the relationship

between oneself and the phenomenon. We do this constantly and unconsciously, a result of the initial reification of the self. And therein lies the problem. But are all these helpful and harmful spirits just a childish projection of the judging consciousness, a remnant of “indigenous” cultures, or are they a part of the environment that we should take seriously? And what relationship do they have with the pantheon of buddhas, bodhisattvas, deities, dakinls, and dharma protectors that are also invoked in the Chod practice?

The question, of course, does not apply uniquely to Tibetan culture. There is no place on earth inhabited by humans that was not at some point also perceived as inhabited by spirits. And this is not just true of the so-called indigenous cultures; all of the world religions give significant space in their scriptures to dealings with the unseen world.46 It is only in the era of science that such entities have been ostensibly rejected. In addition, there continue to be significant numbers of people who claim to

see such beings. Are we to totally ' dismiss such claims as the same ' paranoid hallucinations that the whole world was having until only recently? In cultures of the Himalayan regions the environment is alive with all kinds of sensed presence, not all of them perceptible by just the five senses. When I asked Kalu Rinpoche if demons really existed, he replied honestly that they really existed in Tibet, but that he wasn’t sure about America. Along with the scientific worldview today, there is an increasing disengagement from the sensuous world, especially in urban areas. Perhaps also the written

word has us in its spell now, more than the living, breathing world of nature.47 But it doesn’t take much time in the silence of the wilderness, alone at night, for the landscape to come alive. In that situation, sensitivity to the environment becomes essential, and our senses strain beyond their normal range to receive every bit of information. Once upon a time, it was just that kind of information that became the inherited wisdom of the tribe.

In Tibet, the living, inhabited landscape of sacred places and scary spirits was simply the world. The observation and prediction of malevolent and benevolent forces was the great human enterprise. The most precise study of invisible spirits is found in the medical sciences, where it is intimately connected with physical and mental health.48 In other words, it was considered' a science. Knowledge of this world created professionals in the healing arts and in the ecclesiastic ranks, or in both together, as with doctor-lamas or astrologer-priests. Yogins and mendicants were especially suited to this

job. They lived on the fringe, in a liminal zone between human and nonhuman elements, and their spiritual practices heightened their ability to communicate between worlds. This is especially true of the Chód practitioners, whose mendicant lifestyles and preference for this otherworldly society made them perfect ambassadors to .the spirit world.

Why then are there so many injunctions to recognize the nonexistence of demons, to see them as projections of our own mind? We even get impatient with this more-than-obvious advice that is continually impressed on us. But in Tibetan Buddhism there is far more literature describing how to appease gods and demons than there is on how to recognize them as nonexistent. Are these two approaches contradictory, or meant for different elements of the society: the

“simple folk and the lamaist elite,” as David-Neel calls them? I think not:. Rather, these two approaches reflect the universal Buddhist instruction on dealing with all perception: to recognize it as inherently empty, and to apply skillful means and awareness of karma at the same time. Certainly gods and demons are not excluded. In fact, if one sees the world in terms of good and evil, then that is precisely where the teachings must be applied. This holds true whether one experiences actual gods and demons, or friends and enemies, or thoughts of love and hate. The point is that all experience, visible or invisible, has the same quality: empty manifestation.

We say that something is “only in your mind” as if that is a small matter. Yet what could be more powerful? And where else could something be? The main point of divergence in “modern” thinking is the split between what is experienced inside, “only in the mind” and what is truly out there, “for real.” We

take these to be two separate worlds, but the authors of this literature did not experience this dichotomy—internal and external were one continuous, seamless whole. This was taken for granted and even unanalyzed. But it is extremely important for us to remember it while surveying this kind of

commentary or the sense 'of it will be lost and we will attribute the belief in the spirit world to earlier influences of pre-Buddhist Tibet, and logic and emptiness to the Indian Buddhism that entered Tibet from outside. Then we will see Tibetan Buddhism as some kind of tension of these two opposite influences, calling one shamanistic and the other “pure” Buddhism.

We find in Machik’s Complete Explanation a profound exposé of the psychological functioning behind the notion of evil and of how consciousness reifies concepts of good and bad into gods and demons. Then, without skipping a beat, it goes on to a minute description of the styles and behavior of those very gods and demons that have been deconstructed. There is no self-conscious contradiction and no indication that there is a polarity that needs to be explained.

This is not just something peculiar to Machik—I think it is found through¬out Tibetan Buddhism. The famous yogi Milarepa, a contemporary of Machik, was also known for his many dealings • with gods and demons through which his own spiritual path was enhanced. In one instance, his realization that such

apparitions were not only unthreatening, but were actually supportive for practice elicits the exclamation, “Today I have witnessed the fact that all the Devas and demons have become Guardians of the Dharma.”49 The remark¬able thing is that the spirits don’t just disappear once their illusory nature has been realized by the yogin. Rather, a new relationship with them is formed. Most stories end with the demons promising to serve the practitioner. But of course! “Emptiness is no other than form,” so why should the world vanish just because it is recognized?

Deities and Gods

There remains the question of the relationship between the manifestations of enlightened beings, as it was explained before, and that of the appearance of spirits. The word in Tibetan that is most often translated as deity and the word for the first half of “gods and demons” are the same: lha (Sanskrit: deva). Yet these two terms seem to be conceived differently. This may be another instance of a Tibetan word that already had a full range of meaning being employed as a translation of a Buddhist Sanskrit word. And there may be some ambiguity be¬cause of this, such that all beneficent spirits are grouped together, whether they represent an embodiment of total enlightenment or just a friendly mountain spirit or a local demon that has been “converted” to the Dharma.

Is it important to make this complete division? Or do transcendent deities and worldly gods fall into the same category of empty, luminous being that is mistakenly perceived as dualistic appearance?

Fortunately, Machik does have some advice on this. In a remarkable attempt to make sense of it all, she applies the twofold template of gods and demons to all levels of experience.

The categories (in chapter 4) are the gods and demons

(1) as designated by worldly people;

(2) by their essential mode of being;;

(7) superimposed on observed appearances;

(4) natural or coemer- gent;

(5) as inevitable karmic forces; and

(6) as ultimate gods and demons.

She makes it quite clear that discrimination is absolutely necessary in just the last two cases, and for the rest: fearless compassion.

You need to know that this is definite: gods and demons are what is to be accepted or rejected. Both ultimate gods and karmic gods are definitely gods to be taken into practice. Not to take these two gods into practice is contrary to my dharma system. Both ultimate demons and karmic demons are definitely demons that must be rejected. Not to reject these two demons is contrary to my dharma system, son. Gods and demons other than the karmic gods and demons

and the ultimate gods and demons, such as those explained before, though called gods and demons, are not definite. Remain in equanimity without discrimination toward those gods and demons. Whether they are gods or demons, know that they are your mothers and fathers. Hold them with the hook of love and compassion and nurture them by giving your bodily flesh and blood, (chapter 4)

CHOD

Chod is first and foremost a method for releasing the fixation on the . intrinsic reality of a self and of phenomena. In that sense, it is no different from any other practice of Buddhism. I once asked Thrangu Rinpoche about how Chod {gcod) differed from Cho (chos, “Dharma”), and he said it was the same—only more so. Chod is distinctive in its radical methods of intensifying obsession and inducing emotional upheavals and apparitions of fear, the bet¬ter to observe and sever ' them.

Contrary to that oft-stated purpose, it is pursued both in Tibet and in the West mainly as an encounter with the spirit world. Jamgon Kongtrul laments: The charity of the body and the feast ceremony both have extensive instructions concerning preliminary and concluding parts. The main practice [of feeding the spirits] should be understood as an offshoot [of those]. But these days, most so-called Chod practitioners don’t get the main point and only seem to desire the branches.^

In Za Patrul’s delightful diatribe in the much-loved The Words of My Perfect Teacher we find a strong critique of improper Chod practice. He states: What today’s so-called Chod practitioners mean by Chod is a grisly process of destroying malignant spirits by killing, slashing, chopping, beating

or chasing them. Their idea of Chod involves being constantly full of anger. Their bravado is nothing more than hatred and pride. They imagine that they

have to behave like the henchmen of the Lord of Death. For example, when they practice Chod for a sick person, they work themselves into a furious display of rage, staring with hate-filled, eyes as large as saucers, clenching their fists, biting their lower lips, lashing out with blows and grabbing the invalid so hard that they tear the clothes off his back. They call this subduing spirits, but to practise Dharma like that is totally mistaken?1

Even early on, the practice of Chod was associated with exorcism and demon suppression, being adapted to these important activities that were in practice long before Machik came on the scene. At some point, even prajnaparamita literature itself was used as an exorcism tool. A ritual employing The Heart Sutra is “prescribed as a cure for a wide range of calamities, misfortunes, dangers, and afflictions, including epidemic, possession by demons, sick

livestock, loss of wealth or properly, dying under a bad star, false accusations, and bad dreams.”^ The use of Chod for these kinds of remedies is by now ubiquitous in Tibet, and even in the West touring lamas perform Chod exorcisms. But in the text translated here, Machik makes it abundantly clear that she did not intend it as exorcism but as a practice in relinquishing the self rather than protecting it. Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche even says that

practitioners are advised to remove their protection cords when practicing Chod, since self-protection contradicts the spirit of total generosity.

Machik’s relationship with her spirits is one of compassion, and it is com¬passion that is yet another skillful method to undermine ego-fixation. One cannot but feel that this relationship is particularly feminine and motherly, suited to the woman who developed it. At the very least, it more than lives up to the feminine stereotype of nurturing and nourishing. But the healing and protecting possibilities have been the biggest appeal, and the outrageousness has had the most press. Before succumbing to the “gothic charm” of ritual dismemberment and engorging demons, however, let us look briefly at the traditional teachings of Chod.