Can Mara be real?

[oatsandmilk]

I have always thought of Mara as part of our inner darkness, the delusion, greed, hatred that we carry around.

Twice in past 20 months I have tried to develop my practice to strictest standards.

When the practice gets really intense and I am present and aware, following the 8FP scrupulously, my mind is becoming purer and purer (I can literally feel my mind getting purer because of the love and compassion I feel for strangers) there is a terrible rude interruption in my life from an unexpected direction.

Can Mara be real and external?

[Aloka]

Can Mara be real and external?

Only in your imagination.


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[Coëmgenu]

Māra according to traditional accounts is, in addition to being used by the Buddha as a personification of death, the aggregates, etc., a haughty godling called a "devaputra," a term also used for young royalty. If we consider "the gods" etc. to only exist in our imagination, then Māra Devaputra ("-putta" in Pāli) will be similarly "imaginery" and "not real."

[confusedlayman]

mara is a deva ruling highest sensual heaven.. he has daughters and he travels many realms.. he is concerned only with arhants or path of arhants .. other common people dont even recognise his trap so mara dont visit them..

if mara is imagination, then rebirth in that realm is also imagination which means arhant mogallana in one of former existence was a dream character?

[Lucas Oliveira]

Four types of Māra

In traditional Buddhism, four metaphorical forms of "māra" are given:[6]

Kleśa-māra - Māra as the embodiment of all unskillful emotions, such as greed, hate and delusion.
Mṛtyu-māra - Māra as death.
Skandha-māra - Māra as metaphor for the entirety of conditioned existence.
Devaputra-māra - the deva of the sensuous realm, who tried to prevent Gautama Buddha from attaining liberation from the cycle of rebirth on the night of the Buddha’s enlightenment.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mara_(demon)

Who is Mara?
viewtopic.php?t=4644

lately i try to celebrate my advances in Dhamma practice with a little more humility ..

sometimes I feel a very strong sense of peace and the fall soon after

our kilesas can sometimes trip us up

it's like the effect of a diet ..

the mind is being purified and then wants to be careless again

some monks compare the fight against the kilesas as a boxing match .. sometimes you hit and sometimes you get beaten ..

but these experiences also teach us how important it is to be aware along the way.

[Zom]

some monks compare the fight against the kilesas as a boxing match ..

Better compare it to a marathon many lifetimes long

[BVira]

Can Mara be real and external?

Why not? There are numerous interactions and conversations between Mara and the Buddha (and his disciples).

[Lucas Oliveira]

some monks compare the fight against the kilesas as a boxing match ..

Better compare it to a marathon many lifetimes long

Yes

Can Mara be real and external?

Why not? There are numerous interactions and conversations between Mara and the Buddha (and his disciples).

and in most religions

[form]

For those that explained it is imagination,there is no way they can explain the Mara figure that the Buddha and others encounteted n the sutta. Buddha. They are also imagining things?

[justindesilva]

For those that explained it is imagination,there is no way they can explain the Mara figure that the Buddha and others encounteted n the sutta. Buddha. They are also imagining things?

It may be imagination or not , but what is important is the result of overcoming the presence of Mara, lobha, dosa, moha
without which nirvana could be imagination too.

[SarathW]

I have always thought of Mara as part of our inner darkness, the delusion, greed, hatred that we carry around.

Twice in past 20 months I have tried to develop my practice to strictest standards.

When the practice gets really intense and I am present and aware, following the 8FP scrupulously, my mind is becoming purer and purer (I can literally feel my mind getting purer because of the love and compassion I feel for strangers) there is a terrible rude interruption in my life from an unexpected direction.

Can Mara be real and external?

When I get my practice strong some strange thing always happen to distrub it.
The most recent one is the Beehive in my doorstep and I have to kill few bees (unintentionally) trying to keep them away.

viewtopic.php?f=13&t=18564&p=260872&hilit=Mara#p260872

[chownah]

I think it doesn't matter of mara is real or not....I think what matters is that that there are disruptive happenings in the world and the buddha offers ways to avoid them.....you can consider these disruptive happenings to be the work of mara or kamma or chance or greed or dellusion or whatever but I think the bottom line is that one should learn ways to avoid those disruptive happenings....
chownah

[JC938]

IMO Mara can be real and can actually be seen with eyes. It's just my believe. Just like I believe God can be in our heart aswell can be seen with eyes.

[SteRo]

Can Mara be real and external?

Only in your imagination.

The word "only" might be misleading. Why? Considering that every verbally expressible sentiment of 'reality' is based on imagination Mara can of course be real and external (but also real and internal).

[circuit]

Mara is our clinging to samsara, our clinging to Five Aggregates, to kamatanha, bhavatanha, vibhavatanha , our clinging to notion of self --- unconsciously underlying latent defilements.
cmiiw