Are Brahmas still deluded by Mara? + more questions

[Bundokji]

What does your understanding have to do with the text from the Sutta (help elaborate)? Just genuinely trying to understand because I see it as the literal Mara (the Brahma) has influence over the court of Brahma and its attendants.

What purpose a literal understanding of Mara (and Brahmas for this matter) serve?

[alexYaYy]

What does your understanding have to do with the text from the Sutta (help elaborate)? Just genuinely trying to understand because I see it as the literal Mara (the Brahma) has influence over the court of Brahma and its attendants.

What purpose a literal understanding of Mara (and Brahmas for this matter) serve?

Sorry if I came of as rude, but IMO
it shows how Brahmas think that they themselves are eternal and that they will never perish. Mara is someone who takes advantage of this and tries to make others fall go against the idea of nibbana. For example Mara once stopped the Buddha from awakening. And also the Sutta can be summarized as

"In this sutta, the Buddha faces two antagonists: Baka, a brahma who believes that his brahma-attainment is the highest attainment there is; and Mara, who wants (1) to keep Baka under his power by allowing Baka to maintain his deluded opinion, and (2) to prevent the Buddha from sharing his awakened knowledge with others. Of the two, Mara is the more insidious, a point illustrated by the fact that Mara always speaks through someone else and never directly shows his face. (Another interesting point is illustrated by the fact that Mara is the source of the demand that one obey a creator god.)" which was taken from https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitak ... .than.html again

Understanding Brahmas and Mara shows us how the highest levels in the Buddhist Cosmology don't believe in the nibbana and they believe in eternalism. This sutta shows brahmas that the Buddha overcame with the awakened knowledge.

I still want to know where the first jhana one came from though

[Coëmgenu]

In the texts, when Māra is described as a "literal person" (deva), is he described as a universal person with personal sway over the hearts of the persons of gods and men? Or is he described as an odd haughty devaputta (godling, god-prince) who has a personal hatred of the Buddha and the Dharma and harasses his disciples and tries to harass him? It is when Māra is used metaphorically that he is present in the aggregates, or similarly, he is metaphorically present in all afflictions.

[sphairos]

Māra is just an allegory for the imperfect human nature, which the Buddha found how to perfect.

Brahmas etc. are just tales for simple Ancient Indian people, to motivate them perfect their nature (the gods listen to the Buddha, you also must listen!).

Duck Tales !

[mario92]

I remember bhante samahita said in one of his videos that mara was very frightening and ugly and also that his personality was like that of a psychopath and he gave the example as being very similar to The Joker, of Batman movie. I remember also was a thread of a member here in dhammawheel about all the tricks of Mara, i tried to search it but i never found it again.

[Coëmgenu]

simple Ancient Indian people

If you think ancient people were so simple, why are you a Buddhist? If you think that you are just as simple as your forerunners, why not believe in the Buddhadharma as it was told to them? Do you think that all of the immediate disciples of the Buddha were simple ancient people or just some? Presumably you don't think the Buddha himself was a simple ancient person. Did he have to lie because all the people around him were simple and now presently in the modern era we aren't simple anymore?

[sphairos]

simple Ancient Indian people

If you think ancient people were so simple, why are you a Buddhist? If you think that you are just as simple as your forerunners, why not believe in the Buddhadharma as it was told to them? Do you think that all of the immediate disciples of the Buddha were simple ancient people or just some? Presumably you don't think the Buddha himself was a simple ancient person. Did he have to lie because all the people around him were simple and now presently in the modern era we aren't simple anymore?

Well, no one who has actually read the Pāli canon and understood what it talks about, what the Buddha teaches about, believes in gods etc. These are just tales for converting people who believed in such gods.

[Coëmgenu]

I think that's a vainglorious and foolish assertion. Plenty who read the entirety of the Pāli Canon maintain right view. You have no reason to assert that. It is simply your opinion, your own "wrong view," in my opinion. You are not a gatekeeper on the issue of who actually reads and understands the Pāli Canon. Reading is not in and of itself an edifying activity. Understandings that disagree with your personal opinion that you have put on a high pedestal are not incorrect because you personally disagree with them.

[sphairos]

I think that's a vainglorious and foolish assertion. Plenty who read the entirety of the Pāli Canon maintain right view.

I think you might be among those who haven't actually read it and don't actually know what the Buddha teaches in the texts. Maybe you are exactly that simple (although modern) person for whom those funny insertions about gods etc. were made?

[Coëmgenu]

No, I think you are a run-of-the-mill Western Atheist in Buddhist clothing. I am a Buddhist. You merely metaphorically wear Buddhist clothing. Your heart is with materialism it seems, deep down. Look who's gatekeeper now!

[Ceisiwr]

Māra is just an allegory for the imperfect human nature, which the Buddha found how to perfect.

The Buddha didn’t teach the perfection of human nature. Humans are, by nature, imperfect beings. If he did, and Mara is an allegory for an imperfect human nature, why did the Buddha still experience Mara after his awakening?

[sphairos]

No, I think you are a run-of-the-mill Western Atheist in Buddhist clothing. I am a Buddhist. You merely metaphorically wear Buddhist clothing. Your heart is with materialism it seems, deep down.

I am not materialist, I am a sceptic. And the Buddha was a sceptic, of course. The Buddhist view is no-view. That's why he hesitated to teach, because his "view" is too subtle for simple religious persons as well as for most of deep thinkers.

[Ceisiwr]

No, I think you are a run-of-the-mill Western Atheist in Buddhist clothing. I am a Buddhist. You merely metaphorically wear Buddhist clothing. Your heart is with materialism it seems, deep down.

I am not materialist, I am a sceptic. And the Buddha was a sceptic, of course. The Buddhist view is no-view. That's why he hesitated to teach, because his "view" is too subtle for simple religious persons as well as for most of deep thinkers.

Wrong. The Buddha taught understanding and knowledge. Try again.

[sphairos]

Māra is just an allegory for the imperfect human nature, which the Buddha found how to perfect.

The Buddha didn’t teach the perfection of human nature. Humans are, by nature, imperfect beings. If he did, and Mara is an allegory for an imperfect human nature, why did the Buddha still experience Mara after his awakening?

It is just to point out that a perfect being still came out of an imperfect, humanly one. It is the same in all major spiritual traditions of the time -- Platonic, Stoic, Taoist, Zoroastrian etc.

[Ceisiwr]

Māra is just an allegory for the imperfect human nature, which the Buddha found how to perfect.

The Buddha didn’t teach the perfection of human nature. Humans are, by nature, imperfect beings. If he did, and Mara is an allegory for an imperfect human nature, why did the Buddha still experience Mara after his awakening?

It is just to point out that a perfect being still came out of an imperfect, humanly one. It is the same in all major spiritual traditions of the time -- Platonic, Stoic, Taoist, Zoroastrian etc.

If Mara is imperfect human nature and Buddha is perfected human nature then he shouldn’t be experiencing imperfect human nature.