Season 3, Ep. 3, School for Yogis, class 3: Mara's Trick

Lowly yogi shares how important it is not to bite the hook of outrage, don't fall for Mara's trick.

Transcript

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Earth, mother and friends, you cross our heart. Hello, hello, hello and welcome back to the Lonely Yogi Tales and other stuff podcast. So happy that you found me wherever you find yourself vibrating in that multiverse. Attune this way. Let's have some fun together. We've been taking the journey for the school for yogis and we're in class three already. Class three, Mara's trick. Now. I want to let y'all know, I gave this talk 13 years ago, just about this time, the end of the year, right before the Lunar New Year. The Tibetan system is, it's, dune season. Dune season is, uh, a dune is a being that comes out and, it's a little bit mischievous and can take us on, rides, take us to the edge of the cliffs and, see if we fall off. So the task with dunes, of course, is not to bite the hook. Not to believe the trick. And that's the talk I gave. It's called Mara's Trick. And I do hope you enjoy it. Uh, boy, it was quite an experience for me to, uh, brush the dust off of it after 13 years and take another listen to it. Here we go. Class 3, School for Yogis. Mara's Trick. So, last week we talked about, the idea of all life being suffering. We, went more into the perspective that there is a freedom from that, how to free ourselves, the understanding of samsara from the yogi's point of view, that, and really, you know, I think we really, you know, Loretta and I had begun this conversation, and I think it's really important to go further into understanding the idea of Mara. Mara is an ancient Hindu teaching that really talks about an entity, a being, that is the king of the demons, that is our existence. And traditionally, yogis understood that as soon as they got into an intimate relationship, as soon as they got into a job, They were entrapped in the entrails of Mara. And what would happen is their ability to practice the spiritual path would disappear. Because it would become about money, it would become about livelihood, it would become about all the things that we all deal with every day. That's Mara. The further that we get into the entrails of Mara, thinking, Well, if I only have this, it'll be better. The further entrapped we become. So he's very subtle. It happens to us each in different ways. Whatever our thoughts might be. Some people it's if I have a 30 foot yacht and if I only had the 40 foot yacht I'd be okay. Others it's if I had the right person I'd be okay. For others it's if I could do enough like we were talking about I would be okay. But the reality over and over again is that we have to understand that we are okay. We have everything we need to attain enlightenment right now, right now, right here. There's no trick of Mara. That is what the Buddha understood underneath the Bodhi tree, is he didn't buy Mara's trick. He didn't buy it. He didn't believe it. In fact, he just did. He just held Bodhichitta, and Mara played trick after trick, and he just held Bodhichitta. He just held that essence that was already in him, that was already a part of his being, that he knew he had, that couldn't be taken away from him no matter what situation he was put into life. No matter what status, no matter what place, whether he was a king, a slave, imprisoned, it didn't matter. Because he had bodhichitta. And he understood that. Because he understood that, there was nothing Mara could do to trap him. Bodhichitta is the key that unlocks karma. It is the thing that literally meets and dissolves our karmic patterns. When we are working to attain enlightenment, we are working to To do the exact opposite of what everybody thinks we should do in the world. We are working to relax. We are working to fail. We are working to strive not to strive. We are working to be. Do. We are working to greet our reality with love and kindness, whatever may arise. Whatever horror it might be, the true protection, the true armor, is meeting it with love and kindness. You can see the horror as something that's out to get us. And for the most part, we do. With the last ten years particularly, it's gotten worse and worse and worse. Mara has gotten fiercer and fiercer. over this last ten years. His entrails have gotten sharper and sharper as he's hooked us deeper and deeper in. From the yogi's perspective, what we have been doing is saying, thank you. I want to meet you with love and kindness. Thank you, Mara, for giving me yet another horror to meet. The only being that does this, this is. The thing that may not be clear, and I've worked to say it, and I say it, and I say it again, is Tara. Tara is the energetic vibration of bodhichitta, loving kindness. Tara is the ocean of loving kindness that literally surrounds us and our karma and manifests us absolutely. Right on the other side of our karmic horror is an ocean of loving kindness greeting us. We just make a fundamental mistake. See, this is the Buddha's second noble truth. Is our fundamental mistake is to think that we are not one with this ocean of love and kindness. We think that we are separate. That we are individuals. We make the fundamental error that that bright light out there is bad and we need to defend against it rather than relax into it. The Buddha described the nature of mind, that which we reside in, as a smokeless diamond fire. If we make the mistake that we are somehow separate, that smokeless diamond fire hurts. and hurt a lot. If we take the trick, and we relax into the fire, into the pain, into the horror. The pain and the horror is just mind. It is just that smokeless diamond fire mind. Adamantine and pure. That is our task, as yogis, is not to buy the trick of Mara, that we are separate from this fire. Because the fundamental truth is, you already are the fire, you won't be destroyed. There'll be a belief in your mind as you relax that you're going to be destroyed, you're going to be eaten up, you're going to be dissolved, you'll disappear, you'll be no longer. That's Mara. That's Mara's voice trying to trick you, trying to say, Don't do it. Don't attain enlightenment. It was said that the only being who recognized the Buddha after attaining enlightenment was Mara. Because he was the only one who could truly recognize what he did. No one else had that large a grasp of reality, of mind. That's what Tara does. That's what Tara is. She meets it all fearlessly. Nothing she's afraid of. Nothing she'll back off from. If she protects you, there is absolutely nothing to fear. The reason you won't be destroyed is because you're Tara, everything else that is destroyed isn't Tara. This is your empowerment. This is your right to be. This is your profound statement of please help this world. There won't be an apocalypse because there are yogis. Because underneath that falling tower is going to be a sweet man or woman meditating and saying their mantra. You see, what's happening with the Dark Ages right now is that the mind is crumbling. The mind is heavy. And because spiritual teachings have all been lost, there aren't enough yogis to do their work to actually hold up and protect the space. That's what we're doing. As we hold a field of protection, the material for enlightenment is not the good stuff. The material for enlightenment is the piss, shit, and pus of the world. This is the stuff that when we relax into it, literally becomes bodhichitta. It's literally the fuel on which loving kindness burns. Shit makes really good fuel. This is the idea that in the places of suffering, those are the traumatic wounds of our world rising to be met with loving kindness. I want to be freed. I want to dissolve back into the ground nature of mind with all of my being. Please, just meet me with that vibration so I can. As yogis, we're the ones that can. We walk in, we say the Tara Mantra, we say the Mahakala Mantra, and it's met. And what's very interesting is that a natural protection starts to form around us. Where blood and pus that looks so horrible starts to manifest as palace. Our world starts to change. The very stuff that we thought was horrific starts to become our protection. There's a great story of Lalupa. Lalupa was one of the 84 Maha Siddhas. his job was to guard a charnel ground and he had a little shack on the edge of the charnel ground. Lalupa was terrified because there were packs of dogs. We're always surrounding him, howling, eating corpses, running by with arms, you know. Pretty grisly, charnel grounds in Asia are not like graveyards here. They don't bury him, they just take him out, throw him out for the dogs. Maybe, if you're lucky, you get a funeral pyre. And if you're lucky, they built it right. If you're not, they didn't. So you actually start to get the image of what this is. This little man's world was. He's terrified. And this yogi, who's practicing the Charm of the Ground, walks by his little shed. And the caretaker realizes that this is a holy man. And so offers him all he has. Sits him down and gives him a feast. And after they've sat and they've feasted together, the holy man says, what can I give you? And the lupa says, well, I do have one thing. I'm terrified. And the holy man says, are you terrified of continuing to wander in the oceans of samsara? And the little man says, no, no, I'm really, no, that, I'm really scared of the dogs. The holy man says to lupa, I can, I can help you. I can give you something that will help. Here's a, I will give you this practice. It was Hivajra practice, which is a great protector practice. He said, but what you need to do is you need to take apart your shed and rebuild it at the center of the charnel ground. And every time you do a feast, you leave your offerings out for the dogs. Well, Lallupa decided I'll do anything to get over this fear. So he took apart his shed and he rebuilt it in the center of the charnel ground. And he would do his feasts every day. And every day he sent his offerings out, and the dogs would come and eat them. And over time, 12 years, the story goes, Malupa attained his enlightenment. The other piece is that the dogs all became his friends and protectors. The trick is to go to the heart of the matter. The things that we're afraid of. The things that we want to avoid, the things that we're trying to protect, that is the material of enlightenment. Mara is telling you, look away from that. He's saying, go buy the bigger yacht. He's saying, take my pill. The reality is Our task is already at hand. He's tricking us away from it. He's tricking us away from the suffering that we hold within our beings. And he's saying, Don't look into the darkness. Don't go there. Don't relax into that. Cause you'll be destroyed. What I'm saying to you tonight is, You won't be. You won't be. You will be fully empowered. The horror that sits there is an illusion. It's a paper tiger. Easily pushed to the side. And right underneath that, is love and kindness. A lot of it. Oceans of it. An unending supply. Of everything you could possibly want and need. At your disposal. Task is not to believe Mara's trick. The task is to welcome him with loving kindness again and again and again. And he gets angrier, he gets meaner, and welcome him. He can't destroy you. The only way he can destroy you is if you buy it. If you believe him, if you believe it's real, well, you're right, then he's got you. And into the ocean of suffering you go. The more you buy him, by into his trick. The more crap you build within your being. The more crap and horror you build within the being, the more you want. The more you want, the more crap you build. The more crap you build, the more you want., you cannot win. Unless you stop. Each time an offering is made you're creating a karmic connection creating an opportunity. By taking their offering, you're literally giving them an avenue. Maybe one in a million, but an avenue, by which if they choose, they can attain enlightenment. You're saying, I will open this vibration to you. I will show it to you. And the more you invest in this vibration, the more you will understand it. The more you understand it, the more you become it. The more you become it, the more you can share it. And This is how the guru student relationship works. You're realizing that this is a vibration that I want to align myself with. I want to align my life with. The best imitator wins. Imitate the guru. Imitate the guru fully. Imitate the guru until you are. Don't try to be near the guru. Don't try to step on somebody's head to get to the guru. Imitate the guru. Be the guru. Do what they do. We're taught to, you know, own something. If I own the guru, then I have him. But you've already made a fundamental mistake. As soon as you try to own the guru, you can't become the guru. You cannot manifest because you've literally made that fundamental mistake we've been talking about all along, which is Mara's trick, you've already separated yourself from that ground nature. As soon as you separate yourself from that ground nature, from the guru mind, from Tara, from Bodhichitta, then this illusion becomes real. This illusion becomes solid. Someone might come along and try to wake you up, you know. You might, you might gain enough merit, you know. And that's an important factor. That's another reason offerings are made to the guru is to gain merit, you know. The highest merit, of course, is to practice. Do the mantra. Imitate the guru. Go out there. Become that yogi. Don't ask for anyone's permission. And if you have to, I'm telling you right now, you have my permission. That's what it takes to resonate the Guru from within your being. We already are the Guru. Talopa talked about it from the point of view of, he was working in the sesame shop, crushing sesame seeds. And when he attained enlightenment, of course the first people around him were the workers in the sesame shop. So he explained enlightenment from the point of view of it being like the oil in the sesame seed. It's always there. But if it's not processed, so our fundamental nature is already enlightened. We just make that confused step of believing Mara, believe his trick. And then it's done. Our life is done in a flash. And we start over, just as confused as we were the last time. And we step into the brutality of this world, which is horrifically brutal. Not because it's personal, but because we think that we are stepping into something that isn't smokeless diamond fire. It's brutal because it's stepping into smokeless diamond fire. The hottest of the hot, adamantine diamond fire. Since we're stepping into that, it can manifest in every manner of horror. But it's just the pain of just being in the nature of mind. When we relax into that, the illusion of the reasons and the stories we've told ourselves of why it hurt, dissolve into that fire. It helps a lot to know what it is. Cause we can go through our day and go, oh that hurt. Oh there's the fire. It's alright, it's alright, that's just the fire. And so, we can choose, and I guess, you know, in talking about the Second Noble Truth, as we're doing things a little differently now, the Second Noble Truth is the choice. To believe Mara, that's how we create our suffering, we believe his trick or not do. And dissolve into the ground nature of mind, which is Tara. Most people step into the realm of Buddhism, or any spiritual faith for that matter, to feel better. And certainly not to feel worse. But if you really step into a spiritual path, you're going to feel worse. You're going to have to meet all of the horror that is you. The entire universe. You see, that's the trick, is we are the entire universe. We are all of existence. That's why we have everything we need to attain enlightenment right now. We are the crystal palace. A lot that I, that must have been done this season. I felt the very need to really go there, you know? Make sure that as we get ready for the new year, you know that you're empowered. You know that you have the means. You know that you have the permission. And that there's no one that can take that from you. That tomorrow's trick is just that, it's a trick. You really all have what you need to do it. The more we settle into each moment being absolutely right and absolutely pure. Every being that comes into our life is a god or a goddess, a holy being. Not because they are, but because if we see them that way, their attitude will shift. We're invoking that quality within them. Let's dedicate them. Obtain omniscience, may it defeat the enemy, wrongdoing. From the stormy waves of birth, old age, sickness and death. From the ocean of samsara, may it free all beings. Thank you all for joining me as we bring Class 3 to a close, the School for Yogis. I do hope it illuminates and opens little pathways and doors in the offerings of all the stories that have been given before. I definitely think of how Spiritfoot has so many ties and connections to The ideas that were coming through as I was offering these classes. I thank you all for taking the time to tune in and tune this way. And, hey, if you're enjoying the Lowly Yogi Tales and other stuff podcast, do feel free to share. And if you find that love, that love, uh, even a little bit of it, feel free to send some of it this way and support the show. Send some Yogi Cash to this Lowly Yogi and, uh He'll put it towards the sacred works that find their way to his doorstep. Oh, I do hope you all have a week filled with joy, a week filled with plenty, and a week filled with glorious. Play us out, Monkey Max. Play us out. Earth, Mother, and Friends Earth, mother and friends, You cross a hearth at last. Long have we grieved While the king of demons had his way. But no longer, no longer It's time to dance and sing. This is the time when the golden age begins As we welcome love and peace and ease may it never cease Welcome joy and bliss in all the eyes of serpents kiss Welcome Mother, Welcome Child, Welcome Bodhi, Tinder, and Mile. Welcome Protection, and Welcome Friends. It's been a long wait, but now the Golden Age begins. Welcome Spring, Summer, and Fall. Winter is Persephone's and sweetest of all. Welcome Immortality. Welcome all, it's time to dance and sing, as the golden age begins. Welcome all you yogis, and we call you in. Welcome all you protectors, and we call you in. Welcome all you yogis, as the golden age begins.