In his introduction to the pre-Zen teaching called "Centering" in Zen Flesh, Zen Bones, Paul Reps asserts that "Surely men as inspirators... have shared a common uncommon discovery. The Tao of Laotse, Nirvana of Buddha, Jehovah of Moses, the Father of Jesus, the Allah of Mohammed--all point to the experience."1 Although this noble claim--that all of the great spiritual paths lead at last to the one Ultimate Reality--is not new, an examination of it is far beyond the scope of this paper. A second intriguing speculation, however, concerns the common testimony of these Masters regarding the antithesis of the Ultimate: the temptation, illusion, and sin which are also a very genuine part of our human reality. More than one spiritual tradition personifies this source of ill--in the Abrahamic religions, it is the fallen angel Satan; in Buddhism, it is the Tempter, Mara. Our aim in the following pages is to explore some of the representations of the Tempter in Buddhist scripture, and to compare these characterizations with the personality of Satan as represented in the Judeo-Christian Bible.

Firstly, the question must be raised: is Mara in Buddhist thought a real, personal being, or simply an abstract concept used allegorically to represent evil and temptation? This consideration is familiar to Western discussion regarding Satan, although clearly orthodoxy in all of the Abrahamic faiths (i.e., Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) recognizes Satan as an actual being: a fallen though formerly brilliant angel of God, as in Isaiah 14:12,15: "How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!"2 This interpretation is supported frequently by the testimony of Western scripture.* Many of the Buddhist scriptures, as well, depict Mara as a real being capable of verbal communication; in these he is often, like Satan, portrayed as a Luminous One (a god), but one whose sphere includes passion, temptation, and evil.

It is also true, however, that any of these Western and Buddhist accounts may be interpreted figuratively, as referring to a principle, rather than a being, of evil and seduction. Indeed, some Buddhist texts clearly present Mara as a state of the human mind--a metaphor for the principle of evil, passion, and diversion from the Dharma: "Heretical views and the three poisonous elements [i.e. greed, anger, and delusion] are Mara.... When our nature is dominated by [these], we are said to be possessed by the devil."3 Other passages, such as the account of the Buddha's temptation in the Sutta Nipata, refer to such evil mental states as the armies or forces of Mara, while maintaining his existence as a real being who stands "right next to the Buddha."4 The conclusion to be drawn is that the Buddhist concept of Mara--as being or as principle--is at least as much open to debate as is the similar question in Western theology. Personal conceptions of the Tempter among believers undoubtedly range from popular superstition to abstract allegorical philosophy, just as in the West. A notable difference is that in the more overtly philosophical Buddhist tradition, many scriptures literally support the more allegorical concept of the devil, while Western scripture nearly always personifies him.

Whatever the nature of Mara,* it is clear that, like Satan, his main function is to tempt and to corrupt that which is good. Just as Jesus was tempted by the devil while fasting in the desert at the very beginning of his ministry, the Buddha faced the wiles of Mara as he sat in contemplation under the Bodhi tree, seeking enlightenment.** In the Christian story, which can be found in Luke 4:1-13 and Matthew 4:1-11, Satan first tempts Jesus to turn the stones of the desert to bread, that he may end his own hunger. Jesus is then* shown "all the kingdoms of the world," and told that they will be his if he will only worship Satan. Finally, Christ is placed precariously atop the Jerusalem Temple and encouraged to jump, trusting God's angels to save His Son. Jesus turns aside each temptation with a quote from Scripture, and his answers reveal much about the nature of the tests. To the first, he quotes Deuteronomy 8:3: "Not on bread alone shall man live, but by every utterance from God's mouth."5 On a personal level, Christ is affirming that his spiritual duty outweighs his own physical well-being; furthermore, his mission is not to be carried out on the material level of "bread," merely a mission of "social reform."6 To the second temptation, Jesus replies: "You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you adore (Deuteronomy 6:13)."7 Having established that his mission is of a spiritual nature, Christ now asserts that it is not to be compromised by false devotion. The final temptation is answered by Deuteronomy 6:16: "You shall not put the Lord your God to the test."8 Again, Jesus is unconcerned with his personal safety, but moreover he will not trivialize his mission or his relationship with God through some pointless "test." In the end, "The devil, having exhausted every sort of temptation, departed from him for awhile."9

Like Satan tempting Jesus, Mara in the Buddhist stories hopes to keep the Buddha from "overcoming [him] and proclaim[ing] to the world the path of final bliss."10 The idea (in both cases) is to turn aside the Master at the outset, before he can bring many souls to Truth and away from the devil. To this end, Mara uses tactics strikingly similar to those used by Satan. The Buddha, also in a state of fast, is first implored by Mara to give up his fasting and preserve his material health, for "there's only the slightest chance that you'll survive. My dear sir, do live!"11 Mara then appeals to the Buddha to compromise his spiritual mission: "You could lead the religious life, perform the offerings to the fire (god)--it's a sure way to get lots of merit."12 The Buddha, however, has no more interest in either his own personal safety ("When the wind blows, even rivers and streams are dried up. So why shouldn't it dry up my blood when I am deep in struggle?"13) or a compromise of his spiritual calling ("With disciplined thought and firmly grounded mindfulness I shall travel from country to country training numerous disciples."14) than does Jesus. Like those of Christ, Buddha's words are enough to drive away the evil one, who drops his lute and disappears. Notably, however, the Buddha's words are original, not grounded in the Buddha's Hindu mother tradition as Jesus's are in Judaism. Indeed, one of Mara's temptations, which the Buddha takes as an invitation to compromise his spiritual message, is an invitation to act like an orthodox Hindu--performing the fire sacrifice for merit.

In both cases the Master, with his holy words and unyielding resolve, utterly subjugates the Tempter, who flees in defeat. Part of the message of the story in each religion is that the disciple of the Master, by conscientiously following his Way, may similarly reject and defeat the evil one. The Large Sutra on Perfect Wisdom explains that the bodhisattva "becomes one hard to assail by the evil Maras" via four Dharmas: "He surveys all phenomena from Emptiness, [he] does not abandon any being, ... as he speaks so he acts, and he is brought to mind by the Buddhas."15 Indeed, the Buddhist scriptures are replete with tales of faithful followers of the Dharma encountering and overcoming the enticement of Mara. One such anecdote is the story of the temptation of Sister Soma in the Samyutta Niyaka;16 Soma's resistance of Mara through adherence to the Buddha's doctrines sets her apart as an exemplary Buddhist woman and makes this tale a notable parable of faith. Similarly in Christian scripture we find recommendations for defeating the evil one: "Be sober, be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour (1 Peter 5.8)."17 St. Paul advises in his Epistle to the Romans (12:21) that followers of Christ "not be overcome by evil, but defeat evil with good;"18 specifically, "Bless those who persecute you.... Live in harmony with one another.... Repay no-one evil for evil (Romans 12:14-17)."19

In every tradition, the evil one seems most likely to appear in one of two instances: to tempt a righteous one, whose feet are planted firmly on the path, and attempt to turn him or her away from it (as in the examples above); or to take advantage of an opportunity offered by an individual's spiritual weakness. A prime example of this latter situation is the Judeo-Christian story of the fall of man (Genesis 2.15-3.24), in which the vulnerable first man and woman are enticed by a serpent (later understood to be Satan) to eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, thus violating God's will and bringing sin into the world. This paves the way for the sin of their son Cain, who slays his brother Abel, but is first informed by God about Satan's plan for the spiritually weak: "If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is couching at the door; its desire is for you, but you must master it (Genesis 4.7)."20 Mara, no less than Satan, rejoices in the corruption of the spiritually vulnerable: "It makes no difference what it is you are grasping at: when a man grasps, Mara stands beside him;"21 further, "the one who lives for sensation, unrestrained, indulgent in eating, irreverent, lazy, the tempter Mara breaks, just as the wind breaks a frail tree."22

It is only by rejecting such behavior, by returning to the truth Path, that one might triumph over the Tempter; thus, in Buddhism, "the one who lives mindfully, senses under control, moderate in eating, devout, energetic, cannot be overthrown by Mara, just as the wind cannot shake a rocky mountain"23--more strikingly, "when right views eliminate from our mind these poisonous elements, the devil will be transformed into a real Buddha."24 Mara and Buddha-nature are both real and present aspects of the individual person, and the transformation of the self through practice of the Noble Eightfold Path brings about the transformation of the devil into a Buddha. The Western formulation, while definitely affirming that disciples of Jesus have power over the devil and his demons, does not speak in terms of transformation, but of defeat (as in Luke 10:17: "Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name."25), casting out (Matthew 8:16), or, as was the case in the temptation of Christ himself, causing the devil to flee in the face of unyielding resistance (James 4:7). There is an important difference in emphasis here--in Buddhism, the initially weak disciple might overpower and transform the devil through discipline; in the Christian tradition, it is those strong in the Spirit who cast out Satan, and the best hope for the spiritually vulnerable is the grace of God.

In the Abrahamic traditions, Satan has another function besides being the source of all temptation and evil passion: he has, as Jesus says in John 6.43-45, "no truth in him. When he lies, it is according to his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies."26 This aspect of Mara is present in the Buddhist tradition as well: The Large Sutra on Perfect Wisdom warns that "Mara the Evil One will expound to the Bodhisattva a counterfeit of the Path."27 Shariputra, the disciple of the Buddha to whom is attributed the Lotus Sutra, fears this aspect of Mara in the very words of the Buddha: "When I first heard Buddha preaching the Greater Vehicle, in my heart I was greatly alarmed: `Surely Mara is playing Buddha, confusing my thoughts!'" but "the World-honored One preaches the Real Path, while Mara has none of this. By this token I know for a certainty that this is no Mara playing Buddha."28 It is unknown exactly what convinced Shariputra that the Buddha's preaching was genuine. Given the experiential nature of Buddhism, it may be surmised that he applied a formula similar to the one recommended by Jesus in Matthew 8:16-20: "Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits.... A sound tree cannot bear evil fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit."29 In other words, if the fruits of the Greater Vehicle (the Mahayana) proved good, so the teaching must have been true--originating in the Dharma of the Buddha, not the lies of Mara.

Mara is the Tempter, the Liar, the Expounder of the False Dharma; in these ways, he is truly the antithesis of the Buddha, but is he not also the Buddha's servant? Quite apart from the fact that the Buddha and his followers have power to subjugate Mara, the evil one's temptation may often be teleological: testing, refining, and ultimately instructing the believer in the true Dharma. This is an oft-repeated theme in Buddhism: that even the wiles of the devil--temptation, misdirection, and deception--can be used by the Buddha and his bodhisattvas "as an expedient device (upaya) for the purpose of guiding and educating living beings."30 Thus the Holy Teaching of Vimalakirti states that

The Maras who play the devil... are all bodhisattvas dwelling in the Inconceivable Liberation, who are playing the devil in order to develop living beings through their skill in liberative technique, ... to test and thus demonstrate the firmness of the high resolve of the bodhisattvas. Why? Bodhisattvas must demonstrate their firmness by means of terrible austerities.31

The Mahaparinirvana Sutra tells of a bodhisattva who disguises himself as a demon in order to test and instruct an aesthetic,32 while the Udana relates that the Buddha himself lead his cousin Nanda to the realization of Nirvana by means of temptation and desire!33

This idea--of the devil actually serving a divine, teleological purpose--is not foreign to Western religion. In the Book of Job, Satan is not portrayed as fundamentally evil,* but is "one of the members of the divine court and comes with other attendants to present himself...and report on the fulfillment of his duties."34 Satan (literally "the accuser") claims that he can make the righteous Job turn against God, and is allowed by God to make the attempt. The devil deprives Job of his children, his livelihood, and his reputation; and Job, after an epic spiritual struggle, does in fact return to service of his Lord. The entire episode serves a dual purpose: refining Job's faith and revealing the strength of that faith for all to see--divine goals which could not have been achieved without the aid of the devil. Similarly, the Apostle Paul writes in his second epistle to the Corinthians (12:7-9) that "to keep me from being too elated by the abundance of revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan." When Paul asks the Lord to free him from this affliction (the precise nature of which is unknown, although it is obvious that it caused the apostle considerable distress) the reply is "`My grace is sufficient for you, and My power is made perfect in weakness.'"35 So Paul's personal "demon," which he interprets as a manifestation of Satan, is in reality a tool of the Divine--a weakness which keeps the disciple from the sin of pride, and which, moreover, magnifies and perfects God's grace.

Thus we finally come face to face with a great revelation, attested to by the scriptures of both East and West: even the schemes of the evil one, whether he goes by the name of Satan, Iblis, Angra Mainyu or Mara, are in reality another facet of the Divine Plan, the Dharma which leads ultimately to our release. The Tempter is not only inferior to the great Masters and to practitioners of their Way, but he is in fact a servant of that Way, refining, testing, and revealing the faith of the faithful and the dedication of the bodhisattva. Just as Paul Reps speculates that the revelations of all of the great spiritual teachers point to the same Ultimate Reality, one may say in faith that the personification of evil, that Devil to which so many of these Masters also attest, is naught but a darkened facet of that Reality, by which we suffering beings might appraise and further our own journey toward the Light.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Albright, W.F. and C.S. Mann. The Anchor Bible: Matthew. Garden city, NY: Doubleday, 1971.

Conze, Edward, trans. The Large Sutra on Perfect Wisdom, With the Divisions of the Abhisamayalankara. Berkeley: U. of California P., 1975.

Cowell, E.B., F. Max Müller, and J. Takakusu, trans. Buddhist Mahâyâna Texts. Sacred Books of the East, vol. 49. 1894; New York: Dover, 1969.

Fitzmeyer, Joseph A. The Anchor Bible: The Gospel According to Luke, I-IX. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1981.

The Holy Bible, Authorized King James Version. New York: Oxford U.P., 1945.

Hurvitz, Leon, trans. Scripture of the Lotus Blossom of the Fine Dharma, New York: Columbia U. Press, 1976.

Maitreya, Balonga Ananda, trans. The Dhammapada: The Path of Truth. Novato, CA: Lotsawa, 1988.

The Oxford Annotated Bible With the Apocrypha: Revised Standard Version. New York: Oxford U.P., 1973.

Pope, Marvin H. The Anchor Bible: Job. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1965.

Reps, Paul, ed. Zen Flesh, Zen Bones. New York: Doubleday, 1961.

Rhys Davids, T.W. and T.L. Woodward, trans. Kindred Sayings (Samyutta Niyaka). Vols. 15. London: Pali Text Society, 19501956.

Saddhatissa H., trans. The Sutta Nipata. London: Curzon P., 1985.

Teaching of Buddha, The. 84th revised ed. Tokyo: Bukkyo Dendo Kyokai, 1984.

Thurman, Robert A.F., trans. The Holy Teaching of Vimalakirti. University Park and London: The Pennsylvania State U. Press, 1976.

Wilson, Andrew, ed. World Scripture: A Comparative Anthology of Sacred Texts. New York: Paragon House, 1991.

Wong Moulam, trans. The Sutra of Hui Neng. Boston: Shambhala, 1969.

Woodward, F.L., trans. Minor Anthologies of the Pali Canon: Part 2, Udana: Verses of Uplift and Itivuttaka: As It Was Said. London: Pali Text Society, 1948.