What Is the Purpose of the Demon King in Disrupting Sentient Beings' Practice?

The fifty kinds of skandha-māras discussed in the latter part of the Śūraṅgama Sūtra—which one of them does not possess vast supernatural powers, beyond the reach of sentient beings, making them extremely envious? Yet those are all māra realms; ordinary, unremarkable people cannot even enter the māra realm, and māras would not deign to look at them. Those who are noticed by māras and utilized and blessed by them will gain vast supernatural powers, almost reaching the realm of the Buddha. Sentient beings, unaware of this, are extremely greedy and attached, believing that extraordinary, exceptional states must surely be good states—possessing meditative concentration, so-called wisdom, and supernatural powers. But this is precisely the māra realm, the result of a māra's power and blessing. The outcome is that these people of vast supernatural power cannot leave the māra and become the māra's retinue.

Why does the māra possess such great supernatural power? First, he has immense merit, meditative concentration, and supernatural powers. Second, he understands the Buddha-dharma—only understands it, does not realize it. But even this understanding is already extraordinary, and is enough to destroy the Buddha-dharma and Buddhism. The sūtras record that every time the Buddha taught the Dharma, Māra Pāpīyas knew which sūtra the Buddha was going to teach, knew the degree of importance of that sūtra, and also knew the karmic retribution sentient beings would receive after listening to it. Because he deeply resents sentient beings attaining liberation and escaping his control, he transforms into various identities and forms to secretly disrupt the Dharma assemblies. Pāpīyas also manifests supernatural powers to attract sentient beings and teaches them the Buddha-dharma, appearing to deliver sentient beings, but in reality luring them into various afflictions and desires so that they cannot attain liberation.

One hundred years after the Buddha's parinirvāṇa, the Fourth Patriarch of the Chan school, the Venerable Upagupta, appeared in the world to propagate the Dharma. Every time the Venerable reached a crucial point in his teaching at a Dharma assembly—when sentient beings were on the verge of eliminating self-view and realizing the fruits of the path—the māra king would secretly cause trouble, causing rains of gold, silver, and other jewels to fall from the sky to attract the attention of sentient beings. Under such great disturbance, sentient beings could not eliminate self-view and realize the fruits. When the Venerable was in meditation, in order to destroy his meditative concentration, the māra king manifested all kinds of deformed and strange creatures to harass and entangle him, but the Venerable saw through them all and broke the māra king's power. The māra king also repeatedly caused trouble for the arhats, but was always dealt with by arhats possessing supernatural powers and slunk away in defeat.

In the present Dharma-ending age, no matter what identity or form the māra king manifests, sentient beings lack the discernment to see through it; most will be deceived, and it is very difficult to stop. When the māra's power arrives, sentient beings have almost no capacity to resist; they obediently submit, prostrate themselves, and worship to the utmost. When the māra king wants to disturb a practitioner, he will certainly speak some relatively profound Dharma that appears correct but is actually not. Only practitioners who have attained realization can distinguish the māra's teachings; ordinary people may all be attracted by the māra's words, believing his teaching to be profound.

Most people assume that since the māra king is a māra—making trouble and being unreasonable—he must not understand the Buddha-dharma and must be an evil person who does no good deeds. In fact, a person who does not understand the Buddha-dharma can absolutely never become a māra, and a person who does no good deeds can also absolutely never become a māra. A māra who does not understand the Buddha-dharma could never disturb practitioners or destroy the Buddha-dharma; a māra who does no good deeds has meager merit (alpa-puṇya) and simply lacks the merit to support him in doing evil, nor could he win over sentient beings to become māra-sons and māra-grandsons. The reason the māra king comes to disturb and destroy Buddhism and is able to win over sentient beings is precisely by relying on his own great merit. To satisfy his desire for a retinue, he does not allow sentient beings to study Buddhism and cultivate, lest they escape the desire realm and leave his control. Only sentient beings who cultivate meditative concentration can escape the desire realm, and only those who realize the fruits and see the Path can escape the desire realm. Therefore the māra king targets these two kinds of people for disturbance, leading them toward wrong paths. Other sentient beings the māra king will not bother with, knowing they all already belong to him, are already his retinue—including sentient beings who cultivate wholesome dharmas, whom the māra king will not disturb.

Therefore, in the initial stages of studying Buddhism, sentient beings will not be bothered by the māra king and will not encounter māra disturbances. For low and shallow Buddha-dharmas, the māra king will not bother to sabotage them either. Only dharmas and people at the boundary of escaping the desire realm will the māra king find ways to disturb and destroy, infiltrating some wrong views (mithyā-dṛṣṭi) at crucial points and adding some errors, so that sentient beings cannot attain realization—thus he achieves his goal.

Therefore the māra king also teaches the Dharma, and he will not teach low and shallow Buddha-dharmas; he must teach Buddha-dharmas related to the approach to liberation, mixed with specious errors, sprinkling some fog to confuse the eyes of the masses. Although the masses receive his teaching, they cannot attain realization, cannot attain liberation, and cannot escape the desire realm. When the masses want to go to the land of bliss (Sukhāvatī), the māra's karma does not permit it; he devises strategies to confuse people's minds so that sentient beings cannot be reborn in the land of bliss and can only transmigrate through birth and death in the human world of the desire realm in the Sahā world or in the three evil paths, controlled by the māra king. And sentient beings, ignorant and lacking discernment—without Sun Wukong's piercing golden eyes—cannot see it clearly. Most will be deceived, and will even feel boundless gratitude, remaining lost and unrepentant.