Visiting Buddha’s House

A Burmese Buddha sits quietly on the mantle in front of me while a wriggling blue snake, crudely drawn on a nearby white board, stands on his tail and threatens his flat universe. The beige Buddha is unmoved by the snake’s apparent aggression. The only sign of Buddha’s distress is his right hand which reaches over his knee to touch the earth.

It is said that during the night leading up to his great enlightenment, the Buddha was assailed by the armies of Mara—the forces of delusion—who mounted an all-out assault against his effort to see into the truth of things and to find freedom.

I always appreciate that the night of Buddha’s great awakening was a difficult one. Not that I want it to have been so difficult for him, but because it gives me hope for myself. It’s easy to imagine that meditation is, or should be, a kind of blissful floating away from the troublesome things of this world. I suppose there are meditation traditions that have that focus, but our Zen way is quite different. In Zen meditation, our intention is to fully be with whatever is arising.

In human life, of course, many thing arise. Sometimes we are content, sometimes we are disturbed. Sometimes alert, sometimes sluggish. We feel connected, then we feel isolated. We see clearly into the coming and going of life, then insight vanishes and we sit in darkness. This is how it is to be human.

On the night of his awakening, Buddha was confronted by all these conditions. Mara, the embodiment of delusion, did everything in his power to unseat the Buddha. Buddha did not fight back, but rather saw through to the true nature of these energies and saw that all of them are forms of life and light.

Finally Mara challenged Buddha’s intention. ‘Who do you have to witness, to validate your insight? Aren’t you just on a self-centered path like everyone else? Who do you think you are?’ The Buddha, as the story goes, reached his hand to touch the earth as his witness and the earth responded with a roar of confirmation and Mara disappeared.

The morning star appeared and it is said that the Buddha saw that the true nature of the universe is enlightened—that we are all already awakened, we have just forgotten. And, in spite of this great realization, the realization that continues reverberating through human lives even today, Buddha was periodically visited, challenged and assailed by Mara.

So I suppose this morning, Mara is visiting the Buddha as a blue snake standing on its tail. Maybe he’s just dancing and wanting to play—not threatening but enlivening. Maybe delusion is just the rising energy of squiggles and squaggles on a white board that cohere momentarily in the earnest and playful vividness of this life.