So I'd like to speak a little bit more on parts and intermingled with the Dharma,
This blending of the depth psychology of internal family systems with the wheel of the Dharma still turning in us.
Because the Buddha had a lot to say about parts before that language was there.
And one part in particular he even had a name for,
Which is the suggestion in IFS to start to map your parts,
Give them a name,
Categorize them in some way as that personification of the part helps us create a more cohesive bond,
Right,
That creation of relating to our parts.
So even the Buddha would name his parts.
And one in particular you may have heard of,
Mara,
The name he gave his personification of Dukkha.
Mara was the sense of dissonance,
Disorientation,
Disgust,
Disappointment,
Any of those dis words,
Being misaligned,
Feeling far away from center self.
So it was said that on the night before his enlightenment he was under that Bodhi tree meditating,
It was a full moon in May,
And he was attacked by this inner demon that he called Mara.
So Mara had this intention of wanting to thwart his mission by lodging all sorts of attacks on the Buddha's psyche.
So Mara would come creeping in and throw lust.
And so the Buddha sitting there meditating all of a sudden beautiful women would walk by.
And staying rooted in center self,
That attempt unsuccessful,
Mara then threw in greed.
And the Buddha had visions of all of these riches and his life as a king and that type of desire.
When that didn't work,
Anger was Mara's third attack.
So that rigidity of frustration,
That heat of discontent that arises in the body and still the Buddha stayed.
So the last attack and Mara's strongest offense is doubt.
And so Mara comes crawling over and whispers in the Buddha's ear,
You can't do this.
You don't have what it takes.
You're not enough.
You're not good enough.
That inadequacy that seeps in so readily.
And the Buddha turned towards Mara and whispered back and he said,
Mara,
I see you.
I see you.
And that's when Mara fled.
He did attain enlightenment.
And it is said that after that attainment,
He decided to become a teacher,
That Mara would still visit him regularly.
And the Buddha would be sitting in his garden and Mara would come and the Buddha would turn to his assistant,
His cousin,
And he would say,
The evil one's here again.
And it said that the Buddha would invite Mara in and they would have tea.
So regularly they would sit and have tea in the garden.
So it's like that with our parts.
Mara is the personification of any psychological difficulty where we get stuck.
That's our Mara.
Where we experience hate or greed,
That's our Mara,
Where we feel separate and fearful.
I see you.
I know you.
You've visited before.
Let's have tea or something stronger.
Let me relate to you.
So it's,
You know what Pama Chodron speaks of as the continuous removing of our armor each day because those places where we tend to harden,
That's where Mara clings to,
Our protectors.
You know,
We are malleable.
We're porous creatures.
We feel in the meditation of the rapture of the breath that we're actually boundless,
Formless beings,
But we tend to let experience rather than percolate through,
We tend to let certain experiences calcify.
And that's where the hardened parts of our self shields the open field.
Particularly it shields the soft,
Most porous,
Most tender,
Vulnerable dimensions of the self.
Those young parts so open,
So in wonder,
So in trust that other parts feel they are threatened.
So it's a cracking of shells.
And to relate to our parts means we'll have to unblend and turn towards whatever's whispering in our ear so that we can listen to the content and then choose whether or not we want to believe it.
That's the empowering benefit of waking up to the choice of nirvana,
Which is the choice of responsiveness.
As the mother of our parts,
It's tyranny in the system when the parts think they have the say when they're driving the vehicle.
This is how you should feel.
This is how you should think.
This is where we harden this is where we protect the inner freedom of choosing to stay open even in the midst of conditions that are throwing obstacles at you daring you to close down.
That's why the Dharma is spoken of as swimming upstream.
It's not the easy choice to make to stay open.
But it is a choice.
