I See You, Mara

In this practice, Billy shares a story from a silent meditation retreat and a lesson he learned there, which inspired today's practice. Using a classic noting technique (and connecting it to the mantra, "I see you, Mara"), we then focus on breath, mindfully seeing through illusions, distraction, and self-doubt.

Transcript

Hello,

This is Billy from The Mellow Elephant welcoming you to today's meditation.

So before we begin today,

I think it's important that I share a story from my own experience that inspired today's practice.

So this summer I traveled to Nepal where I took part in a silent 10 day meditation course,

What's known as a Vipassana course,

And it was my very first one.

So long story short,

There was some good and there was some bad,

But by day 8 I was really struggling.

I felt like I was kind of coming undone and I really didn't know how or if I was going to make it three more days.

And there are times in the course where you can talk with teachers,

These small windows during the day where you can talk to them about your practice.

I was pulled aside by an assistant teacher who could sense I was struggling and serendipitously he was a man I'd met on the first day when we'd arrived.

We took a bus from the center of Kathmandu up to the side of the course,

But the bus broke down about a mile or two downhill from the campus where we'd be staying.

And so we hiked up in the rain with all our bags and a travel tag had fallen off my bag without my noticing.

And apparently on his walk up,

He found that tag and then found me and returned it to me.

But that was our only interaction until day 8 when he pulled me aside and I was able to express all these things that I was thinking and feeling and going through.

The doubts and the difficulties and how I felt my mind was starting to play tricks on me and how I didn't know how I was going to make it.

And he just looked at me and he said,

Oh,

That's just Mara.

Yeah,

That's what we say around here.

That's just Mara playing his tricks.

And I'd practice meditation,

Obviously,

And I try to teach meditation and I sort of pieced these things together through courses I take and my own independent reading and study.

So I'm certainly not an expert on all the traditions and histories of Buddhism.

I'm still very much a student in that area and many others.

But as the story goes,

The Buddha,

After sampling these different spiritual and worldly paths,

After he'd left the kingdom in which he was born,

Came to a point when he decided he was going to sit down beneath the Bodhi tree and remain there till he figured out this puzzle of life and became enlightened,

Which as the story goes,

Took about 50 days.

And as the Buddha,

And he wasn't yet the Buddha,

He was Siddhartha Gautama,

Was sitting there,

Mara appeared to him.

And Mara is the sort of demon,

The God of the shadow side of things.

And Mara was attempting to obstruct the Buddha's path to enlightenment.

He threatens him with violence and he tempts him with women and lust and ultimately self-doubt,

Saying who do you think you are that you could be enlightened?

What makes it so that you can achieve this great wisdom?

And the Buddha,

During all of this,

Would not react.

He would just sort of acknowledge Mara and say I see you,

Mara.

He saw Mara for what he was,

Which was a trickster.

And as he taught over the next 50 years,

And all these people would come and listen to the Buddha and follow him,

Mara would sometimes appear on the outskirts of the fields where the Buddha was teaching.

And Ananda,

The Buddha's right hand man and dear friend,

Would panic and worry and say oh no,

Mara's here,

Mara's here,

And the followers would worry.

And the Buddha would calmly,

Equanimously just say it's okay,

I see you,

Mara,

Let's have tea.

And this was the same instruction the teacher gave me is that when all these doubts and difficulties of the mind appear,

It's just I see you,

Mara.

And if we look at this story not as truth or history,

But as metaphor,

We see that Mara is just sort of this aspect of mind that we can either buy into and feed and believe,

Or we can let it go and see it clearly,

Seeing this egoic,

Self-doubting side of mind and just disarm it by acknowledging it and not taking it so seriously.

And my mistake through much of that course was probably taking my thoughts and my mind much too seriously.

And so to me,

This story is really one about seeing through the illusions and the traps that we create for ourselves.

And so in meditation,

There's a very common technique called noting.

Maybe you've done this before,

But noting is simply when we become distracted or pulled away by thought,

We acknowledge it.

We just simply label it like,

Oh,

Thinking or oh feeling.

A lot of times I say,

Oh,

Planning.

I find that my mind is planning as I meditate.

Today I invite you to use thinking or feeling,

Whatever note or label you want to put on,

Whatever distractions may come,

But you might also choose to use the phrase simply,

I see you Mara.

I see you Mara and no,

Oh,

That's just Mara playing his tricks.

I see you Mara.

Let's have tea.

And with that,

We'll begin today's meditation by finding a comfortable seat,

Your most comfortable seat,

Sitting upright,

But not uptight and gently closing your eyes.

Taking a moment to soften and loosen,

Relax,

Softening your face and forehead and jaw,

Letting your shoulders melt down,

Allowing your hands to fall wherever they may without any force or effort.

Feeling the contact points between you and your seat,

Feeling the earth and ground below supporting you and beginning with a few deep intentional breaths,

Breathing in through the nose,

Feeling all the way up,

Feeling your torso expand,

And then letting that breath go,

Pushing it all the way out.

Again,

Breathing in,

Filling up and letting that breath go,

Allowing it to fully exit your body.

Once more breathing in the slower you breathe in the deeper that breath goes,

But then just holding this breath at the top for a moment,

Noticing how that feels.

Sometimes it feels good to hold the breath,

But soon it no longer serves us.

And so we simply let that breath go,

Noticing how good it feels to let go of something that no longer serves us.

And now we can just allow our breath to return to its natural rhythm in and out through the nose.

We don't have to breathe in any particular way here.

You don't need to apply force or effort.

Our body knows exactly what it's doing.

It comes pre-programmed with that natural wisdom of breath.

And so we can just sit back,

Relax into the present moment,

And allow our breath to flow totally naturally,

Maybe even noticing how good it feels not to get involved.

Let that automated process of breath continuing to flow.

I'll ask you to turn your attention towards the sounds around you,

Noticing what you hear right here and right now in the present moment.

Maybe that's in the room you're seated.

Maybe that's outside.

Maybe that's as subtle as your own breath,

As pronounced as traffic passing by you on the street.

Even includes these words,

My voice right now.

And noticing that you don't have control over sounds.

You can't force them to stay or go.

You can't cling to them.

They work on their own agenda.

And we can be okay with that.

We're naturally okay with that.

And with sounds,

We establish the mental posture we want to have in meditation,

Which is one of relaxed awareness.

By listening to sounds and learning that we don't have control over them,

We put ourselves sort of in the right mind frame for meditation,

Letting go of that mode of doing or controlling,

Having something to accomplish,

Settling into a mode of being,

Simply allowing things,

Including ourselves to be as they are,

As we apply just a gentle focus to the moment.

And that's the same attitude and energy we want to bring to our breath now,

As we're going to focus on our breath as the core practice for the remainder of this meditation.

So generally,

We feel the breath most strongly in one of three areas,

The nose,

The nostrils in our chest or our heart space or in the belly.

So we'll begin now by gathering up all our static attention and anchoring our focus in the nose.

Feeling how the breath resonates in this space.

Maybe you notice temperature,

Warmth or cold,

The difference between the two on inhale and exhale.

Maybe you notice depth,

But just attempting to bring that moment to moment awareness to the subtlety of the breath in this space.

And if maybe you're having trouble keeping your awareness in this space,

You might choose just to think in on an inhale and out on an exhale.

Now moving our attention down to our chest.

Here we feel how the breath moves.

The physical manifestation of the breath with the rise and fall of the chest.

Noticing all the subtlety of breath in this part of the body.

And again,

You can choose to silently follow the breath.

But if you need a little more help anchoring your attention in this part of the body,

Maybe you just think rise on the inhale and fall on the exhale.

Again not breathing in any particular way.

Just thinking rise and fall with the natural rhythm of your breath.

Then allowing our attention to drop into the core of our body.

We can place our focus in our stomach and feel the breath in this part of the body.

Feeling if the breath is deep or shallow.

Noticing our belly fill and empty like a balloon.

And again,

Feel free to follow the breath,

To feel the breath silently.

Or if you need a little anchor phrase you might think fill on an inhale and empty or maybe even letting go on an exhale.

So again,

We generally feel the breath most strongly in one of those three areas.

And wherever that is for you today,

Wherever the breath is most pronounced and easiest to follow,

I'll ask you to keep your attention right there as our anchor point for our meditation today.

Following it silently or using one of those phrases.

In and out,

Rise and fall,

Fill and empty.

Of course it doesn't take long for my mind to decide that it doesn't want to focus on the breath,

That maybe the breath isn't that interesting and it might get pulled away to something else.

And so we can use that technique I talked about at the beginning,

Noting.

And so anytime you find you become distracted,

You can simply acknowledge that distraction by labeling it.

Maybe you just call that distraction thinking or planning.

Maybe you say feeling if you're pulled away by emotion or a strong sensation in the body.

By doing this,

By noting the distraction,

There's a sense of having dealt with it.

And then we simply let it go and return to our breath.

Of course,

I also invite you to not use any of those labels today and instead use that phrase.

I see you Mara.

I see you Mara.

Labeling whatever distraction or aspect of mind that pulls you away.

Not reacting positively or negatively.

Not becoming frustrated or judgmental.

Just very simply,

Very easily saying,

I see you Mara.

Letting it go and returning to the breath.

And so we'll continue meditating in this way for a few more minutes.

And when you hear the sound of the bell,

You can rest gently with your eyes closed.

It's sort of relaxing,

Still haven't underway yet.

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I see you Mara.

We deal with the distraction,

We let it go,

And we return to our breath as many times as we need to.

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Reviews

Thanks for sharing this practice with us. Namaste