Mara Revealed

The reason I mentioned the Buddha at the 12-step meeting for families and friends of alcoholics is that I’ve realized I have a Mara of my own.

The night the Buddha got enlightened (and I’m probably telling it sort of wrong, but this is more or less what I said at the meeting), he was sitting under the bodhi tree and along came Mara, to try to keep him from reaching his goal. First Mara tried to excite desire in the Buddha, by offering him dancing girls, or the equivalent at the time. Then Mara tried to frighten the Buddha. The Buddha didn’t take the bait. The last, and worst, thing Mara did was to try to shake the Buddha’s self-confidence. The Buddha reached down and touched the ground, saying something like, “The very earth bears witness to my right to be here.” I love that story.

It dawned on me recently that the voice that whispers in my ear, “You’re not going to let her get away with that, are you?” or “This just isn’t right” or “I don’t think that person should … ” is Mara’s voice. She has spoken to me all my life and I have almost always believed what she says. “What if your parents die while you’re still living in San Francisco and you feel bitterly regretful for the entire rest of your life?” is Mara. Or just plain, “What will you do when your parents die?” which has been worrying me my whole life.

Anything that starts with “What if” and is of an alarming nature is Mara. “What if you move back to Ann Arbor to be closer to your parents and it’s horrible to live there again and you feel bitterly regretful about having made the move and given up a cheap apartment and a great job in San Francisco?”

Mara loves to look into the future until something frightful is encountered. Whatever thing I might contemplate doing, she can help me see why it’s impossible.

I picture Mara (who I think was actually male) as looking like Jacqueline Susann, in an elegant long sequined gown and with a mane of dark teased and lacquered hair. She sits next to me on the couch and leans over conspiratorially, saying, “I think you’ve put up with this long enough.”

Next thing I know, I’m marching over to my coworker’s cube to discuss his sinuses.

It has been quite liberating to realize this and now to begin to say (about a million times a day), “Thank you for that, Mara,” or, once in a while, not wanting her to feel I’m no longer really listening, “Thank you for that alarming analysis. You could be right.”

One thing that hangs me up over and over again is if someone is breaking the rule. This is something Mara is quick to point out.

I got to thinking about the different kinds of rules:
Rules we almost all agree are good, like don’t run red lights in your car and don’t murder people.
Rules that are probably good but that would have to be explained to most people because they’re arcane or apply best in a particular time and place.
Rules that were once good but no longer make sense.
Rules that are bad. Unfair rules.

On this continuum, departing the realm of rules, we get to:
My personal preferences that are for a very good reason that anyone could understand, like don’t murder me and also don’t sneeze on me.
My personal preferences that are arbitrary.
My personal preferences that are the product of my unique neurosis and are really pretty unfair.
And, last, personal preferences that are made up on the spot because I just didn’t care for the cut of your jib.

Maybe the rules idea is less helpful—it certainly gets me into enough trouble—than the concept of no harm, no foul: One is not acting in good faith if one cries foul when one really wasn’t harmed.

I was discussing the disputations of the week with Lisa M. and was charitably saying that perhaps I am to my coworker as my 12-step friend is to me: If I find it unreasonable that my friend should object to what I said in the meeting, I should consider my own unreason in objecting to the actions of my neighbor at work. But Lisa said that there is a difference between objecting to something on principle and objecting to it because it really harms you, and she was loyal enough to say that my coworker’s sniffling obviously harms me. I must admit that while I do find the sound disgusting, it also is a matter of principle: he just shouldn’t be doing that in an office (says Mara).

And, who knows, maybe a person could be truly pained by seeing a principle callously disregarded.

Maybe intentions are a good way to sort it out. Was there an intention to cause harm? But what if there was no intention to cause harm, but harm was caused nonetheless?

Another mental habit that gets me in trouble is assuming that what’s happening today is going to happen always. It’s not just today’s annoying sound, it’s assuming I’ll be hearing it every work day for the next ten years. It, again, is Mara who whispers, “What if this goes on forever? I can’t take a lifetime of this.”

Of course, everything changes sooner or later. This concept figured in advice my father once gave me when I had a boss I loathed. He said, “Hang in there. You won’t be working for him forever. Try not to do anything that will worsen the relationship, like go over his head.”

(My mother, in contrast, said, “You don’t like that job, anyway, so I suggest you tell your boss exactly what you think of him. Tell him you think he needs mental help.”)

This was many bosses ago, of course, and when I ran into that fellow not long ago, I was perfectly happy to see him and we had a very nice chat.