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When Buddha Hugged Mara: Non-Duality and Collective Healing
This title has been reviewed for accuracy.
Thầy recalls Ānanda’s encounter with Māra, the tempter, which reveals how easily aversion and attachment may arise in us, creating a sense of separation and duality. Thầy presents us the fundamental duality of good and evil, and reflects on how prone we are to rejecting the “evil” and wanting only the “good”. To Ānanda’s surprise, the Buddha greets Māra with loving kindness, hugging him, sharing tea, and teaching a profound non-duality: like flowers and garbage, Buddha and Māra need each other, transform into each other, and together hold the secret of impermanence and renewal.
The practice of śamatha (stopping) and vipaśyanā (looking deeply) allows body and mind to rest and heal. Fasting and mindful breathing draw out toxins; sitting and walking meditation become opportunities to touch the refreshing and healing elements of this very moment. Mindful eating—chewing each morsel thirty-plus times, naming the food by its true name—becomess acts of deep rest and joy, that allow us to transform the habit of running and experience peace, joy, and healing in the here and the now.
Thầy invites us to visualize ourselves as young people afflicted by a drug addiction. Nobody understands us, nobody really knows how to help us. We are judged and punished for the addiction, thus increasing the cycle of pain and suffering. But who created this garbage? All of us are responsible. The entire society is responsible for the pain suffered by these young people. How can we help them heal? They are not separate from us. We are them, and they are us, Thầy says.
Healing on a global scale requires an act of collective meditation. Faced with youth addiction and social suffering, doctors, educators, artists, parents should stop, look deeply, and embrace those trapped in this garbage, without judgment, but with understanding. Whether in formal meals, walking meditation, or the simple act of stopping together, the energy of mindfulness unites us: we breathe for one another, transform suffering into compost, and let the flowers of joy, compassion, and understanding bloom anew.
This is the sixteenth of twenty-four talks given during the Summer Opening, in the year 1996. Thầy offered this talk at the Upper Hamlet, Plum Village, France.