Question

Please talk more about Mara, ignorance, and how to work with it in daily life.

Answer

If you really want to walk the Noble Eightfold Path, you can look at each step of the path and ask yourself in your daily life, "How are my views affecting my life?" "How are my intentions affecting my life?" "How is my speech affecting my life?" "How are my actions affecting my life?" "How is my livelihood affecting my life?" "How is my effort affecting my life?" "How is my mindfulness affecting my life?" "How is my concentration affecting my life?" Going through the Noble Eightfold Path and understanding the Noble Eightfold Path in much more depth will help us to walk the Noble Eightfold Path in daily life.

Another way to deal with ignorance is to use the Four Noble Truths in your daily life, because when we're lost in ignorance, we are usually saying, "Dukkha exists, and the cause of Dukkha lies in you, or you, or something else outside me." So, when we're in ignorance, we can ask ourselves, "What's the true cause of Dukkha here?" "How is Dukkha manifesting in my life?" and "How am I ending that in my life?" Again, that goes to the Four Noble Truths. Unless we have Right View when we're beginning the path, we can't actually be on the Noble Eightfold Path in our normal life. Therefore, we find ourselves in the grips of Mara, or ignorance. We do not believe there are results to our actions, the Law of Cause and Effect, and we do not believe in the Four Noble Truths. We believe that Dukkha comes from external conditions.

If we understand the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path, it is going to help us walk the path in our daily life, i.e., Right View -- understanding that all actions bring results; Right Intention -- looking more at our intentions to make them beneficial for ourselves and others; Right Speech -- how is my speech affecting my relationships with others? Right Action and Right Livelihood -- do I have a clear understanding of "cause and effect" in my actions, my livelihood, etc.? Right Effort -- what about my efforts? Am I trying to prevent unbeneficial things from arising and let them go when they've already arisen, to develop beneficial qualities and help to maintain them in my daily life? Right Mindfulness -- how is my mindfulness? Am I mindful of my body, my feelings, my mind states, and mind objects? Right Concentration -- how is my concentration affecting my life?

Our apologies if there are any errors in the above text. If anything seems to be wrong or confusing in any way, please feel free to contact the teachers for further clarification.