How much time do you have? Ignorance is everywhere. But let us talk about the personification of ignorance. Some of you know about this, some of you don't. In Buddhist language we use the word Mara as a name for our personal ignorance. So I have my own personal Mara, you have your own personal Mara, and Mara is based in our ignorant side of the brain. You have heard me talk about having a seesaw battle going on in our mind, we have ignorance on the one side and wisdom on the other. When wisdom is strong ignorance is weak, when ignorance is strong wisdom is weak. In the practice it often helps to personify ignorance, so that we actually distance ourselves from identifying with it. We are going to identify with our wisdom side, we are going to stop identifying with our ignorant side.
So for example you are sitting in the hall and you are just kind of getting ready, it is the beginning of the sit. Someone walks into the hall, they are kind of clunking along, making a lot of noise, clunk, clunk. And you think, "Stupid jerk." And you know, you could note, "Aversion, aversion", that is fine. You could also note, "Ah, that is just Mara, that is just Mara." So that would put a little distance within ourselves by saying, "That is somebody else, that is not really me." And in this way we are going to detach from everything that Mara throws at us. It is not like it waits for you until you are on the pillow, does it? Mara goes with you to the bathroom, it goes with you to your meals, it gets up with you, it sits down with you. Mara is everywhere. So in this way with personifying Mara it creates a distance from it and that is very helpful.