Now, with Mara we have to be skillful, we often have to out-debate Mara. Mara is not going to be pushed around or forced to believe anything, at least my Mara is not, and probably your Mara is not either. So we may have to out-debate Mara. If Mara brings up an argument we don't accept their argument straight away, especially if it is encouraging us to do unbeneficial things or to go in circles. We need to bring up doubt about Mara, and out-debate Mara. Suppose Mara is saying, "Oh, why are you meditating, after all, you haven't gotten anywhere?" We actually have to say, "Well, are you sure about that? What about this time? What about this time? What about this time?" It is like out-debating, bringing up the opposite view. Sometimes then Mara gets upset and goes away.
In the scriptures, often when the people were debating with Mara, Mara says, "You see me!", and with a lot of dissatisfaction, Mara slinks away. Especially when it brings up doubt, often the first hints of Mara; Mara doesn't want you to understand anything, Mara wants to keep being on the throne and doesn't want you to believe in yourself. It even happened to the Buddha, on the night of his enlightenment, the final attempt - Mara threw doubt at the Buddha. Mara said something like, "Why do you think you can sit here and become enlightened?" Doubt.
How many times does Mara throw that at you? It's recorded that the Buddha put his hand to the ground and "Called the earth to witness", and recited his generosity Parami through the ages and called the earth to witness to say whether he had the right to become enlightened.
We have to be skilful with Mara, if the Buddha brought forth his reflection on his generosity on the night of his enlightenment, then so can we. We can think about our beneficial qualities and believe in ourselves.
Mara can get very tricky. We also have to not give Mara the same debate all of the time, the same argument, we have to be creative; because Mara will say, "I have heard that before. I don't believe that." We have to be skilful in our techniques and learn how to be more creative, it is like a chess game sometimes.
And sometimes if Mara is really on the attack and we feel like we are not getting anywhere in this out-debating, then we have to go into our refuge. What does that mean? Sometimes it is like we are in retreat, and we have to go back from the battle and go to a safe place; and that safe place is the reflection on the Buddha, the Dhamma and the Sangha. Especially the reflection on the Buddha, because when we reflect on something so pure, Mara hasn't got a hope. And by reminding ourselves of the Buddha's qualities, it gives us courage and reminds us that we have that human potential in ourselves. So we have to know when to retreat and also when we have to be courageous and do things that Mara doesn't want us to do. Sometimes by reflecting on our true security, rather than what the world says is security, we find the courage because we are reminding ourselves of what is important.
We have given you a lot of wise reflections for the purpose of helping you out-debate Mara, because you need the power of right thinking, Yonisomanasikara, the wisdom to out-debate Mara. And if you find you can't do it, then it is time then to go and see a Kalyanamitta, because sometimes we can't out-debate Mara by ourselves. But it is amazing how many times people come into the interview and think they can out-debate me, their Mara out-debating me, and that somehow I will give into their Mara, but usually I don't.
Using wisdom is the best way to deal with Mara.