Mara:

O you are thin and you are pale,

And you are in death’s presence too;

A thousand parts are pledged to death,

But life still holds one part of you.

Live, Sir! Life is the better way;

You can gain merit if you live,

Come, live the Holy Life and pour

Libations on the holy fires,

And thus a world of merit gain.

What can you do by struggling now?

The path of struggling too is rough

And difficult and hard to bear.

Buddha:

Your first squadron is Sense-Desires,

Your second is called Boredom, then

Hunger and Thirst compose the third,

And Craving is the fourth in rank,

The fifth is Sloth and Torpor

While Cowardice lines up as sixth,

Uncertainty is seventh, the eighth

Is Malice paired with Obstinacy;

Gain, Honor and Renown, besides,

And ill-won Notoriety,

Self-praise and Denigrating Others:

These are your squadrons, Namuci.

None but the brave will conquer them

To gain bliss by the victory…

Better I die in battle now

Than choose to live on in defeat…

I sally forth to fight, that I

May not be driven forth from my post.

For I have faith (saddhaa) and energy (viriya)

And I have wisdom (paññaa) too.

Your serried squadrons, which the world

With all its gods cannot defeat,

I shall now break with wisdom

As with a stone a clay pot.

I’m always intrigued by reading text on the confrontations between Siddhartta and Mara.

Considering any confrontation with Mara is truly a personification of confrontation with yourself, I see them as very personal, honest glimpses into what was going on in the Buddha’s mind, his thought process as he met with desires, insecurities, fears, doubts.

It reminds me how much the condition of my own happiness originates from within. I usually allow Mara to consume me without even the awareness to confront him until his already made a noticeable mess. But I suppose it’s not in Mara’s nature to knock before he comes in…