Living with the Devil: A Buddhist Meditation On Good and Evil [Paperback]

This book is an interesting and intelligent approach to the dualistic struggle of Good and Evil that is rooted deeply in the human character. Most of the expositions are Buddhist, but parallels in literature and in other religions are also considered with cultural poise and maturity. (Although the author used to be a monk in the Tibetan and Zen traditions, the Pali Nikaya is the predominant source of his quotations.) Many subtle points in Buddhist philosophy and meditation practice are made surprisingly accessible in lucid and poetic prose. If you have read "Verses from the Center: A Buddhist Vision of the Sublime," you will find that the author's wonderful explanations of "contingency," "emptiness" and "path" are reintroduced in this book. Yet, Buddhism goes beyond the moral connotations of Evil and Good: the meditator looks directly at Concept and Reality, at Fabrication and Truth. Freedom from suffering is ultimately freedom from all fixations, or "absence of resistance" as the author aptly puts it.

This book could serve as a better introduction to Buddhism than most books that are so dry and doctrinal they put you to sleep. If you are a Buddhist scholar or meditation practitioner, read it too, as it may give you a few fresh perspectives (or take away some of your beloved opinions). Enjoy the book, and its reminder: There is no Buddha without Mara; there is no Nirvana without Samsara.

I feel like Batchelor is someone who truly wants to face existence as it is and find an authentic respond to it. Consequently, his insights were really heart-felt. He is like the stubborn kid on the block who refuses to go home until he has resolved the question about the stars.

Living With the Devil has helped me to create a different perspective on mortality. For example, as he had suggested that our existence is "contingent rather than necessary."

To illustrate this point the best, I will give an example of how it helps me in my specific situation. I am an Asian immigrant in America. And just few weeks ago, I was walking one early morning to class on a college campus and saw a white football player type of person walking toward me. That morning I was in a fairly good mood and was in fact planning on saying hi to that person, despite the fact that few hate crime incidents had just happened in the last couple of weeks on campus and I was fairly frustrated because not a lot of people including the faculties, which were essential, were willing to participate and show support in the discussion about the hate crimes after they had happened. Anyway, as we are about to approach each other, he suddenly cut in front of me, so that I had to actually force my self to stop so that I don't bump into him. I looked at him in surprise and he gave me a nasty stare. PLEASE NOTE: this is not a racial comment, it can happen to anyone, for example, maybe in the case of a Chinese soldier to a Tibetan in Tibet.

I had thought about this incident and couldn't really think of anything. I am like 6-3, so if I have to fight I can, but I am also a psychology major and am interested in public service, so there is a conflict in me. What is more important is that I feel like I might look at white people more negatively afterwards and I really don't want to do that.

Then I read Batchelor's book. My solution is to look at the whole incident as a contingent event. I reason,

1st If I were to brush my teeth that morning or ate my breakfast, I would not have encountered him.

2nd what happens is not personal, it can be anyone else of my race, so it is really about him.

3rd Next, I just accept him as he is. Just like I accept a tiger; a tiger for some reason by nature or nurture functions differently, though it is potentially threatening to me, but I don't hate a tiger, in fact I think tigers are exotic and beautiful.

Instead of projecting my self-centered compulsive reactivity (that has helped our ancestors to survive though-out natural selection) onto the contingent world, (which freely plays itself), I face myself.

I face my own biological and psychological self-preserving compulsions. One's life is "contingent rather than necessary", there is no special reason why so and so bla bla bla, our urge to think of life as a story that revolves around us is a trick that the "devil" plays on us. We live in that fixation or routine way of thinking as if they are necessary because somehow they are special.

Fixations become a restraining routine or "devil's circle" that just repeats itself again and again. The problem and challenge that Batchelor points out is radical and unconventional in many ways. As you will see if you read the chapter "Fear and Trembling" about a nun who is fearless in the face of the possibility that she might be molested and her respond to the "devil" or her own biological and psychological fear is even more magnificent as the nun Uppalavanna says,

"Though a hundred thousand rogues just like you might come here, I stir not a hair, I feel no terror; even alone, Mara, I don't fear you. I am freed from all bondage, therefore I don't fear you, friend."

Stephen Batchelor has been a monk in both Tibetan and Soto Zen traditions, and he admits to having absorbed both western mythologies: Science and Christianity. He writes from these multiple perspectives, and quotes various other sources including the Old Testament, the Talmud, Pascal and Montaigne. As usual his writting contains passages that are as simple and sharp as Majushri's sword.

In Batchelors view; God, nivana, the deathless, emptiness are all names for something that is best left unnamed: the perplexing and life altering experience at the heart of religious traditions. This experience is simply what happens when we unclench the mental fist with which we reflexifly grasp our illusions and defend our illusory self. Once we relax our grip we are free. Mara nature is inescapably present. It is built into our biology. It is that which causes the grasping and blocks our freedom. It is the root of rigidity, a dam in the stream of life, a locking into rigid patterns that cause suffering. Our Buddha nature dwells in freedom, but we need to make an effort to realise it. This effort culminates in letting go, in unclenching the mental fist. Letting go is a precise action, while grasping is a crude reflex that may be enacted in any number of ways, and is triggered by any number of things. Even an intent to "let go" can end in grasping and rigidity if we are unaware of the slipperiness of Mara. Bachelor suggests that naming Nirvana, even calling it emptiness, is devilish, tending to rigidity. Koans are a way of investigating while not naming, but even Zen Buddhism cannot escape the grip of Mara, it too tends to institutionalization and rigidity.

I found Batchelors parallels between the Christian Satan and Mara rather interesting. He says that for Buddha the price of Nirvana is a "pact with devil." Before anyone takes this too literally I should point out that Bachelor specifically says he no more believes in God than he believes in Hamlet, "but that does not mean that God or Hamlet have nothing important to say." Presumably the same applies to the Devil. In fact, the thesis that permeates this book is that Buddha and Mara, and Christ and Satan, are nothing more than aspects of our human condition. He also brings out the contrast between the Christian concept of Satan as the embodiment of evil in opposition to God, and the Old Testament concept of Satan as an angel of God. As a servant of God the Old Testament Satan seems closer to Mara, who is essential for Buddha. To put it simply, to let go, first you must grasp.

Bachelor addresses a central problems in any religion: how to consistently point the way to freedom while not grasping habitual patterns and thus blocking the path. The discussion he provides is useful, but he seems to contradict himself in the end. Batchelor concludes that "you can no more preserve a path than you can preserve a breeze." But in the beggining, and throughout the book he points out that a path is maintained by using it. He claims to find his path in the "gaps between religions", yet speaks with the authority of someone who has glimpsed Nirvana by following the beaten tracks of two Buddhist traditions.

Bachelor expresses frustration with the "repetitive" and constraining forms of religion. His observations about the workings of Mara in institutionalised religion are valid, but I would have been more impressed if his conclusion about the human condition, that it must always contain and tolerate both Buddha and Mara, had been extended more generously to formal religious institutions. As human constructs these institutions will always express both sides of our nature. Even were this not so, to truely let go we would need to let go of the institution and establish our own practice. This can be done without abandoning the useful aspects of formalised religion. Indeed, it would be almost impossible for most people to develop a spiritual practice without someone organising a roof, some food, and some guidance. The limits of this help are acknowledged in Zen when we are told, "don't attach to anything, including Buddhism." Far from being habitual, the behaviour of Zen masters is notoriously unpredictable, but I must grant that the behaviour expected of a Zen student is repetative and narrowly defined. Bachelor claims that he now finds his path in the "gaps" between religions, and seems to advocate that others do the same, but before setting off to blaze a fresh path Bachelor himself did plenty of training on well groomed trails.