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- Samyutta Nikaya IV.19
- Kassaka Sutta
- The Farmer
- For free distribution only, as a gift of Dhamma
At Savatthi. Now at that time the Blessed One was instructing, urging, rousing, &
encouraging the monks with a Dhamma talk concerning Unbinding. The monks -- attentive,
interested, lending ear, focusing their entire awareness -- were listening to the Dhamma.
Then the thought occurred to Mara, the Evil One: "Gotama the
contemplative is instructing, urging, rousing, & encouraging the monks with a Dhamma
talk concerning Unbinding. The monks -- attentive, interested, lending ear, focusing their
entire awareness -- are listening to the Dhamma. What if I were to go to Gotama the
contemplative to obscure his vision?"
Then Mara the Evil One, taking on the form of a farmer with a large plowshare over his
shoulder, carrying a long goad stick -- his hair disheveled, his clothes made of coarse
hemp, his feet splattered with mud -- went to the Blessed One and, on arrival, said,
"Hey, contemplative. Have you seen my oxen?"
"And what are your oxen, Evil One?"
"Mine alone is the eye, contemplative. Mine are forms, mine is the sphere of
consciousness & contact at the eye. Where can you go to escape me? Mine alone is the
ear...the nose...the tongue...the body.... Mine alone is the intellect, contemplative.
Mine are ideas, mine is the sphere of consciousness & contact at the intellect. Where
can you go to escape me?"
"Yours alone is the eye, Evil One. Yours are forms, yours is
the sphere of consciousness of contact at the eye. Where no eye exists, no forms exist, no
sphere of consciousness & contact at the eye exists: there, Evil One, you cannot go.
Yours alone is the ear...the nose...the tongue...the body.... Yours alone is the
intellect, Evil One. Yours are ideas, yours is the sphere of consciousness & contact
at the intellect. Where no intellect exists, no ideas exist, no sphere of consciousness of
contact at the intellect exists: there, Evil One, you cannot go."
[Mara:]
Of what they say,
'This is mine';
and those who say,
'Mine':
If your intellect's here,
contemplative,
you can't escape
from me.
[The Buddha:]
What they speak of
isn't mine,
and I'm not one of those
who speak it.
Know this, Evil One:
you won't even see
my tracks.
Then Mara the Evil One -- sad & dejected at realizing, "The Blessed One knows
me; the One Well-gone knows me" -- vanished right there.