Now Mara in Indian mythology is the name of a God or a being who represents all the causes of suffering. Sort of sometimes it's translated in these Victorian translations like the evil one, although he's not exactly evil. He's the force of ignorance and greed and fear and hatred and confusion embodied. And Mara of course was the one who came, Mara came to the Buddha when he was sitting under the tree of enlightenment before he became the Buddha and tempted him with all the possible temptations and when the Buddha didn't move, then Mara unleashed his armies of anger and aversion and hatred and all the weapons of the armies of Mara, all the aggression and finally doubt what right do you have to sit here? And the Buddha reached down and touched the earth and said the earth is my witness that I have offered my whole life and many lifetimes out of compassion and care for the beings of this world and I have a right to awaken as does every human being. So that's sort of the beginning of hearing about Mara in the Buddhist myths. So Mara reappears regularly for the Buddha. He doesn't just go away which is a very interesting thing isn't it? Even the Buddha has to deal with Mara periodically. You know and not only that Mara gets to spirit rock regularly and even to your own community. And Mara comes and says normally Mara arises, appears to the Buddha and the Buddha says, oh I see you Mara, here you are again. And just by saying I see you Mara, Mara goes, oh he recognizes who I am and sort of slinks away. That's the way the story is told. But in this case Mara comes and says may the blessed one take final Nirvana, may the blessed one. Now you've completed all your tasks, there's monks and nuns in the whole community and lay people and so forth. And Mara has been kind of urging the Buddha to you know hang it up for a long time and the Buddha finally says, alright you need not worry Mara it's not long and several months I will release this old 80 year old body. So Mara it's very interesting. Tick not Han, great teacher, I had a t-shirt from him that many of you have seen that says no mud, no lotus, right. And no Mara, no Buddha. You actually need Mara in the story or you don't get enlightened. It does you need Mara to come and test you and in some way which it says is that this is a dualistic world in which there is both love and connection and a timeless truth of freedom but there's also separateness and fear and confusion and because there is that becomes the seed or the ground from which then liberation can arise. That's just the way it's built. So no mud, no lotus or Alexander souls in each and who writes, where are you Alex? If only it were also simple. If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds and were necessary simply to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being and who among us is willing to destroy a piece of their own heart. And so Mara appears not because Mara shouldn't be there but actually Mara is part of the dance of awakening itself and the Buddha says all right Mara, now I see you again and this time I'll go along with you because in several months it will be my time. And then as he says this, well all right if I were to ask you why did Mara come, I've sort of answered that question already. You need Mara, no one would go to the movie if you don't have a villain, you know how it works. I mean this is our human condition right? It's how it's designed. All right so we see Mara and Tiknad Han talks about inviting Mara in for tea. Okay I see you again Mara. Come on how is it going, how is it being the evil one? Well Mara says it's not actually that much fun. How are you doing Buddha? So you start to have a different relationship with the difficulties. Instead of seeing them as something that you have to get rid of, you start to see them as part of the fabric of life and that there's a possibility of welcoming them with tea and saying all right but don't stay too long. There's a whole other reality that we can inhabit. So then there's a great earthquake that happens as soon as the Buddha says yes Mara, I will be dying in you know or I'll take my final Nirvana in these next months, a hair raising earthquake and thunder and Ananda his beloved attendant comes running, what is this earthquake?