Talking and Walking with Demons

  This is a tricky subject, and much will depend on our experience and capacity. It is to do with noticing (as they say in the film Star Wars) a “disturbance in the force”! The force is our pure, empty essence.

 These disturbances are our emotions of desires, aversion, pride, jealousy and ignorance. It is said that there are 84.000 disturbing emotions. However, they all originate from these five – and these five originate from just one main disturbing emotion, ignorance. Ignorance of our true nature…pure empty essence.

 These disturbances are our demons. That’s it! That’s all there is. However, these disturbing demons are in every other sentient being as well. So, we are surrounded by demons and demon activity!

 This demon activity is all based around the identity of an “I”. Every sentient being is controlled by their emotions. Everyone is subject to self-righteousness, self-centredness, self-cherishing: a self-obsessed walking talking social “I”. Demon activity can be very charming, but it is still based on how “I am”. The demon wants nothing less than its own way, and this is what keeps us (pure empty essence) asleep. We only have to listen to any conversation to see this clearly: wisdom lies in merely recognising.

 Q: So what is the antidote?

 A: Precision in practice.

 Whether meditating, chanting or visualising, we have to stay focused on the practice. This prevents any ‘me’ or ‘my’ thoughts to interrupt (pure compassion and devotion do the same thing). And of course, resting in empty essence is exactly this.

 In Tibetan Buddhism we even go to the extent of resting in emptiness, while visualising Tibetan mantra letters of light revolving around a seed syllable, while visualising ourselves as six-armed three-headed flaming deities (there are many types) in union with a consort…all symbolic! Sending out light to all all the enlightened ones, receiving blessings, and then radiating those blessings to all sentient beings and again out to the enlightened ones….it’s pretty busy stuff and no room for trivia! At the end, we dissolve it all back into emptiness.

 Our thoughts are not us. Heck! They are not even ours! We are constantly bombarded throughout our lives with ideas, images, songs…and as long as we are distracted there is a demon.

 I strongly suspect there are earthly beings who know this, and use it for their own gains. It’s a dangerous game they play, as unfortunately their karma does not ignore their behaviour and will catch up with them…and us. We are all sneaky psychologists, and our consciences know this.

 Demons are not far away, we walk and talk with them every day…every moment. Unfortunately or fortunately this world is full of people sucked into this delusion, wanting us to be like them. It’s fortunate as in this age, demonic activity is intense and so easy to spot…if you are looking. This is where it gets very subtle, demon activity can spot demon activity and feed off it.

 Know your own mind, tell them, “Not now thank you, I’m busy!” Once our practice is over we can mingle with demons, because we now know where they are coming from, and so there is no need to react. There is nothing to fear. This gives them nothing to latch onto. Humour, compassion and emptiness allows them space, and they move on to feed off some other ‘sucker’. We are all suckers when it comes to being liked!

 Demon activity is mechanical, lacks humour and gets angry easily, so we need to be compassionate, both towards ourselves and others (this is tricky, and much will depend on our experience and capacity).

 If you think that there is something more to demons…well…it’s all in your mind! If we do not comply, the demonic system cannot function.