Question: The evil power Mara, who is a counter part to what westerners might call ‘the devil’ tries to defeat Sidhartha in several different ways. If Mara wins, it means that Sidhartha’s mind is not as strong as he thinks, and Sidhartha (and his followers or students) can’t evade human vices any better than anybody else. What are the different approaches that Mara tries to use to outsmart Sidhartha? And in what way can we point to Sidhartha’s ‘middle way’ as helping him to simply be above the mental weapons that Mara uses against him?
