At Savatthi, Sister Vajira, rising early plunged into the depths of Dark Wood, and seated herself at the foot of a certain tree for noonday rest. Then Mara the evil one, desirous to arouse fear, wavering, and dread in her, desirous of making her desist from being alone, went up to her, and addressed her in verse:-Comment: What we take for a person or being are mental phenomena and physical phenomena which arise and fall away in splitseconds. What exists for a splitsecond is ill or dukkha (in Pali). -AW
By whom was wrought this being? Where is he
Who makes him? Whence doth a being rise?
Where doth the being cease and pass away?
Then Sister Vajira thought: Who now is this, human or non-human, that speaketh verse? Sure it is Mara the evil one that speaketh verse, desirous of arousing in me fear, wavering, and dread, desirous of making me desist from being alone. And the Sister, knowing it was Mara, replied in verse:-
Being! Why dost thou harp upon that word?
Mong false opinions, Mara, hast thou strayed.
Mere bundle of conditioned factors, this!
No being can be here discerned to be.
For just as, when the parts are rightly set,
The word chariot ariseth [in our minds],
So doth our usage covenant to say:
A being when the aggregates are there.
Nay, it is simply ill that rises, ill
That doth persist, and ill that wanes away.
Nought beside ill it is that comes to pass,
Nought else but ill it is doth cease to be.
Then Mara the evil one thought: Sister Vajira knows me, and sad and sorrowful he vanished there and then.
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