‘Tell me a way that you judge yourself’
I once VOLUNTARILY answered this question for ten minutes straight! No breaks and no feedback from my interrogator. I would just answer the question, she would say ‘Thank you’ and then… ‘Tell me a way that you judge yourself’
It was relentless, sometimes I would answer quite quickly with things that I was aware of, other times some obscure answer would come up. Often I would get a huge mind blank and freeze. When the ten minutes was up I was relieved, shocked and felt slightly sorry for myself.
This was all part of an exercise to get in touch with the Inner critic and what in Buddhism they call Mara. Mara, or the Inner critic is the way that we talk to ourselves about ourselves, like a running commentary in the back of our minds telling us how we are doing at all times. Chiming in with comments like ‘I can’t believe you did that!’ ‘Do you remember when you said this?!’ 'You’ll never be as good as them’ etc.
In Buddhism Mara is seen as something that comes from the outside to distract you and take you away from your experience, in the west the Inner critic is very much seen as part of the self.
The story goes that the Buddha was sat beneath a tree one day feeling presently aware, witnessing his surroundings and feeling content. Then Mara arrives to challenge him, first, Mara sends his daughters dancing nearly naked to tempt the Buddha. The Buddha feels the heat rising within his body but doesn’t try to push it away or be seduced into sexual fantasy: he continues to be present with his feelings. Then Mara arrives shooting flaming arrows causing the Buddha to feel physical pain within his body, but instead of reacting or moving: the buddha stays aware whilst experiencing the strong sensation in his body. Finally Mara uses his trump card and fills the Buddha with self-doubt by saying ‘Who do you think you are?’ ‘You are nothing!’ ‘You’re not special enough to achieve enlightenment’ But the Buddha is so present that he can see Mara for who he is. He touches the ground and says ‘I see you Mara’ Suddenly, Mara, this strong aggressive being who seemed so powerful became weaker and dissolved into nothing..
Mara is ultimately us seeing ourselves as something limited or in comparison to. It can come to us in different forms, sometimes it has the voice of a parent or an authority figure, it can talk to us in the first of second person and quite often it just appears as the truth or ‘just the way things are’. It can also be an oppressive atmosphere that follows you around. Interestingly, on the surface it doesn’t always appear as a negative thing, sometimes it can come as the form of encouragement like a voice saying ‘Come on that’s easy, you can do that’ - implying that you should, or are bad for not doing so. It can also appear as a declaration of how great you are, but this is always in comparison to others, which reinforces the small separate sense of self.
Mara gets a bad rap but it’s intention is to protect us, whether that was making us seem small so that we could stay out of the way or saying the right thing so we could be liked by others - Mara has good intentions. When I did this inquiry I realised that my inner critic was always trying to stop me from being humiliated, which has resulted in me not trying certain things and equally has limited my self expression.
Getting to know the inner critic helps us to shine a light on our negative thought patterns, it can feel uncomfortable and to begin with can make you feel a bit worse, as you are bringing awareness to that which was previously buried, however, no matter if we are aware or not the inner critic is always at work controlling our actions in the background. When the Buddha reached enlightenment Mara still appeared every so often with comments like ‘Wow! Look how many followers you have!’ ‘You are the greatest!’ but instead of the Buddha allowing his ego to inflate, he would simply say ‘I see you Mara’ and Mara would get tired and fade away.
So when we become aware of a critical thought we can label it and start to dissolve it’s power. I like to take this one step further: not only seeing and labelling the thought but welcoming it with kindness and compassion and nurturing the tightly wound ball that it created within me.
For more information check out the ‘I see you Mara’ course on Sangha live.