1.  THE GREAT IMPOSTOR AND SUFFERING

There is, of course, no " Impostor." It is a personification of your "Evil self."

It is a similar device to the "Satan" generated by religions to personify Evil and permit that attention is drawn to his active part in your life. In North American Indian culture he is called the "Trickster." In every culture he is said to exist, but behind all these names lie inhibiting and debilitating operations within the human mind that cause much suffering.

He is an impostor, for he masquerades as "I" and "me" and is the possesor of things, generating "mine."

The name Mara in Buddha Dharma is most appropriate, because it means "CONDITIONED EXISTENCE." That means to say he is there pretending to be "you," because he has been conditioned by events and the mind generates the concept that this "I and ME" actually exist.

His Daughters then are also a delusion which is not real. In the West we call these "daughter" experiences Id, Ego, and Super Ego. But names don't mean much. What is important is that they are not real but are brought into being by the existence in memory of three sets of associations related to what is visceral, what is emotional and what is mental.

First of all, there is a VISCERAL IDENTITY which we call ID. This IDENTITY has as its objective the full satiation of its VISCERAL NEEDS, which you will see are corruptions of the NATURAL requirements of the human creature. 

Next there is the IDENTITY called EGO. We have all heard a great deal about EGO, for this term is used in everyday conversation to describe a particular IDENTITY state. It stands for SELFISHNESS, actually GREED. The EGO IDENTITY, like ID, seeks satiation in this case, in order to attain the SECURITY which it requires. 

The third major IDENTITY is SUPER EGO. Basically it is a social IDENTITY. It too seeks the satisfaction of its demands, which take the form of DOMINATION and HOSTILITY.

Each of these IDENTITIES influences ATTITUDES, INTENTIONS, and ACTIONS. Basically, however, the IDENTITY which most influences ATTITUDES is the ID IDENTITY, while INTENTIONS are most influenced by the EGO IDENTITY. Finally, all our human ACTIONS are influenced by the SUPER EGO. All these IDENTITIES operate from the subconscious, so we are seldom actually aware of their presence.

                                         GLADNESS AND BENEVOLENT LOVE 

In the development of the undestanding of Suffering, Dharma studies place emphasis upon the two great pillars of MAHAYANA BUDDHISM, which are COMPASSION and WISDOM, but there are two other related EXPERIENCES which can be experienced by a person on the correct path to personal LIBERATION. They are GLADNESS and BENEVOLENT LOVE.

When GLADNESS is active as a PROCESS, then you develop your own ATTITUDES in a correct way, yoking yourself to someone or a group, being PREPARED AT ALL TIMES to be HAPPY when they are HAPPY.

When BENEVOLENT LOVE or LOVING KINDNESS is active as a PROCESS, then you direct your own LOVE and JOY towards someone or a group as pure ENERGY or as a BENEVOLENT ACTION, wishing them to be eternally HAPPY.

                                                  THE SELFISH IDENTITY

        Now, true GLADNESS and BENEVOLENT LOVE are very SELFLESS.

You can see then that it is important in both these cases that they are free of SELFISHNESS. If SELFISHNESS is present then we say that a SELFISH IDENTITY is present.

These SELFLESS definitions of GLADNESS and BENEVOLENT LOVE are quite specific, so you may intuit that there exists another form of GLADNESS and another form of LOVE which is not BENEVOLENT at all. That is correct.

                                                         FALSE GLADNESS

It is not as easy to see that most of our GLADNESS is tainted. We seem to experience HAPPINESS often for other people, do we not? It seems free of taints.

When others receive a gift, are we not HAPPY? It appears so, but there is a very subtle form of FALSE GLADNESS which generally slips into our minds. It is an infectious vicarious enjoyment which declares, "That's the way I would feel if I received that," "I am pleased that they enjoy the gift I gave," or "I am happy because this is creating a very pleasant and happy environment." There is a very subtle IDENTITY attachment in this FALSE GLADNESS. Philosophically it is called hedonism.

While the hedonist philosophy says that this selfish IDENTITY is ALWAYS present, we say that it is MOST OFTEN present. TRUE GLADNESS exists. The problem is that it can only be released if there is a growth of WISDOM and if there is a mindfulness which detects the presence of INCORRECT ATTITUDES and can sense the contamination of the IDENTITY.

                                                  FALSE BENEVOLENT AFFECT

It is much easier to detect the presence of FALSE LOVE, yet its presence is always loudly denied with indignation. Nonetheless it is, in fact, the LOVE which everyone accepts as being true and wonderful. Poems are written about it, songs are written about it, and everyone seeks it, yet it is FALSE.

      Accompanying this apparently magnificent experience which we call mistakenly TRUE LOVE, there is POSSESSIVENESS, JEALOUSY, DEPENDENCE, FEAR, and a hundred or more other subtle states of SUFFERING. The surprising thing is that this FALSE LOVE plays an important part in most people's lives. That is because it is a very strong experience and we have been conditioned to the idea that this type of love is important. 

True BENEVOLENT LOVE is important, but no one has ever bothered to teach us in our lives what real love is all about. That is one of the great things about the GREAT COMPASSION MANTRA. It permits you to experience true love by DIRECT EXPERIENCE and to set aside the INDIRECT ANTAGONIST of BENEVOLENT LOVE, which is actually AFFECTION. The condition of FALSE LOVE is a complex meld of this AFFECTION and other IDENTITY attributes.

If asked about the LOVE which appears to exist between parents and children, between partners, friends, and perhaps between a person and Nature, it would be tempting to think of these as different. In fact they are not. All are related to BENEVOLENT LOVE when they are generated and experienced, and when there is the presence of WISDOM.

     Moreover, there is not just one apparent IDENTITY which resides within each person's subconscious MIND; there are four. When these four IDENTITIES interfere with the mental states of parental love, partner love, and loving friendship, these forms of love appear extremely different from BENEVOLENT LOVE, because of the different selfish demands and expectations imposed by each of the IDENTITIES.

     These differences really lie only in the way in which your own mind perceives the demands of these IDENTITIES, and the way in which the DEMANDS are interpreted. You will learn a great deal about the IDENTITIES as you proceed within the Path, but it is useful now to understand a little about their nature.

                                                   THE IDEAL IDENTITY

But there is yet another Identity residing within us. It is the IDEAL IDENTITY. This is the fraudulent Identity which is conscious and builds the image of ourselves which we wish to broadcast to the world. In other words, knowing Mara and the Daughters within us, we still want everyone to believe that we are a "good and trustworthy" person.

Sometimes we even believe that image ourselves, which is a dangerous thing to do. How many of us actually believe that we are intelligent or sensitive. Are we really?

                     THESE IDENTITIES ARE THE ENEMY - KNOW THEM