Expert: Judy - 12/2/2009

Question
QUESTION: Just curious.  Buddhism believes in higher and lower beings.  Western religions believe in both positive and negative spirits and further believe that protection against negative spirits requires belief in God and prayer, etc., Two questions, do Buddhist believe that negative or lower spirits can hurt people and Two, if they do, how do Buddhist protect themselves?

ANSWER: Hi, Marc,

Thanks for this interesting question.

No, Buddhists do not believe that negative or lower spirits can hurt people.  

To me, the western belief in God serves the truth about human achievement.  When people pray to God, they are full of faith with the intention directed to what they pray for.  This force is truly, in my opinion, the power of human beings who BELIEVE what they pray for CAN happen.  Despite the fact that they believe in mighty God's power, they don't realize that it is their OWN power to make it work.  Of course, there is always dualism: be it positive and negative, or good and bad.... etc..  There must be evil or so called Satan (negative )oppose to the mighty God (the positive).

In Buddhism, there is no dualism.  Thus, there is no comparison.  Evil or not, in Buddhism, is all in human mind.  There is original nothing, but human beings create their illusion and delusion. People can only hurt themselves, but not others, especially not any negative spirits.  When there is no force connecting a human being and the evil force, there is no connection at all.  In another word, human consciousness is very important in understanding Buddhist teaching.  One hand is not going to clap itself; it takes two to work.  Have you heard a saying "when you believe, it happens."  That's because once your mind is settled in something, all the forces are geared towards that direction.

Hope it helps your question.

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Hi.  Juist confused.  I know the Buddha was tempted under the tree with Maya which I thought was a negative being and Tibeten Buddism does mention the words Hungry Ghost.  WHat are these beings, are they just metaphors?  THanks again.

Answer
Hello, Marc,

You probably get Mara and Maya mixed up.  Yes, Mara was a demon; whereas Maya was the lord Buddha's mother.  

Please note that while we are living day by day with busy thoughts and actions, our minds are very active and that's how we are kind of numbed.  When we meditate, especially sitting meditation, our minds become clear.  That's when we notice that we have so many wondering thoughts and ideas pop up.  When we are in a deep stage of meditation, we sometimes encounter delusions in our minds.  That's the time to test our mindfulness, and to be able to tell what's real and what's not.  All these demons are just in our minds.  They are not going to hurt us, but we scare ourselves by not recognizing them as delusion.

Yes, hungry ghosts exist.  They are part of the realms.  Hungry ghosts are not demons, but they reincarnate as the BEINGS in the bottom realm