Part 42

Update 41: MARA

BEHOLD! The being behind the DOOR!

The DOOR OF DOOM!


MARA!

No! Your eyes do NOT decieve you! That is the form of the DEMON. MARA!

MARA!




Yes!




Since Aleph ALREADY has 999,999 Makka (and without cheating!), Aleph must refuse to accept that.




Bah! ten levels? That would be nice, but since Aleph is already somewhat overlevelled (or maybe just has a lot of pretty damn powerful weapons and armor...), that is not needed.
REFUSE.



Mara sees the point.




Now, that is just plain silly.




He will fight the prarty no matter in the neutral and law alignments. In the Chaos path, Mara only fights you if your Int is under 15.

MARA!

Wikipedia posted:

In Buddhism, Mara is the demon who tempted Gautama Buddha by trying to seduce him with the vision of beautiful women who, in various legends, are often said to be his daughters. In Buddhist cosmology, Mara personifies unskillfulness, the "death" of the spiritual life. He is a tempter, distracting humans from practicing the spiritual life by making the mundane alluring or the negative seem positive.

The early Buddhists, however, rather than seeing Mara as a demonic, virtually all-powerful Lord of Evil, regarded him as more of a nuisance. Many episodes concerning his interactions with the Buddha have a decidedly humorous air to them.

In traditional Buddhism four senses of the word "mara" are given.
Klesa-mara, or Mara as the embodiment of all unskilful emotions.
Mrtyu-mara, or Mara as death, in the sense of the ceaseless round of birth and death.
Skandha-mara, or Mara as metaphor for the entirety of conditioned existence.
Devaputra-mara, or Mara the son of a deva (god), that is, Mara as an objectively existent being rather than as a metaphor.

Early Buddhism acknowledged both a literal and "psychological" interpretation of Mara. Mara is described both as an entity having a literal existence, just as the various deities of the Vedic pantheon are shown existing around the Buddha, and also is described as a primarily psychological force - a metaphor for various processes of doubt and temptation that obstruct religious practice.

"Buddha defying Mara" is a common pose of Buddha sculptures. The Buddha is shown with his left hand in his lap, palm facing upwards and his right hand on his right knee. The fingers of his right hand touch the earth, to call the earth as his witness for defying Mara and achieving enlightenment. This posture is also referred to as the 'earth-touching' mudra.

Video of the fight!
MARA!

And so, the fight ends.





And brings with it four points. FOUR.


Mara, being dead, is left speechless.


No. Not yet. There is stuff to be done in Chokmah.
And that will be in the next update. For now, CHOICES are needed. Four points. FOUR!