修習止觀坐禪法要 1.142

1.142

梵音魔羅，秦言殺者，奪行人功德之財，殺行人智慧之命，是故名之為惡。魔事者，如佛以功德智慧度脫眾生入涅槃為事，魔常以破壞眾生善根令流轉生死為事。若能安心正道，是故道高方知魔盛。仍須善識魔事，但有四種：一、煩惱魔，二、陰入界魔，三、死魔，四、鬼神魔。三種皆是世間之常事，及隨人自心所生，當須自心正除遣之，今不分別。鬼神魔相，此事須知，今當略說。

The Sanskrit sound is Māra, which in the language of Qin is called 'killer,' because it seizes the practitioner's wealth of merit and kills the practitioner's life of wisdom; therefore it is called evil. As for Māra's workings, just as the Buddha takes liberating sentient beings through merit and wisdom so that they enter Nirvāṇa as his work, Māra constantly takes destroying sentient beings' wholesome roots so that they transmigrate in birth and death as his work. If one can settle the mind on the correct path, therefore only when the path is high does one know that Māra is flourishing. Still, one must skillfully recognize Māra's workings, which are of only four kinds: first, the māra of defilements; second, the māra of the aggregates, sense bases, and elements; third, the māra of death; fourth, the māra of ghosts and spirits. The first three kinds are all ordinary worldly matters, and they arise following the person's own mind; one must correctly dispel and eliminate them with one's own mind, so they are not analyzed here. The signs of the māra of ghosts and spirits are a matter that must be known, and shall now be briefly explained.