Many years ago, a grad school acquaintance of mine committed suicide. In a memorial to him, one of the professors told a story about Mara’s tempting the Buddha to abandon saving others since no one will understand his teaching. I’ve been trying without success to trace the origin of the tale. Is it a “Buddhist urban legend,” attributed falsely to the Buddha, or have I just overlooked the source?
After Mara details the arduousness of Buddha’s quest, the story has Mara saying something like, “Grasp nirvana and escape this wheel of suffering, for no one, absent your wisdom and insight, will understand.” It concludes, “Then the Buddha, blessed be he, said, Some will understand.”
In the story as it is told in the EBTs, no Mara is involved, the Buddha by himself reflects on not teaching the Dhamma; and then the Brahmā Sahampati who is reading his mind comes to convince him otherwise.
SN6.1:5.2: “Alas! The world will be lost, the world will perish! For the mind of the Realized One, the perfected one, the fully awakened Buddha, inclines to remaining passive, not to teaching the Dhamma.”
…
SN6.1:5.5: “Sir, let the Blessed One teach the Dhamma! Let the Holy One teach the Dhamma! SN6.1:5.6: There are beings with little dust in their eyes. They’re in decline because they haven’t heard the teaching. SN6.1:5.7: There will be those who understand the teaching!”
The thought occurred, but it was not inspired by Mara… it was the Buddha’s own thought.
SN6.1
At one time, when he was first awakened, the Buddha was staying in Uruvelā at the root of the goatherd’s banyan tree on the bank of the Nerañjarā River.
Then as he was in private retreat this thought came to his mind,
“This principle I have discovered is deep, hard to see, hard to understand, peaceful, sublime, beyond the scope of logic, subtle, comprehensible to the astute.
But people like clinging, they love it and enjoy it.
It’s hard for them to see this topic; that is, specific conditionality, dependent origination.
It’s also hard for them to see this topic; that is, the stilling of all activities, the letting go of all attachments, the ending of craving, fading away, cessation, extinguishment.
And if I were to teach this principle, others might not understand me, which would be wearying and troublesome for me.”
But yes, Mara had tried to tempt the Buddha to become extinguished without teaching to which the Buddha had replied in the negative.
DN16
And then, not long after Ānanda had left, Māra the Wicked went up to the Buddha, stood to one side, and said to him:
…
Sir, you once made this statement:
‘Wicked One, I shall not become fully extinguished until I have monk disciples who are competent, educated, assured, learned, have memorized the teachings, and practice in line with the teachings. Not until they practice properly, living in line with the teaching. Not until they’ve learned their tradition, and explain, teach, assert, establish, disclose, analyze, and make it clear. Not until they can legitimately and completely refute the doctrines of others that come up, and teach with a demonstrable basis.’
