The Skandha Demons

Demons are personifications of phenomena that act as moral distractions for the spiritual seeker. The Skandha demons are a group of around 55 demonic forms that confuse and harm those who explore the deeper aspects of being.

There is a hierarchy to their appearance, with each stage of progress presenting particular challenges, manifesting as demonic foes that must simply be recognised. Initially, these demons resemble familiar sensory addictions, but the more advanced challenges often involve subtler attachments — to being itself, or to expanded jhanic awareness.

These personifications may install doubt and despondency earlier on the path, acting to dissuade the seeker and confuse their direction. Later, they often work through pride, invoking fantasies of being a saviour or a worldly ruler.

The origin of these phenomena lies in residual self-yearnings, which entangle with the senses and mind to create elaborate delusions. With each realisation and progression, there may be moments of mental fantasy that should be experienced, but never grasped or clung to.

The Skandha demons are not particularly dangerous if one recognises them. Simply put — and I know this sounds harsh — but if you suddenly have a realisation that leads to any ongoing experience of being, this is a Skandha demon at work. This process is hard work. One cannot lower one’s guard and assume that because things are no longer unpleasant, one is anywhere near finished. The greatest danger lies in mistaking the end of one’s current understanding for the completion of the journey. This is how cults form: some ability and understanding are gained, followed by material seduction through power.

Only at the very end can one truly realise that there is nothing to be understood. The attempt to understand it prevents knowing it. If you think you are enlightened, that too is conceptual. Conceptuality may point towards it, but it is as different as vision is to the blind versus the sighted.

There are many small stages; each opens the mind exponentially beyond the last. Fragments of self eagerly insert themselves into these new paradigms. One must foster a loving parental relationship with one’s own skandhas — allowing them to play and fantasise for a while — but then sober up and return to focus. You are not interested in any concept of self, even the superhuman ones.

Diligence is essential. One is starved of self-definition, and it can be dreadfully easy to confuse oneself, mistaking concept for being.

The Surangama Sutra outlines the Skandha demons for those interested. They remain problematic until the eighth Bhumi (level) of Bodhisattva development, called ‘Immovable’, where thinking is cut off at its root and one dwells only in thoughtless nirvana.

For further reading: Bhūmi (Buddhism).

“The mind is like an artist, painting the world with its own delusions.”
— Surangama Sutra