The Question of Jetsun Zilnön
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organs, chops your body into pieces, flays your skin, and cuts off your limbs and extremities. Displaying an ugly form, it says, ‘On this day I will take your breath away and leave you here to die and go to hell. I am the one who took the lives of your lineage lamas and ancestors.’ Thus it rises up as your enemy and instigates various terrifying appearances. “Sometimes [the figures of your] mother, sisters, and beloved ones [show their affection] and beautiful, bejeweled women smile radiantly and act sexy. Sometimes ugly figures cry and wail. Sometimes fathers and brothers act helpful and beneficial and arouse your longing. Sometimes enemies rise up and produce hateful thoughts. Sometimes the figure of your yidam deity says, ‘You don’t need to exert yourself in virtue in order to accomplish the path, such as the six perfections of giving in generosity, maintaining your morality, and so forth. You have consummated the path. What is there to practice? You have refined the cause previously. Now this life is the ripened fruition. The time has come to subdue all the devils. Subdue all demons and devils.’ Then, [you go ahead and] tame the demon slaves and lead the village rituals. Thus you are led down the wrong path. “Or they say, ‘Now is the time to indulge your desires. Indulge in all the afflictive emotions you like. To the extent that you indulge in afflictive emotion, all sentient beings obtain the path of liberation.’ Thus they instigate you to engage your neuroses and connect with the wrong path. “Or, saying, ‘After this life, you will be a buddha with such-and-such a name in such-and-such a pure land,’ they will puff you up with pride and arrogance and send you down the wrong path. These are the düd emanating as deities. “Sometimes, they’ll appear in the form of your lama or deity and say, ‘We have been mistaken about the Dharma and taken the wrong path. We have experienced a lot of suffering. You, child, abandon this Dharma and get involved in something other than this.’ In that way they turn your mind against the lama and the Dharma. Or, saying, ‘We deities cannot provide you with refuge, so you should go to another for refuge,’ they send you on the wrong path while posing as divine witnesses. Thus düds emanate as lamas and deities and cast down your mind. They cause doubt and suspicion to arise. You become disappointed in the lama and the deities and the Dharma, and reject them. “They also cause various physical and mental discomforts. They create every kind of hindrance to liberation and the resolve for enlightenment. And