Only when meditative concentration and the power of the Path are complete can one recognize and drive away demons.

When the Buddha was in the world, Māra Pāpīyas was already extremely rampant. Fortunately, practitioners of the Path had all eradicated afflictions such as craving and attachment, their minds free from knots and bonds, endowed with supernatural powers and powers of the Path, able to avoid, subdue, and dispel demons. Now, in the Dharma-ending age, sentient beings have scant roots of goodness and little merit; they have no meditative concentration (samādhi), no power of the Path, and no wisdom to discern demons. For those who have some roots of goodness and merit, when they are on the verge of accomplishment, the demons' disturbances are even greater. Yet sentient beings remain unaware, lacking even a bit of the wisdom to discern demons; they do not awaken to the demons' disturbances and completely comply with the demons' will.

Nowadays, so-called Mahāyāna practitioners look down on the Hīnayāna, considering themselves Mahāyāna practitioners superior to the Hīnayāna, disdaining the Hīnayāna's precepts, meditative concentration, and wisdom. They strike out on their own path, bypassing precepts, concentration, and wisdom, imagining themselves to possess great abilities—yet they are nothing but clay bodhisattvas that cannot touch water or cross the river. How could they possibly recognize, discern, avoid, and drive out demons? They can only be captured with hands bound, without resistance.