Only when the power of meditative concentration and the Path is fully possessed can one recognize demons and expel demons

When the Buddha was in the world, Māra Pāpīyas was already extremely rampant. Fortunately, practitioners of the Path had severed afflictions such as craving and attachment, their minds free from bondage, and they possessed spiritual powers and mastery of the Path, enabling them to avoid, subdue, and dispel māras. Now, in the Dharma-ending age, sentient beings have scant roots of goodness and little merit; they lack meditative concentration (samādhi) and power of the Path, and have no wisdom to discern māras. For those who have some roots of goodness and merit, as they are on the verge of accomplishment, the māras' disturbance becomes even greater. Yet sentient beings remain unaware, without the slightest wisdom to discern māras; they do not awaken to the māras' disturbance and instead completely comply with the māras' will.

Nowadays, so-called Mahāyāna practitioners look down on the Small Vehicle, considering themselves Mahāyāna practitioners superior to the Small Vehicle, disdaining its precepts, samādhi, and wisdom. They blaze their own trail, bypassing precepts, samādhi, and wisdom, imagining themselves to possess extraordinary 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 māras? They can only be captured with hands bound.