Any craving for an experience that one thinks will add to personal pleasure, comfort, or happiness is an expression of kama-trishna, whose soft bonds to objects of sensory satisfaction are stronger than iron chains or fetters of wood or rope (345). Even of himself, the Buddha says that if he had had to contend with another desire as strong as that of sex – the most powerful expression of kama-trishna – then he would not have been able to achieve his goal. Mara is the personification of the strong hold such desires have
