Evil spirits

Dear Venerable,
I would like to know if Buddhism protects the practitioner against evil spirits?

Venerable Nyanadharo: We can approach the answer to this question in two ways depending on whether we place ourselves from the point of view of religion or that of spiritual practice. In both cases, only an awareness will make it possible not to undergo such supposed influences.

Concerning meditative practice, it leads us to confront countless obstacles that are both physical and mental. The meditator must therefore establish in himself a form of peaceful, continuous and neutral vigilance. By neutral, we mean that the meditator must force himself not to fixate, by isolating it, one phenomenon among others. He will therefore have to try not to focus his attention on these "spirits", but rather to refocus on himself, on his breathing for example.

In meditation, there is no benevolent or malevolent spirit, there are only phenomena which parade and follow one another on the screen of our vigilance.