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Monks/Nuns and Supernatural Abilities *cue erie music*
I know there will be those who will say I'm most likely off my rocker (and perhaps I am anyway), but to those who do believe in such things, why do you think Buddhist monks and nuns take a vow to not reveal any gained supernatural/psychic abilities from their practice?
I am speaking from experience in terms of having seen it live. I have met a few monks and nuns who were able to read my mind (freaked me OUT!) as well as could astral project or bi-locate (whatever it's called) to a place and give a detailed account of what it looked like, to just being able to see the past, present, and future specifically and accurately.
I've dabble with divination techniques myself over the years, and have just recently started getting into meditation. I notice when I meditate, my tarot card readings and the sort are better and I'm more in tune. I really don't think there's anything special about having pronounced psychic abilities-- I think we're all capable of using them, but like anything in life some start off stronger than others, while some never bother to develop them.
Anyway, I'm going off on a tangent here, but back to the question: why do you think they (at least most of them) vow not to reveal their abilities? I understand the over all goal is to not have any attachments and be seduced by the power and excitement of it all, but if they're using them secretly isn't that just as bad as announcing their abilities to others? Also, I'm sure there are laypeople out there who haven't taken vows who have these abilities as well... so perhaps it's just a normal evolution of mankind and there's really no need for secrecy, you know?
And, no, I'm not wearing a tin foil hat as I type this.
I am speaking from experience in terms of having seen it live. I have met a few monks and nuns who were able to read my mind (freaked me OUT!) as well as could astral project or bi-locate (whatever it's called) to a place and give a detailed account of what it looked like, to just being able to see the past, present, and future specifically and accurately.
I've dabble with divination techniques myself over the years, and have just recently started getting into meditation. I notice when I meditate, my tarot card readings and the sort are better and I'm more in tune. I really don't think there's anything special about having pronounced psychic abilities-- I think we're all capable of using them, but like anything in life some start off stronger than others, while some never bother to develop them.
Anyway, I'm going off on a tangent here, but back to the question: why do you think they (at least most of them) vow not to reveal their abilities? I understand the over all goal is to not have any attachments and be seduced by the power and excitement of it all, but if they're using them secretly isn't that just as bad as announcing their abilities to others? Also, I'm sure there are laypeople out there who haven't taken vows who have these abilities as well... so perhaps it's just a normal evolution of mankind and there's really no need for secrecy, you know?
And, no, I'm not wearing a tin foil hat as I type this.
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Why do you think Buddhist monks and nuns take a vow to not reveal any gained supernatural/psychic abilities from their practice?
I am unaware of this vow.
teach me dhamma in a way I've not experienced before.. then i'll be impressed.
Just joking.
Considering just about everything seems like a miracle if you really look at it, anything is possible.
But If there was someone with some serious supernatural powers, I'm pretty sure they wouldn't be able to keep it to themselves.
There are a lot of things that have happened that I just have no logical explanation for, but how do you logically explain a human? Like how the heck did that even happen? Just walking on this earth is a miracle haha.
http://www.budsas.org/ebud/whatbudbeliev/31.htm
The Buddha also expressly forbade His disciples to use miracles to prove the superiority of His teachings. On one occasion He said that the use of miracles to gain converts was like using dancing girls to tempt people to do something. Anyone with the proper mental training can perform miracles because they are simply an expression of mind over matter.
The following story illustrates the Buddha's attitude towards miraculous powers. One day the Buddha met an ascetic who sat by the bank of a river. This ascetic had practised austerities for 25 years. The Buddha asked him what he had received for all his labour. The ascetic proudly replied that, now at last, he could cross the river by walking on the water. The Buddha pointed out that this gain was insignificant for all the years of labour, since he could cross the river using a ferry for one penny!
The Buddha says that a person can gain miraculous power without gaining spiritual power. He teaches us that if we first gain spiritual power, then we automatically receive the miraculous or psychic powers too. But if we develop miraculous powers without spiritual development, then we are in danger. We can misuse this power for worldly gain(Pataligama-Udana). There are many who have deviated from the right path by using their miraculous powers without having any spiritual development. Many people who are supposed to have obtained some miraculous powers succumbed to the vain glory of obtaining some worldly gain.
Lying about having supranormal powers is an even more serious offense, being a parajika or defeat: "Should any bhikkhu, without direct knowledge, claim a superior human state, a truly noble distinction of knowledge and vision, as present in himself, saying, 'Thus do I know; thus do I see,' such that regardless of whether or not he is cross-examined on a later occasion, he — being remorseful and desirous of purification — might say, 'Friends, not knowing, I said I know; not seeing, I said I see — vainly, falsely, idly,' unless it was from over-estimation, he also is defeated and no longer in affiliation."
For more info, check out "The Buddha's Attitude to Miracles."
:thumbup:
If only they had the same superpower no one would be talking about restraining orders.
If the court discloses my powers, does that count as a broken vow?.
But I know that even if it had good intentions, such as trying to find a missing person, it probably interferes with the karmic lessons/path of those involved and that's why it is prohibited as well.
I find it an interesting topic. I'm not sure what I really think of it yet, but I've heard more than one story from monks claiming various psychic abilities. Lama Dudjom Dorjee told a story during a retreat about he and a brother eating part of a food gift that was to go to his uncle at a retreat cabin and the uncle knew exactly what had happened as if he'd been there.
I don't believe in actual miracles so to speak, I do think there are vast amounts about the mind and it's possible "powers" that we do not understand yet, so I believe such things are capable.
But if Buddha didn't want such things spoken of to lay persons, why are stories of it in some of the sutras? Or was it because he was teaching monks at the time and not lay people? But clearly he would have known his teachings were taught to lay people as well, so why mention them?
But on a serious note, he has freaked me out on several occasions. The first time I walked into his store, he asked me to help him write a sign, which really isn't that odd, right? It is when this is how he asks: "Ah, so you want to be an English teacher? Can you help me with this sign? My English is not so good." What's so strange? Well, I had never met him before and becoming an English teacher is one of my goals. I wasn't wearing, holding, or doing anything that gave it away.
The second time I walked into his store. We talked for a good 45 minutes. During our chat, he suddenly turns the conversation to impermanence, death, and how we all should be mindful of it. I wondered why he had changed the conversation so quickly, but I didn't mind. I was just happy to have a good conversation. On my way home from the store, my mother called me and told me my paternal grandmother had passed earlier in the day. I didn't even know she was ill. I immediately stopped, cried, then freaked out for a little bit.
With concern to your question, super natural powers are not really meant for display. If they're inadvertently developed from practice, then they are either to be ignored or used through skillful means to help one along the path. This doesn't just apply to monks; it's for lay people as well. If you can use them to help others, then it's fine. The Buddha uses his powers, which are really just manifestations of his realization, to help people in the sutras.
Anyway, I babble. One question raises another raises another. It's all very confusing. But back to the main point-- I do understand what you mean by interfering with karma. I now understand a little better why, perhaps, the monks and nuns cut themselves off from the layperson's world.
The way I see it, trying to find a missing child out of compassion would be a skillful action on your part, and their being found would be a happy result. It should also be noted that monks and nuns are prohibited from displaying supranormal powers to the laity, but they can still use them to benefit people without making a display of them; and in his commentary to the Vinaya, Buddhaghosa suggests that it's worth breaking certain rules if it's for a good reason (e.g., to help save someone's life).
But again, don't go messing with the balance on a grand scale! Hehe.
All beings are capable of meditative experiences that might be called transcendent or special to worldly eyes but these arise unbidden from an egolessness that is helm less. In other words..it requires the goal of goalessness which makes for a very unwieldy phenomena..
The Buddha's path is just a trail of dropped attachments.
"Special" or "supernatural" is just something else to be shed onto the path behind you.
Speaking of locating missing children, a computer tutor I hired once said she did volunteer work as a psychic with the local search-and-rescue people, locating lost hikers and skiers in the mountains. She must have had some successes, because she's on call with them.
From my own experience, not having vows of secrecy, any abilities develop when we have the capacity to use them in service to others. Using them for self aggrandisement or self interest and they disappear . . .
But to answer, psychic phenomena is hard to prove because you get on the wavelengths of other than psychic when you try to prove. Selection bias for example answers a lot of questions of close encounters of the third kind (old movie).
It wouldn't surprise me at all but that is certainly "wrong livelihood " if monastics -
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/ptf/dhamma/sacca/sacca4/samma-ajivo/index.html
Wrong livelihood for contemplatives
... reading marks on the limbs [e.g., palmistry]; reading omens and signs; interpreting celestial events [falling stars, comets]; interpreting dreams; reading marks on the body [e.g., phrenology]; reading marks on cloth gnawed by mice; offering fire oblations, oblations from a ladle, oblations of husks, rice powder, rice grains, ghee, and oil; offering oblations from the mouth; offering blood-sacrifices; making predictions based on the fingertips; geomancy; laying demons in a cemetery; placing spells on spirits; reciting house-protection charms; snake charming, poison-lore, scorpion-lore, rat-lore, bird-lore, crow-lore; fortune-telling based on visions; giving protective charms; interpreting the calls of birds and animals ... [The list goes on and on]
— DN 2
Okay, it's a long story, but my ex is Cambodian and he got me into the whole Theravada Buddhism thing. Long story short, I was a hardcore atheist and didn't believe in much in terms of anything religion-wise or supernatural, etc. I just had a very Richard Dawkins mindset. I know that Buddhists are technically atheists to begin with, but I was the type of atheist that thought we are born, we die, that's it, there's no purpose, whatever.
Anyway, so the first time I had ever encountered a monk was around 2001. My ex asked me if I wanted to get blessed. There was this renowned monk (from their homeland, Cambodia) who was visiting the area (in the United States) for a short while, and his family was going to get blessed by him and he wanted to, so he asked if I wanted to join in as well. I've always been very skeptical, but still open minded. I thought it seemed like an interesting thing to learn, so I did.
Well, the experience blew my mind and really started to have me question a lot of things. After our blessing, he (and there were two other monks there as well) asked in Khmer if I had any questions to ask him. The first thing that popped into my head was, "I don't even know what Buddhism is, really... what's the story behind it?" But I didn't ask that. But right away he started to tell the story of Siddhartha and my ex started to translate to me. I was kind of like, "Freaky."
So then my ex asked a question about their family's business. The monk went into an almost trance-like state and started to describe the building/store EXACTLY. He had never been in there before. He told us what the business was, where everything was located/placed-- he has no idea about any of this before he sat down with us.
So then he kept pressing me to ask a question... so I asked about my family. I won't go into specifics, but oh my god was he spot on. Detailed and accurate to the Nth degree. He knew all about what happened to me growing up and about my family members. Oh, and he said something very sweet to me. My first name actually is "Tara," and he only asked for my first name when doing this. Before he answered my question, he said I was "a very good, compassionate person" and that I'd "never have to worry about anything in life." I thought that was sweet. Some may say it's simply because my name has to do with Buddhism and that's why he said it, but I'd like to think otherwise.
Let's see, what else? Ummm, as for future predictions, he was spot on about them, too. One of the things he said was that my brother would be married in 4 years and he was right about that. He also saw that my ex and I wouldn't stay together. I mean, that stuff is hit or miss, I'm sure you could argue that's not really predicting the future since it's a 50/50 thing, but there was so much other stuff he said that I don't want to get into that was specific and accurate about personal matters. It was really freaky and really started to convert my nihilistic thinking.
Let's see... another time was around winter 2009. My friend, who was Vietnamese, took me to see this (I guess "retired") Buddhist nun. She used to be one but now she was living with her family and a grandmother, so I'm assuming she left in order to have a family.
Anyway, she scared me the most. She literally read my mind as well. Before she started to read for us, she meditated for a good 10-15 minutes, so that tells ya right there she wasn't playing around...
Anyway, back to the mind reading bit-- she even said before we started, "Think of the question in your head-- you don't have to say anything, and I will answer your questions." I tried to think of the most foul thing I could think of to test her out at first. She put her hand over her mouth as she blushed and giggled uncomfortably. I won't say what it was, but, yeah, she could read my mind.
And she was consistent. For example, I asked in my mind, "Will I ever date [person X]?" And as soon as the thought came into my head, she would answer it (my friend translated, of course, because the woman only spoke Vietnamese). It was unbelievable. And she predicted every single even that has happened to me since then. Major events-- things that I swore wouldn't happen when she said them. Again, I don't want to go into specifics-- you'll just have to believe me on this. But she was always careful not to say this is the definite path... she would say what she saw happening, but always offered some "hope", I guess, that things could go differently if I chose to do so.
Let's see what else... there were a few other readers I saw. When I stayed in Cambodia for a while there were a couple laypeople who read for me and they were good. Not mind readers and the sort, but very good at divination. I saw a couple other monks from 2001 - 2012 time period but it's the same stuff-- since I don't want to give detailed accounts about my personal life on here, it would just be the same setup of the story so I don't want to bother typing it all out again.
But yeah... sorry I couldn't offer a lot more specific examples to you of what they said, but they were definitely able to read my mind, to see my past, to see my present, and see the path I was currently on for my future.
Now all I have to do is find someone who doesn't mind showing me that they can levitate.
When Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche was still in the robe he was Abbot of a monastery in Scotland. It was rumoured that at night he floated cross legged down the corridors.
I asked him about this..he looked at me enigmatically for a few minutes and then said " ( Dharma name ) ..dont be stupid. "
Do I think he did really float down the corridors but was concealing the fact...no I dont.
It reminds me of another story of the teacher who met a man who has spent many years mastering the ability to walk on water..he had got so good at it after 20 years of practice he could walk across the river.
" What a waste of time " said the teacher " the ferryman will take you across for a penny "...
The Dharma has one purpose...to end suffering..not to produce David Blaines.
You are here...you are breathing...you can love and laugh. You can feel rain on your skin and wind in your hair..you dont need baubles.
We are evolving all of the time. One day we are most likely all going to be reading minds and levitating and such. It will be second nature, just as speaking is now. We didn't always look and act like this way as human beings. We are the work of billions of years of evolution. Back when we were first evolving, I bet you no one thought we'd be doing the things we do today. It would have been seen just as taboo back then and probably considered sorcery and the sort.
This has nothing to do with supernatural powers real or imagined.
It starts with us here and now, as we are, in these changing bodies with each in and out breath.
Telepathy or jewellery or prophetic ability or fur coats cannot add anything to that..
Liberation in Buddhist terms comes from seeing things as they are... No special ability is needed ..no siddhis. Just time and patience and the quieting of the mind.
Therefore, if someone can read minds or levitate and so forth, it's just there. It's kind of "new" to us that's why I, personally, am fascinated by it. But it holds no real power and is just something we all can do, but haven't cultivated yet. That's why I think it's so neat. But just like playing the piano, some are born naturals, some are hard workers and eventually do it well, and some just don't care or don't want to and never try. "Psychic abilities" (for lack of a better term) are beautiful, natural things to behold. And I appreciate that beauty, just like I appreciate someone who can paint well or calculate math problems well or be a loving parent.
But at the same time they are attainments as a by product of clarity.
Just like anything and everything. From the view point of clarity it is the mandala worn as an ornament. From the view point of ignorance it is poison.
For a monk their vows are more important than their lives. And in general most of Buddhist does not like to share their experiences or attainments. Everything is very hush hush and done in private with those who are trusted.
Just my opinion.
But please feel free to disagree 1000%..but lets be clear what we are disagreeing 1000% about.
NB Jason also said that he is "agnostic " about the existence of such powers.