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Ahhhh.... oh no! I wanted to get there ALL ON MY OWN!! Now you have ruined it for me @Bekenze lol! Don't anyone dare show me what the second oldest thread is
Magic in Buddhism ? It depends who you ask. Some say Buddha is against magic. Some say Magic is fine in Buddhism. I beleive Buddhism is about middle way.
Magic should not be the ultimate purpose. or else one could fall into the wrong path.
I've looked into this a bit recently. Some scholars say magic was part of the culture during the Buddha's time, and that some monks practiced it secretly. Also, not long after the Buddha's death, some of the Buddhist terminology and the Buddha's name came to be regarded as magic, made up of magic syllables.
We had a thread here once, I think, about a monk's book of spells that was found in the caves at Dunhuang. So even monks practiced soothsaying and spell-making, because there was a demand for it.
Sometime in the first half of the first millennium, tantra got mixed up with Buddhism in India. Tantra involves magic, black magic. Padmasambhava imported that brand of Buddhism to Tibet, but he used the magic to subdue Tibet's demons and turn them into guardians of the faith, according to mythology.
Yes, absolutely--magic can fall into the wrong hands, or can corrupt the right hands, even.
Potions? Well, I'm into herbalism myself and make a variety of salves, tinctures, and assorted other ingestable liquids chock full of beneficial herbs, so I guess you could call those "potions" if you wish. In the past, and I mean long ago in the past when I was a kid, I found a copy of Oberon Zell-Ravenheart's "Grimoire for the Apprentice Wizard" it captured my imagination and I had tons of fun reading through it and performing the spells and rituals in the book. I noticed some observable effects but looking back I recognize it purely as placebo... but a placebo effect is still an effect. If I cast a "spell" to banish ill will from my home and all of a sudden I felt much calmer and happier, and my calmness radiated enough to have everyone else in the home pick up on it and calm down themselves, is that not good enough?
It also opened my mind to other possibilities, I began to explore the realm of the spirit much more diligently, and that path eventually led me to where I am now.
So often one person's knowledge is another's magic...western doctors roaming into the foreign wilds encountered native doctors, termed by the westerners, "witch doctors." These witch doctors, in turn, firmly believed it was the westerners who were practicing black magic!
On a linguistic rampage through the etymology of "magic" (Old Persion maguš) I stumbled across something fascinating. Acc. to Wiki, maguš denoted followers of Zoroaster (Persian Zaratuštra), whom the Greeks believed had the ability to "read the stars, and manipulate the fate that the stars foretold."
The "zar" in Zaratuštra is from old Eastern-Iranian zar, meaning "gold." That was an eyebrow-raiser - gold in Tibet is gser (pronounced "ser").
Turns out a folk etymology of Zaratuštra is zaraϑa, "golden", plus *uštra, "light" (from the root uš, "to shine").
gser 'od (pronounced "ser ö") is a well-used phrase in Tibetan meaning "golden light," and 'od 'phro (pronounced "ö tro") means "to shine; radiating light rays."
Sorry this is all sort of meander-y, but suffice it to say, the Persian "zar* + *uštra" and Tibetan "ser + ö tro" both having to do with golden light, would be considered a worthy topic of exploration in the linguistic field.
Aside from linguistic curiosities, a big question to me would be whether there was a central aspect of Zoroastrian teachings having to do with "golden light," and whether that golden light feature was considered magical, supernatural, healing, etc. It could be coincidental, too--a famous teacher/physician who just happened to have a personal name meaning "golden light."
During the third turning of the wheel, the Buddha is said to have taught the gser 'od dam pa'i mdo (Supreme Golden Rays Sutra), which contains a chapter entitled nad thams cad zhi bar byed pa'i rgyud (The Ways of Completely Curing Diseases).
I do feel that in most cases, "magic" is a term applied too quickly to incoming knowledge, and after the knowledge becomes better established, it's no longer called magic. I realize "golden light" is a phenomenon which could describe any number of things and therefore be coincidental in these two cases. But it would be fascinating to explore whether there really was some new teaching, or new science traveling around the world, which involved a central theme of "golden light."
Not one of you can say that it exists or not. If you say nope, magic is pure nonsense then where is your proof? If you believe that magic is an actual phenomana than also, where is your proof? To add, defining magic is something that needs to be addressed in this thread, what is magic? There are a lot of things that go in this universe that we cannot even begin to comprehend, one of them being the complexity of the human mind.
Not one of us says magic exists? Have you read the whole thread? And how do you define "magic"? Sleight-of-hand is one thing. But sometimes what's perceived to be "magic" is based on paranormal phenomena, some of which science is now coming close to explaining.
Great linguistic insight, thanks, Sile. Tibetan picked up some Iranian/Indo-European vocabulary from the early Aryans ("Iran" is a variant of the word "Aryan"). Mostly horse-related vocabulary, I'm told, but some sun-worship vocab ("khor" or "khorlo"), and now--gold (also possibly sun-related), etc.
So maybe the Magi of the Bible were Zoroastrians who divined the meaning of the star over Bethlehem?
I need a definition of magic before I can respond. What I just got from the OP is: spells, potions, element bending, "stuff like that".
We already decided in the 1st two pages that spells were real. "Potions". I guess you mean magic potions. That I don't know about. Yuri Geller faked his spoon-bending. So I'd say it's a "no" on that one.
I think magic is being in the present moment...nothing more nothing less. The miracle is not to walk on water, but to walk in mindfulness with concentration on each and every step. Buddhist practice is to cultivate clarity, not a third eye.
Comments
It depends who you ask. Some say Buddha is against magic. Some say Magic is fine in Buddhism. I beleive Buddhism is about middle way.
Magic should not be the ultimate purpose. or else one could fall into the wrong path.
Bottom line: It exists.
We had a thread here once, I think, about a monk's book of spells that was found in the caves at Dunhuang. So even monks practiced soothsaying and spell-making, because there was a demand for it.
Sometime in the first half of the first millennium, tantra got mixed up with Buddhism in India. Tantra involves magic, black magic. Padmasambhava imported that brand of Buddhism to Tibet, but he used the magic to subdue Tibet's demons and turn them into guardians of the faith, according to mythology.
Yes, absolutely--magic can fall into the wrong hands, or can corrupt the right hands, even.
It also opened my mind to other possibilities, I began to explore the realm of the spirit much more diligently, and that path eventually led me to where I am now.
On a linguistic rampage through the etymology of "magic" (Old Persion maguš) I stumbled across something fascinating. Acc. to Wiki, maguš denoted followers of Zoroaster (Persian Zaratuštra), whom the Greeks believed had the ability to "read the stars, and manipulate the fate that the stars foretold."
The "zar" in Zaratuštra is from old Eastern-Iranian zar, meaning "gold." That was an eyebrow-raiser - gold in Tibet is gser (pronounced "ser").
Turns out a folk etymology of Zaratuštra is zaraϑa, "golden", plus *uštra, "light" (from the root uš, "to shine").
gser 'od (pronounced "ser ö") is a well-used phrase in Tibetan meaning "golden light," and 'od 'phro (pronounced "ö tro") means "to shine; radiating light rays."
Sorry this is all sort of meander-y, but suffice it to say, the Persian "zar* + *uštra" and Tibetan "ser + ö tro" both having to do with golden light, would be considered a worthy topic of exploration in the linguistic field.
Aside from linguistic curiosities, a big question to me would be whether there was a central aspect of Zoroastrian teachings having to do with "golden light," and whether that golden light feature was considered magical, supernatural, healing, etc. It could be coincidental, too--a famous teacher/physician who just happened to have a personal name meaning "golden light."
During the third turning of the wheel, the Buddha is said to have taught the gser 'od dam pa'i mdo (Supreme Golden Rays Sutra), which contains a chapter entitled nad thams cad zhi bar byed pa'i rgyud (The Ways of Completely Curing Diseases).
I do feel that in most cases, "magic" is a term applied too quickly to incoming knowledge, and after the knowledge becomes better established, it's no longer called magic. I realize "golden light" is a phenomenon which could describe any number of things and therefore be coincidental in these two cases. But it would be fascinating to explore whether there really was some new teaching, or new science traveling around the world, which involved a central theme of "golden light."
Great linguistic insight, thanks, Sile. Tibetan picked up some Iranian/Indo-European vocabulary from the early Aryans ("Iran" is a variant of the word "Aryan"). Mostly horse-related vocabulary, I'm told, but some sun-worship vocab ("khor" or "khorlo"), and now--gold (also possibly sun-related), etc.
So maybe the Magi of the Bible were Zoroastrians who divined the meaning of the star over Bethlehem?
I think what Tom means is that no one can honestly say whether or magic truly exists because we just don't know - same with a deity.
spells, potions, element bending, "stuff like that".
We already decided in the 1st two pages that spells were real. "Potions". I guess you mean magic potions. That I don't know about. Yuri Geller faked his spoon-bending. So I'd say it's a "no" on that one.
Buddhist practice is to cultivate clarity, not a third eye.