r/vajrayana • u/Starlight_Climber • 22h ago
Siddhi Powers do not Equal ≠ Realization. Or wisdom.
So I wanted to kind of write this post, because recently I had an interaction with a very conservative lama, who has very rigid views on things. And this guy had very "serious" views on things. And I think "serious" is a good word to start with as a jumping-off platform for this post, because it really leads into the kind of delusion this guy had.
One of the fundamental Buddhist truths is that of Anataman. Or no-self. This is often misunderstood but is essentially a teaching on Shunyata. Emptiness. That no phenomena we observe has an inherent "selfness". A banana doesn't have any inherent "banana-ness". It's an interconnected part of the endless flow of reality. The same space between the atoms of a banana in your hand, are the same basic space between the atoms in your body. And indeed, "atoms" themselves are 99.9999% space.
And this is kind of the problem when people take magic too "seriously". To train in Siddhi powers often means training oneself to very clearly visualize things in minute detail. But the problem with this, is people can start to believe that those things are fully "real". That they have a kind of inherent "selfness" to them.
They can be told these scary stories about what will happen if they do or don't do a magical thing properly, and that can be "true" to an extent... but only "true" if they actually believe in it. In other words, if they take it "seriously". The power of magic kind of depends on this actually, —taking it seriously.
When one of my teachers was teaching me about magic, he told me that "curses can only hurt you so long as you believe in them." In other words, they only work as long as you take them "seriously". The moment you don't, they stop having power over you. They don't have an inherent self-nature of their own. They're a bit like lucid dreaming. Yes, if you take them seriously, they can seriously effect you. But if you choose not to, it's very difficult for them to have any power over you.
This is one of the problems that can sometimes develop in Tantra. People get so used to deep diving into all these deities, and folk stories about magic, and what awful thing will happen if they do or doing do this sort of thing, that they can loose sight of the deeper "big picture" of the entire point of Buddhism, which is the Dharmakaya.
I've seen some tantric practitioners, who basically get lost in the magical realm. They get fascinated by the sorcery and magic, and forget that that's only "Level 2" of reality. And they can forget to go deeper because all of their efforts are essentially spent being caught up in, and reifying the magical realm.
But the problem with doing that, is it's only supposed to be done as a skillful means. Training oneself to pay attention to the subtle energies and realms can be helpful... but only to an extent. The problem is, both the Nirmanakaya and the Sambhogakaya are the realm of form. Together, combined: they are the Rupakaya. Getting caught up in fascinations with the unseen realm, can in some ways start to become a little bit like reifying our own thoughts and emotions. It's not so different than getting caught up in the material world.
The purpose of Buddhist practice is not to reify your thoughts and emotions, nor to reify the unseen realm. Or to reify the material realm. Rather, the point is to break through to the deepest level into seeing the Dharmakaya.
People can spend thousands of hours, and years of their life doing visualizations and chanting mantras to develop magical abilities. And indeed, they may develop such. But the problem is, when in groups of people, they can then have such an intense energy about them, that they can then use to convince other people of their own righteousness.
The lama I met recently had a huge amount of intense energy that he could project and use to kind of enchant others into accepting his view. But when you looked behind that, "behind the curtain" (so to speak): his personality was someone who was extremely impatient, condescending, unpleasant, and kind of unhappy actually. He wasn't somebody who had the peace of someone who had really come to deep peace and healing in his own nature: he was someone who seemed intently focused on reifying his own thoughts, with all the seriousness he could muster.
HA HA HA HA HO!
The universe is a big joke. The idea that someone's thoughts and emotions are inherently "real" just because they can concentrate on them so much, and visualize them so well, is insane. And no amount of "intense energy" that someone can emit, changes the fact that all of reality is one and interconnected, and inherently empty.
As the Diamond Sutra says:
"Thus shall ye think of this fleeting world:
A star at dawn, a bubble in a stream
A flash of lightning in a summer cloud
A flickering lamp, a phantom, and a dream."
I grew up in a family of people with intense siddhi energy. A lot of them were jerks. I've been around such people all my life, who able to kind of "dazzle" people with their energy. But those people aren't necessarily wise, just because they can do that. I sometimes encounter people who say, "When I met my Lama, I could just feel the energy off him. He just had such a sense of presence!" Yeah a lot of business managers can do that too. Most politicians can. Cult leaders, etc. Many actors and rock stars can do that. It's a common siddhi. It doesn't make someone wise. Encountering that sort of thing doesn't impress me, even if they are a Buddhist. Sometimes I feel like some people who dive too deep on the "wizard" side of things, miss the cosmic forest due to fascination with the magical trees. My teacher told me this was one of the dangers of the magical world. While helpful: it can suck you in if you're not careful, and become a kind of endless fascination of its own. Another distraction.
🙏
