Buddhist supernatural powers
It's not the superpower you think
Have you ever considered
A person who explicitly forbids disciples from performing supernatural powers in public
Why does he spend a lot of time in his classics discussing supernatural powers?
Isn't that contradictory?
And here's what's even more outrageous.
The Buddha listed six magical powers
Five of them, he said, can also be practiced
Only one is unique to Buddhism
And this is the only one
Precisely the one that doesn't look like a superpower the most
today
Let's take apart this concept that has been misunderstood for 2,500 years
Hello
Hello.
I am Wang Lijie
Let's take the word supernatural power apart first
god
It doesn't mean fairy in ancient Chinese.
It's about the unthinkable.
Beyond conventional knowledge
pass
It's access.
Is through
So the literal meaning of supernatural power is
You have mastery of a domain outside of normal cognition.
Its original Sanskrit word
Translate it as
Extraordinary knowledge
Beyond conventional direct cognition
Notice the root
is knowledge
Not a spell
Not magic
From an etymological point of view
Buddhist supernatural powers
It's essentially a cognitive ability.
It's not supernatural.
This is very important.
Because it directly determines the underlying framework for our understanding of the entire Buddhist system
OK
What are the six magical powers that the Buddha talked about?
Let's go one by one.
The first one.
Skyvision
It literally means the ability to see beyond the naked eye.
The scriptures say
Those who have achieved vision can see distant things
See where the reincarnation of all beings goes
If you put aside the reincarnation part for now
Just look at the first half of the sentence
Isn't that the ability to access information beyond the limitations of physical distance?
You think it's mysterious
We have satellite remote sensing today.
Infrared Imaging
radio telescope
Which one is not the eye of the sky?
It took 2,500 years.
The function of Tianyantong has been partially realized by technical means
Certainly.
This analogy is just a bridge to help understand
It's not that technique equals meditation achievement.
Second
tianertong
You can hear sounds that ordinary people can't hear
Same reason.
ultrasonic detector
radio receiver
Laser interference attractive force observatory
Also known as LIGO
Essentially some form of earring
third
He knows
Know what other people are thinking
Now, don't call it mind-reading.
There's a very well-established concept in modern psychology called the theory of mind.
It's the innate ability of humans to infer the mental state of others
Advanced empathy
micro-expression recognition
In a sense, it is a low-end version of his heart
And it's interesting that
Modern neuroscience through functional magnetic resonance imaging
Already able to learn to some extent from the patterns of brain activity
Decode what someone is thinking
You see
Isn't this partially achieved using silicon-based technology?
Fourth
Destiny Pass
Know your own and others' experiences of death
This is the most difficult to correspond under the framework of modern science
But if you look at it from an information theorist perspective
Our genes carry information about billions of years of evolution.
Our culture carries thousands of years of collective memory
Jung's Talk about the Collective Unconscious
Isn't it a kind of destiny in a sense?
Certainly.
The analogy is rather forced
I'm just offering a way of thinking.
I'm not saying they're the same.
Fifth
Shentong
Also called Ruyitong
It says that the body is free to change
teleportation
In all six supernatural powers
This one sounds most like a superhero.
But please note
The Buddha himself never used this ability to escape any difficulties
It was useless when he was attacked by the devil under the Bodhi tree
It was useless when he was chased by Devadatta
It didn't help when he was seriously ill on his deathbed
If you have superpowers but never use them
So what is the significance of this superpower?
This question
We'll get back to that.
sixth
missed pass
Attention
The first five all carry a pass character
This sixth one is also brought.
But the message is completely different.
leak
It's a byword for defilement in Buddhism.
It's greed, anger, delusion, suspicion, these psychological impurities
do
Is complete elimination
So the meaning of omitted is
A state of access that completely eliminates all psychological troubles
Did you find it?
The first five magical powers describe some kind of supernormal sensory or physical ability
Only the sixth
It describes a state of mind
The first five are outward-looking
The sixth is inward.
The first five are expansions of capability.
The sixth is the elimination of worries
And the Buddha said
Only the sixth
Is unique to Buddhism
What do you mean?
It means the first five superpowers
You may practice it even if you don't study Buddhism
Hindu ascetics can
Yogis can
Even heretical immortals can
But missed everything
Only through the core practice of Buddhism
That's right. Impermanence.
selflessness
Deep insight into origin
To achieve
In other words
In the Buddha's cognitive framework
It's nothing to be able to see things a thousand kilometers away
It's okay to hear ultrasound.
It's nothing to be able to read minds
The only superpower worth pursuing
It is you who can completely get rid of the control of your heart by greed and hatred
Now this sort of ranking is inherently counterintuitive.
We ordinary people dream of the first five
Buddha said
Excuse me.
Those five are by-products.
The sixth one is genuine.
Let me tell you a famous story from the classics.
In the Solid Sutra of the Chang'ahan Sutra
There is a layman named Solid
He asked the Buddha to let his disciples display their divine powers in public
So more people will believe in Buddhism
Buddha rejected it outright
So he says.
This is not how I teach my disciples
And he gave an example.
He said that if a monk flies into the sky in front of everyone
Drill into the ground
Through the wall
What will the unbelievers say?
They will say
Oh.
It's just some kind of spell
What's the big deal?
You savor the Buddha's insight
2,500 years ago, he saw through the essence of human nature
People don't change their beliefs just because they see a miracle
People only use their existing cognitive framework to explain miracles
Then continue to maintain the original belief
This insight
It has an amazing resonance with predictive coding in modern cognitive science.
The brain is not a passive receiving machine
The brain is a predictive machine
It preferentially uses existing models to explain new information
Rather than allowing new information to overturn existing models
Buddha 2,500 years ago
With a simple everyday scenario
Captures this deep law of human cognition
What did the Buddha recommend?
In the same scripture
He said there are three kinds of guidance
The first is called God's Transfiguration
Is to perform supernatural powers
The second is called mindfulness indication
Is to read other people's minds
The third is called teaching and guidance
Is to teach
Buddha made it clear that
He only approves of the third
Why is that?
Because only teaching can fundamentally change one's cognitive structure.
Avatar can only shock people
Teaching is what awakens
Shock is a temporary mood swing
Awakening is a permanent paradigm shift
Let me tell you one more story.
Buddha's disciple Moganlian
Known as the first supernatural power
He is the most powerful supernatural power among all the disciples
But how did he die in the end?
Pushed down the mountain by naked outsiders
Smashed to death
With his supernatural powers
He can completely avoid
In fact, he did escape twice before
But the last time
He didn't.
Why is that?
Because he believes it is the result of past karma
He chose to accept it
It's a profound story.
It tells you a core message.
In the Buddha's system
Avatar cannot change the law of cause and effect
Avatar cannot allow you to escape the basic laws of life
If the strongest supernatural power can't stop a stone
What is the use of that supernatural power?
Here's the answer.
The first five superpowers are really useless
At least according to the Buddha
They are not the goals of the practice
At best, it is a side effect of the spiritual process
It's like when you run a marathon, your leg muscles get thicker.
Muscle thickening is not what you're running a marathon for.
It's just a side effect
Really useful
Is the sixth
missed pass
Now I want to look at it from the perspective of modern science.
Help you understand what the leak is talking about
If you saw my previous issue on predictive coding
You'll remember that the core operation of the brain is to continuously generate predictions
And then we use sensory input to correct that prediction.
And our emotional responses
Essentially a signal of prediction error
When reality deviates from expectations
The brain generates negative emotions
It's an automated process.
greed
What's that?
It's the brain that predicts what will bring you happiness.
Then drive you to pursue
anger
What's that?
It's the brain that predicts that something is going to threaten you.
And it drives you to fight or run away.
crazy
What's that?
It's the brain's predictive models that go wrong.
You had a fundamental miscalculation of reality without even realizing it.
What I'm missing is
You see all these automated prediction error response patterns.
See through
And they don't kidnap you anymore.
You will still have emotions
But you're no longer driven by your emotions.
Like the lucid dream analogy we talked about
Chased by a tiger in a dream
You are afraid
You run like crazy.
But suddenly you realize
It was a dream.
You are still dreaming
The tiger is still there
But the fear dissipated
You gain a metacognition of the entire dream
missed pass
It's the ultimate meta-understanding of the big dream of life
Certainly.
Let me be clear here.
What Buddhism says
It's radical.
Irreversible liberation
And modern psychology talks about metacognition
It's a degree of improvement.
It can be regressed.
The depth of the two is not the same
But the direction they point
Is consistent
From the perspective of modern psychology
The description of the omission is highly consistent with several frontier fields
first
Mindfulness meditation promoted by Kaabakin, founder of Mindfulness Reduction
The core goal is to develop an unreactive awareness of inner experience
You watch emotions rise and fall.
But don't follow it
second
The core principle of cognitive behavioral therapy is to make you see
automated mindset
And you untie it.
third
Cognitive Dissociation in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
It's about putting a distance between you and what you think.
Each of these modern therapies took decades to develop.
The core operation explored
It is the same as what the Buddha described 2,500 years ago
Pointing in the same direction
It's between you and your reaction.
Create a space for observation
With this space
You are no longer a slave to reaction
They're witnesses to the reaction.
You might ask
Are the first five superpowers real or fake?
My answer is
In the Buddha's own system
That's not a big question.
He said it himself
Showing supernatural powers doesn't make sense
The pursuit of supernatural powers is the wrong way
What he repeatedly emphasized was the omission
It is a relief from suffering
But if you have to understand the first five superpowers in a modern framework
I'll give you a way to think about it.
In a state of deep meditation
Perception does change.
And there's a lot of data to support this in modern meditation studies.
Scientists have done a number of fMRI studies of long-term meditators
Discovering the synchronicity of gamma waves in the brains of experienced meditators
The precision of attention
Emotion regulation ability
Are significantly above average
But these findings
Away from the classic description
tianertong
It's not even close.
The scientific approach is
How much evidence? How much to say?
We can say
Long-term meditation can indeed change brain function
Expand the Perceptual Boundary
But it cannot be said that it has proved the supernormal phenomena described in the classics
We need to make that clear.
And finally.
Let's go back to the original question
A person who forbids disciples from performing supernatural powers
Why discuss supernatural powers in the classics?
My understanding is
The true purpose of Buddha's discussion of divine powers
Not to tell you how powerful these abilities are
It's about how unimportant they are.
He put everyone's favorite superpower on the table
And he pointed to the least obvious one and he said
This is what you're looking for.
It's like an investment guru putting all the hot tracks in front of you
Cryptocurrency
artificial intelligence
quantum computing
Biotechnology
Then he pointed to an inconspicuous little corner next to him and said
The true alpha coefficient is here
Humanity is always attracted to the brightest things
And the real treasure is often hidden in the most overlooked places
Buddha spent a lot of time talking about divine powers
Essentially a carefully designed teaching strategy
He satisfies your curiosity first
Let you see a panorama of these superpowers
Then I'll tell you when you're most excited
These are all by-products
It truly changes the quality of your life
It's about understanding your inner workings.
Freedom from automated emotional responses
Isn't that what our channel has been talking about?
The direction of awakening is inward
Not outward
You see
The wisdom of 2,500 years ago and modern cognitive science share a common goal
Predictive coding tells us that the brain is a prediction machine.
The Buddha told us that to miss everything is to see through the workings of this machine.
What the free energy principle tells us is that organisms consistently minimize the prediction error.
The Buddha taught us to focus on minimizing uncertainty itself
Is the root of suffering
Metacognitive research tells us to reflect on our own thought processes
Can improve mental toughness
The Buddha taught us that this is the path to liberation
So
What is the supernatural power of Buddhism?
Not flying
Not air pickup
True supernatural powers
It's your ability to stay awake during an emotional storm
It is your ability to see desire itself when driven by desire
It's the ability for you to observe fear when it strikes.
The ability not to be consumed by fear
This is an ability that you don't need any supernatural powers to cultivate
Also among all abilities
The only thing that can fundamentally change the quality of your life
That's it.
What's your new take on Buddhist supernatural powers?
Do you think this echo between modern science and ancient wisdom
Is it coincidence or necessity?
Feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments section
I am Wang Lijie
See you next time.