The Vajra Parrot Squawks!

I was talking to a couple of people not so long ago who were interested in Vajrayana Buddhism. Most of their questions were about past lives, magical powers, levitation, clairvoyance, etc. The sort of stuff popularised by eminent Victorian Orientalists and fantasists which have sunk into popular culture. Look at the Tibetan monks in the Red Bull advert, for example.

True, there are stories, ancient and very recent, about teachers and practitioners acquiring siddhis ('attainments') as the result of their meditation practice. Some of us may even have witnessed or experienced them. These are not, however, to be understood as a Vajrayana practitioner's goal ... if anything, they are to be seen a side-product of single-pointed concentration. It's important to remember this.

Some Vajrayana practitioners appear to be addicted to magic and mystical experiences, and perpetrate a lot of stories, often untrue or highly elaborated, as I've written elsewhere. This addiction can often lead to the point where such people either a)get lost in a World of Warcraft fantasy land and just babble a lot of mystical nonsense to all and sundry; b)delude themselves into thinking that common meditational experiences indicate having achieved some kind of attainment and that they are someone special or c)take the attainments as their goal and then walk off the path when they feel they're not getting near them (ie. they set unrealistic expectations of their practice and end up chasing a dream).

Thinking about siddhis in this way can be deeply unhelpful if one has wrong views or a large ego.

What one seldom hears from many such people is correct motivation, which is a pity, for, if one is to practice at all, it is to benefit all sentient beings, even the ones one may not like. If any attainments are acquired they are also for the purpose of helping said beings, and not to impress people, like parlour games or 'Jedi' mind tricks. In fact, revealing one has attainments, without very good purpose, is a breakage of one's vows and a complete blockage of being able to develop such attainments in the future. So it's taught.

Everything in Vajryana results (or should result) from a Bodhisattva's aspiration. Bodhisattvas don't get lost in mummery. They practice and benefit others without getting lost in metaphysical speculation or bragging about seeing smoke or flashing lights or achieving a sense of non-duality or ecstasy when they meditate. In fact, all such meditational phenomena should be viewed merely as mental events and empty of inherent existence. No great shakes. Some teachers point out that attachment to, and talking about, such signs and wonders is very dangerous and often halts the practitioner's development. Caveat lector!

Siddhis come in different shapes and sizes, but it is agreed that they fall into two classes: mundane and supra-mundane. The mundane siddhis have been addressed above, these are the things that people just love to talk about endlessly, such as levitation, walking through walls, telekinesis, clairvoyance, blah blah blah.

The supreme siddhi falls into the supramundane category and is the one which Buddhists really should be concerned with because this means awakening: Buddhahood, the goal of all Vajrayana practitioners. It is, rather strangely, the kind of siddhi one hears less people talking about.

One could argue that the supreme accomplishment is actually about becoming more Ordinary, in the objective sense of the word, rather than acquiring super powers and deporting one's self like some elaborate and contrived Harry Potter-esque fantasy figure. Ordinariness meaning just being: resting without elaboration or obstruction in the true, unobstructed nature of mind itself and thus apprehending the true nature of reality without cessation. This is the goal, the end of everything.

Lerab Lingpa said that-

'To stop anger for even a second is
a real miracle. To control one's mind is the very definition
of Mahasiddha.'

How many people, who boast about having seen whirling lights or remembering snatches of past lives when they're sat on their cosy little cushions, can claim this?