Note f63 — ENLIGHTENMENT AND IGNORANCE

The idea of performing miracles systematically through the power acquired by self-concentration seems to have been greatly in vogue in India even from the earliest days of her civilisation, and the Buddha was frequently approached by his followers to exhibit his powers to work wonders. In fact, his biographers later turned him into a regular miracle-performer, at least as far as we may judge by the ordinary standard of logic and science. But from the Prajñā-pāramitā point of view, according to which “because what was preached by the Tathagata as the possession of qualities, that was preached as no-possession of qualities by the Tathagata, and therefore it is called the possession of qualities,” (yaishā bhagavan lakshaṇasampat tathāgatena bhāshitā alakshaṇasampad eshā tathāgatena bhāshita; tenocyate lakshaṇasampad iti), the idea of performing wonders acquires quite a new signification spiritually. In the Kevaddha Sutta, three wonders are mentioned as having been understood and realised by the Buddha: the mystic wonder, the wonder of education, and the wonder of manifestation. The possessor of the mystic wonder can work the following logical and physical impossibilities: “From being one he becomes multiform, from being multiform he becomes one: from being visible he becomes invisible: he passes without hindrance to the further side of a wall or a battlement or a mountain, as if through air: he penetrates up and down through solid ground as if through water: he walks on water without dividing it, as if on solid ground: he travels cross-legged through the sky like the birds on wing: he touches and feels with the hand even the moon and sun, beings of mystic power and potency they be: he reaches even in the body up to the heaven of Brahma.” Shall we understand this literally and intellectually? Cannot we interpret it in the spirit of the Prajñā-pāramitā idealism? Why? Taccittam yacittam acittam. (Thought is called thought because it is no-thought.)