Seeking Psychic Powers Is Less Than Seeking Compassion and Wisdom
Owing to some special karmic conditions, I recently studied the psychic powers (shentong) of Buddhism and Daoism and came into contact with some "psychic" people and those with miraculous predictive abilities—both Buddhist and Daoist. It opened a door I had not opened before and showed me a world I had not seen.
I myself often meet terminally ill patients, so patients or their families, seeing that I know some Buddhism, often consult me about Buddhist psychic powers and about using psychic powers to heal. In the past I always answered that I did not know and did not believe. For the truth was that, for a long time, I was an atheist; I studied Buddhism to draw wisdom from it and to cultivate my own heart with Buddhist knowledge.
Now I can offer some of my own views on this question.
All the world's religions—Buddhism, Daoism, Christianity, Islam, Jainism—from their fundamental doctrines, urge people to do good and avoid evil, to treat all beings with a heart of compassion, and to dissolve inner affliction through great loving-kindness. So from this angle, the various religions reach the same goal by different paths; their aim is to rescue the human spirit, and the ultimate realm sought by all religious believers is basically the same—to cultivate oneself into a person with a good heart and the ability to distinguish right from wrong, and to engage in humanistic care.
But all religions, in their development, inevitably become mixed with the disciples of Mara, the Evil One, whom the Buddhist scriptures allude to. Greed in their hearts drives them to use religion as a tool to gain improper fame and profit; so they mislead believers with plausible-but-false doctrine, cheat people of money and sex, and even destroy lives, behaving outrageously.
Some religious psychic practitioners, when they or their family fall ill, come to me for help, hoping I can use medicine to solve their physical problems. They themselves usually practice healing and "reading matters" for others through psychic powers; some appear fairly effective, especially for various ailments caused by psychological factors, with short-term results seeming quite miraculous. But in the end they cannot overcome the great majority of diseases, and they even decline day by day because of healing and "reading." For among psychic circles there is a popular saying: healing and "reading" consume one's original qi (yuanqi), so they age particularly fast.
In the circles of those who cultivate various psychic powers, three sayings are popular: psychic powers cannot overcome karma, psychic powers cannot override cause and effect, and psychic powers cannot surpass wisdom. In orthodox Buddhist scriptures, the Buddha himself rejected and did not use psychic powers. Among the six psychic powers, the Buddha held that only "the extinction of outflows" (ashravaksayana)—the wisdom that ends all afflictions—is the most important; the clairaudience, clairvoyance, and the rest are merely minor arts. The Buddha refused to use such magical arts to prove the Dharma to people. In the Sutra of the Buddha's Last Instruction, the Buddha strongly rejects all displays of psychic powers. The following passage is from that sutra:
"You bhikkhus, after my passing, should respect and cherish the Patimokkha, like one in darkness meeting light, like a poor person finding a treasure. Know that this is your teacher; while I abide in the world it is no different. Those who uphold pure precepts must not engage in trade, commerce, or the keeping of fields, houses, servants, or livestock. All kinds of planting and all treasures should be kept far away from them, as one avoids a pit of fire. They must not cut down trees or plants, dig or till the soil, compound medicinal decoctions, practice divination for good or ill, observe the stars, calculate the waxing and waning of the moon, or reckon calendars—none of this is appropriate. They should regulate the body, eat at proper times, and live purely. They must not participate in worldly affairs, carry messages, use spells or elixirs, curry favor with the powerful, or engage in intimate or disrespectful dealings. They should straighten their own minds and seek liberation with right mindfulness. They must not conceal faults or display marvels to confuse the multitude. Among the four kinds of offerings, they should know measure and be content. Seeking support, they should not hoard. This is a brief statement of the marks of upholding precepts. Precepts are the root of right liberation, hence called the Patimokkha. Relying on these precepts, one gives rise to the various samadhis and the wisdom that ends suffering. Therefore, bhikkhus, uphold the pure precepts and let them not be broken. If a person can uphold the pure precepts, then he can possess good dharmas. Without pure precepts, no good merit can arise. Hence you should know that precepts are the foremost abode of peace and merit.
In this passage, the Buddha strongly rejects Buddhists' use of psychic powers and marvels to confuse the multitude, emphasizing that the right path of the Dharma is cultivating "pure precepts," through which one develops samadhi and the wisdom that ends suffering. This is what we often stress today: "Diligently cultivate precepts, samadhi, and wisdom; extinguish greed, anger, and delusion." Among the Buddha's arhat disciples, most had no psychic powers at all, yet they still attained awakening and Buddhahood. The channel by which these disciples without psychic powers attained awakening was the study of precepts, samadhi, and wisdom. I myself will cultivate only precepts, samadhi, and wisdom all my life; I will not cultivate psychic powers, and will never force them unless they are heaven-sent. With psychic powers come the troubles of psychic powers; without them there is no trouble at all—how much better.
Some psychic practitioners themselves admit that the results they achieve in healing are like overdrawing a certain amount from a credit card; eventually it must be repaid. They only temporarily conceal the disease through an illusion; in the end those meant to die of the disease still die, and those meant to grow worse still grow worse. This is the so-called "psychic powers cannot override cause and effect, cannot overcome karma."
When a person falls ill, there must be a cause of illness; disease is only the fruit, and the root lies in the cause. TCM always says that in treating disease one must seek the root. Psychic healing cannot address the cause of disease; the cause must be sought in the patient himself.
Some patients fall ill because of bad living habits or excessive stubbornness of character, which leave body and mind chronically overdrawn; over time the disease becomes serious and hard to treat. At such a time the patient needs to find his own root cause and treat it. Through practice and study, by correcting his bad habits and character flaws, the disease can gradually ease. Others, from the Buddhist view, are indeed afflicted by evil deeds done in past lives. Such patients should repent their evil deeds; for without repentance they will not know where their evil causes lie, the source of the disease will never be found, and treatment alone is useless.
Psychic powers also cannot surpass wisdom. Psychic powers are just minor magical arts. These arts may make someone before our eyes stumble, but they cannot produce a high-technology product like a spacecraft; the solving of humanity's great problems still depends on human wisdom. So when illness comes, the role that medicine can play remains primary. Psychic practitioners themselves know this well; when they fall ill, they turn to doctors and use medicine to solve the problem.
In my own life I have also encountered a few inexplicable phenomena, but I never use psychic powers to explain them, nor do I become infatuated with or attached to them because of these encounters. This is an important reason I have not become a theist. The theists I have met are mostly physically weak and meek in character. Psychic practitioners themselves say that only such people are easily targeted by yin spirits. A person fully endowed with yang masculinity is not dared to be provoked by yin spirits; for, according to some psychics, yin spirits are a level lower than humans, and they fear people with abundant yang energy.
The true orthodox path of Buddhism has always emphasized the "dual practice of compassion and wisdom," the "dual practice of wisdom and emptiness," and the "dual practice of bliss and emptiness." According to the view of Humanistic Buddhism, the Buddha attained the Way and became awakened in the human world, so he is the awakened one of the human world, not a miracle-working god. The Buddha attained liberation through compassion, through wisdom, through emptiness—not through psychic powers; this is closer to the facts. True spiritual power is the wisdom and goodness deep in a person's heart, nothing else.
When a person falls ill, he easily becomes suspicious and fanciful. But if we do not treat the strange as strange, the strange defeats itself. If one can awaken to the Way, understand that the arising and ceasing of all things follows constant laws and that every disease has its root, then, taking illness as an opportunity to reflect on oneself and cultivate one's heart, one can truly grow in wisdom and temper one's character—far better than praying to gods and Buddhas.
Psychic powers are a minor art; compassion and wisdom are the true great path to liberation. Seeking psychic powers is less than seeking compassion and wisdom. For a sick person to seek psychic powers rather than compassion and wisdom is precisely to abandon the root for the branch and forsake the great for the small; it is quite inadvisable. But this compassion and wisdom are neither the Buddha's nor anyone else's; they are the compassion and wisdom within one's own heart. Seeking others is less than seeking oneself. Only when one has cultivated a compassionate heart, treats all beings with compassion, and deals with the world through loyalty and reciprocity; only when one has gained wisdom, understood the causes and effects of one's own illness, and is able to correct oneself according to this understanding—only then is it truly practical and useful.
Practice (xiuxing), in my view, has two layers of meaning. The first meaning of "cultivate" is to correct: correcting wrong behavior is practice. The second meaning is to accumulate: accumulating right behavior is also practice. So practice is correcting wrong behavior and accumulating right behavior. In Buddhist terms, it is: "Do no evil, cultivate all that is good, purify one's own mind—this is the teaching of all the Buddhas."