Todayand#8217;s FBA Dharmabyte, and#8220;What is and#8216;Magical Actionand#8217;?and#8221; is a little gem from the Vimalakirti Nirdesha Series: and#8220;The Inconceivable Emancipationand#8220;. Sangharakshita reminds us that the aim of spiritual life is complete emancipation, but that this aim and#8211; and in fact the whole of existence and#8211; is inconceivable. From the talk and#8220;The Magic of a Mahayana Sutraand#8221; given in 1979.
Dharmabytes from free buddhist audio
What is ‘Magical Action’?
[music] Dharma Bites is brought to you by Free Buddhist Audio, the Dharma for your life. Our work is funded entirely by donations from our generous listeners. If you would like to help us keep this free, make a contribution at freebuddhistaudio.com/donate. Thank you, and happy listening. [music] The Dharma reveals surely the nature of existence. But the nature of existence, we've been told, is inconceivable. And if it's inconceivable, it is also inexpressible. How then is it possible for the Dharma to be taught? With this question we get quite close to the unfamiliar world of the Vimalakirti Nirdesh. We do really start to experience the magic of a Mahayana, sutra, or text. Existence is inconceivable not to be fathomed by thought. Because it is inconceivable, it is inexpressible not to be uttered in words. The Buddhist and Bodhisattvas, therefore, even the Buddhist and Bodhisattvas, cannot really teach the Dharma in words. So how do they teach it? If they can't teach you in words, well, they demonstrate it. They demonstrate it in action. In particular, they demonstrate it by means of magical action. We'll encounter some actual examples of this magical action in a few minutes time, when we make our rapid survey of the whole text. After all, the Buddhist and Bodhisattvas are perfectly enlightened. For at least, they are spiritually advanced beings, and as such, they are in possession according to Buddhist tradition of all sorts of magical powers. From this point onwards I must warn you, it begins to sound a little bit like what I've sometimes called transcendental science fiction. In particular, these Buddhist and Bodhisattvas are able to move things from place to place, they are able to create things, and they are able to transform themselves into the likeness of anything they wish. Moreover, they are able to do all this on a cosmic scale, they are able to move universes from one side of whatever you like to call it through the other side. So at this point I think we need to consider the significance of magic from the Mahayana point of view. What I'd like to say is, so to speak, philosophical significance. Only then we'll be able to understand what the Mahayana means when it compares existence to a magic show. And only then we'll be able to understand why it's possible for the Vimalakirti near Dhesha to regard magical acts as being demonstrations of the Dharma. Magic, as you perhaps know, was very popular in ancient India, I believe it still is. And it seems that the Indians have always been rather good at magic. They produced quite a large number of magicians. In fact they've had a reputation for that sort of thing, even in foreign countries, even in ancient times. But what exactly do we mean by magic in this connection? So let me give you a little example, a very ordinary example, a very homely sort of example. All right, you're in ancient India. You're in a village in ancient India. And one day, one morning, along comes a magician. Yes, a real life, a tenuent magician. Whether he arrives on his flying carpet or not, we don't know. Perhaps he just pretends to walk into the village. But anyway, the magician arrives in the village. And of course, as soon as he arrives, a drum starts to beat. It's announced that something is going to happen and people all gather around, all eager and expecting. In fact, if a magician was to walk in here into this very hall, this very minute, you'd all gather around. You'd forget all about the lecture. You'd forget all about the lecture. And quite rightly too, because you're going to have a lecture with any week. But you may not be able to see a magical display every week. But anyway, the people would gather around. And then what would the magician do? Well, more often than not, he'd do something quite routine, quite ordinary. Another sort of thing that a magician they're expected to do is conjure up an elephant. So there in front of everybody would be the elephant, as large as life. Legs, bulky body, tail, trunk, flapping ears, calmly standing there. Everybody would see that elephant. It would appear instantly, just like that. As soon as the magician repeats, it is mantra, because the Indians also believe that things are done with the help of mantras. So there's the elephant. So, I want to say life-like, because it would be life itself. An elephant is there. In fact, some people in New Orleans might even get afraid and run away. So this is the sort of thing that used to happen, and apparently it still happens in India. Magicians do this sort of thing. So the Mahayana takes up this sort of experience. The experience of, let us say, the magically created elephant, or house, or tree, or people, whatever it might be. We'd of course call it a collective hallucination, but let that pass. The Mahayana would proceed to point out that the elephant, which was perceived, which was experienced by all those village people, was not absolutely unreal. But no, there was it absolutely non-existent. After all, everybody had seen it. You can't deny the testimony of your own eyes. Every body in the village had seen it, and the new perfectly well was an elephant looked like. And there was an elephant standing in front of them, so they'd all seen it. Not only had they seen it, it had actually produced effects, because some people had run away. But at the same time, the Mahayana also pointed out the elephant was not absolutely real. Not absolutely existent, because after all, the magician has created it, and eventually he would make it disappear. So according to the Mahayana existence, all their existence, as we experience it, as we perceive it, is just like this. The Dharmas are just like this. They're neither existent, nor are they non-existent. That it would say neither absolutely existent, nor absolutely non-existent. And because they neither existent nor non-existent, they cannot be said really to appear, or really to disappear. They're just like the magical illusion. Existence is just like the magical illusion, or if you like, like a great collective, hallucination. It's also compared to an eka, a dream, a mirage, and a ball of foam. And the point of the comparison is not that something is perceived to exist, but that it is not really there. That is not the point of the comparison. The point of the comparison is that something is perceived to exist, but that that existence is not absolute. There's nothing wrong, the Mahayana says, without perception. Nothing wrong with our experience. What is wrong is our conceptual interpretation of our experience. In particular, our interpretation of our experience in terms of entities, in terms of fixed, solid, unchanging things. The Mahayana does not doubt our experience. It is not question or experience. What it questions is the ultimate validity of the conceptual constructions which we superimpose upon our experience. So we can now begin to see why it is possible for the Vimalakirti Nirdesha to regard magical acts as being demonstrations of the Dharma. It is because magical creations are themselves an illustration of what existence is really like. We could say a lot more on this topic, but it's time we passed on to our rapid survey of the Vimalakirti Nirdesha itself. We hope you enjoyed today's Dharma Bite. Please help us keep this free. Make a contribution at freebuddhistaudio.com/donnie. And thank you. [music] [music] [music] [BLANK_AUDIO]