Accomplish the Greatest Miracle Within

Commentary on a humorous sutta where a monk uses psychic powers to travel the universe to find where it ends, not finding an end he seeks Lord Buddha's advice.

Transcript

This morning I'm going to be reading a very interesting sutta, One of my favorites. It's called the Kevada sutta, Or what Brahma didn't know. It's from the Dika Nikāya. Thus have I heard, Once the Lord was staying at Nalanda in Pāvarika's mango grove, And the householder Kevada came to the Lord, Prostrated himself before him, And sat down to one side. He then said, Lord, This Nalanda is rich, Prosperous, Populous, And full of people who have faith in the Lord. It would be well if the Lord were to cause some monk to perform superhuman feats and miracles. In this way, Nalanda would come to have even more faith in the Lord. The Lord replied, Kevada, This is not the way I teach dhamma to the monks by saying go monks and perform superhuman feats and miracles for the white-clothed lay people. For a second time Kevada said, Lord, I would not be importunate, But I still say this Nalanda is rich and prosperous, Etc. , And would come to have even more faith in the Lord. And the Lord replied as before. When Kevada repeated his request for a third time, The Lord said, Kevada, There are three kinds of miracles that I have declared, Having realized them by my own insight. Which three? The miracle of psychic powers, The miracle of telepathy, The miracle of instruction. What is the miracle of psychic power? Here Kevada, A monk, Displays various psychic powers in different ways. Being one, He becomes many. Being many, He becomes one. And he travels in the body as far as the Brahman world. Then someone who has faith and trust sees him doing these things. He tells this to someone else who is skeptical and unbelieving, Saying, It is wonderful, Sir, It is marvelous, The great power and skill of that ascetic. And that man might say, Sir, There is something called the Gandhara charm. It is by means of this that that monk becomes many. What do you think, Kevada, Would not a skeptic say that to a believer? He would, Lord. And that is why, Kevada, Seeing the danger of such miracles, I dislike them. And what is the miracle of telepathy? Here a monk reads the minds of other beings, Of other people, Reads their mental states, Their thoughts and ponderings and says, That is how your mind is, That is how it inclines, That is in your heart. And someone who has faith and trust sees him doing these things. He tells this to someone else who is skeptical and unbelieving, Saying, It is wonderful, Sir, It is marvelous, The great power and skill of that ascetic. And that man might say, Sir, There is something called the Manika charm. It is by means of this that the monk can read the minds of others. And that is why, Seeing the danger of such miracles, I dislike them. And what is the miracle of instruction? Here, Kevada, A monk gives instruction as follows. Consider in this way. Don't consider in that. Direct your mind this way, Not that way. Give up that, Gain this and persevere in it. That, Kevada, Is called the miracle of instruction. Kevada, A Tathagata arises in the world, An Arahant, Fully enlightened Buddha endowed with wisdom and conduct, Well-fairer, Knower of worlds, Incomparable trainer of men to be tamed, Teacher of gods and humans, Enlightened, Blessed. He having realized it by his own super knowledge, Proclaims that this world with its devas, Maharas and Brahmas, Its princes and people, He preaches a Dhamma which is lovely in its beginning, Lovely in its middle, Unlovely in its ending, In the spirit and in the letter, And displays the fully perfected and purified holy life. A disciple goes forth and practices the moralities. He guards the sense doors and attains the four Jhanas. He attains various insights. He realizes the four noble truths, The path and the cessation of the defilements. And he knows there is nothing further here. That Kevada is called the miracle of instruction. And I, Kevada, Have experienced these three miracles by my own super knowledge. Once Kevada, In this order of monks, The thought occurred to a certain monk, I wonder where the four great elements, The earth element, The water element, The fire element, The air element, Cease without remainder. And that monk attained to such a state of mental concentration that the way to the deva realms appeared before him. Then coming to the realm of the devas of the four great kings, He asked those devas' friends, Where do the four great elements, Earth, Water, Fire and air, Cease without remainder? At this question, The devas of the four great kings said to him, Monk, We don't know where the four great elements cease without remainder. If the four great kings are loftier and wiser than we are, They may know where the four great elements cease. So that monk went to the four great kings and asked the same question, But they replied, We don't know. But the 33 gods may know. So that monk went to the 33 gods who said, We don't know. But Saka, Lord of the gods, May know. That's the daavatimsa, Heaven. Saka, Lord of the gods, Said, The Yama devas may know. That is the heaven above, Tushita. The Yama devas said, Suyama, Son of the devas, May know. Suyama said, The Tushita devas may know. The Tushita devas said, Tushita, Son of the devas, May know. Santusita said, The Nirmanarati devas may know. The Nirmanarati devas said, Sunimitta, Son of the devas, May know. Sunimitta said, The Parinimitta Vasawati devas may know. The Parinimitta Vasawati devas said, Vasavati, Son of the devas, May know. Vasavati said, The devas of the Brahma's retinue, May know. And that monk, By the appropriate concentration, Made the way to the Brahma world appear before him. He went to the devas of the Brahma's retinue and asked them. They said, We don't know. But there is Brahma, Great Brahma, The conqueror, The unconquered, The all-seeing, All-powerful, The Lord, The maker and creator, The ruler, Appointer, And orderer, Father of all that have been and shall be. He is loftier and wiser than we are. He would know where the four great elements cease without remainder. And where, Friends, Is this great Brahma now? Monk, We don't know when, How, And where Brahma will appear. But when the signs are seen, When a light appears and a radiance shines forth, Then Brahma will appear. Such signs are an indication that he will appear. Then it was not long before the great Brahma appeared. And that monk went up to him and said, Friend, Where do the four great elements, Earth, Water, Fire, And air, Cease without remainder? To which the great Brahma replied, Monk, I am Brahma, Great Brahma, The conqueror, The unconquered, The all-seeing, The all-powerful, The Lord, The maker and creator, The ruler, Appointer, Orderer, Father of all that have been and shall be. A second time the monk said, Friend, I did not ask if you are Brahma, Great Brahma. I asked you where the four great elements cease without remainder. And a second time the great Brahma replied as before. And a third time the monk said, Friend, I did not ask you that. I asked you where the four great elements, Earth, Water, Fire, And air, Cease without remainder. Then Kavita, The great Brahma, Took that monk by the arm, Led him aside, And said, Monk, These devas believe there is nothing Brahma does not see, There is nothing he does not know, There is nothing he is unaware of. That is why I did not speak in front of them. But monk, I don't know where the four great elements cease without remainder. And therefore, Monk, You have acted wrongly, You have acted incorrectly, By going beyond the blessed Lord and going in search of an answer to this question elsewhere. Now, Monk, You just go to the blessed Lord and put this question to him, And whatever answer he gives, Accept it. So that monk, As swiftly as a strong man might flex or unflex his arm, Vanished from the Brahma world and appeared in my presence. He prostrated himself before me, Then sat down to one side and said, Lord, Where did the four great elements, The earth element, The water element, The fire element, And the air element cease without remainder? I replied, Monk, Once upon a time, Seafaring merchants, When they set sail on the ocean, Took in their ship a land-sighting bird. When they could not see the land themselves, They released this bird. The bird flew to the east, To the south, To the west, To the north. It flew to the zenith and to the intermediate points of the compass. If it saw land anywhere, It flew there. But if it saw no land, It returned to the ship. In the same way, Monk, You have been as far as the Brahma world, Searching for an answer to your question and not finding it. And now you come back to me. But monk, You should not ask your question in this way. Where do the four great elements, The earth element, The water element, The fire element, The air element, Cease without remainder? Instead, This is how the question should have been put. Where do earth, Water, Fire, And air, No footing find? Where are long and short, Small and great, Fair and foul? Where are name and form wholly destroyed? The answer is this. Where consciousness is signless, Boundless, Or luminous. That's where earth, Water, Fire, And air find no footing. Where both long and short, Small and great, Fair and foul, There, Name and form, Are wholly destroyed. With the cessation of consciousness, This is all destroyed. Thus the Lord spoke and the householder, Kavita, Delighted, Rejoiced at his words. Kavita covers a lot of ground actually, And makes many points in a very entertaining way. So this layman wanted the Buddha to perform a miracle. And the Buddha was demonstrating actually that in terms of miracles, As far as miracles go, He's capable of at least what the other monk that went to all of the realms was capable of. But that he'd actually discovered something superior. And it makes many wonderful points about the futility of searching within samsara, Within conditions. So that whatever realm, Whatever conditioned realm, Even those very, Very subtle conditioned realms that one attains to through developing the Jnana absorption, That even there you can't find the cessation of samsara. So the conditioned world, The Buddha also describes it as Ananta Jagawan, The infinite or unending universe. I think there's another sutta where one monk is actually traveling to different universes trying to find the physical end of the universes, And he can't. So the Buddha is pointing inwards. So where he says the place where the four great elements find no footing, Signless consciousness that is infinite and boundless. So this is also sometimes described as the nibbana element, Nibbana tattu, The deathless, The unconditioned. So that's something that beings only experience if they practice the four foundations of mindfulness and cultivate the eightfold path. And that's something that you experience in your own mind when you have insight, Vipassana insight, You will glimpse when delusion and ignorance fades for a few moments and you can have an experience of cessation of delusion, You experience the mind without delusion, The mind without ignorance. The consciousness with no showing or the signless consciousness, Boundless and infinite, Luminous. The Buddha is also explaining to that layman that the best miracle is the miracle that inclines beings' minds towards that realization where they actually can put an end to samsara, Individually at least. And when he explains the miracle of instruction, He said that it's through practicing sila, Morality, And sense restraint. So that's what we're doing right now, Keeping the precepts, Being circumspect, And then through cultivating the meditation practices, He said the usual way it's described is one attains jhanas and then insight into the Four Noble Truths and then the realization of nibbana. These days it's less common that people attain the four jhanas so easily. In the Buddhist day, Probably much more common. So we cultivate as much concentration as we can and as much insight as we can. Modern people tend to need to rely more on wise reflection as well as some samadhi and some wise reflection. That is also practice of the middle way. We practice the middle way according to our particular faculties. And I think most people who come to practice have this intuition, Those of us who take Buddhist practice very seriously and come and do meditation and trinx or go forth as monks and nuns. I think we know on one level we have this intuition that the complete cessation of suffering is something that we need to discover ourselves inwardly. So we have a faith in the power of meditation. We have confidence that if we close our eyes, Turn inwards, Begin to investigate conditions, That's the path to realizing the unconditioned. And it is. The Buddha realized it, The Buddha's disciples realized it, And even in this day and age we still see some beings who have realized and are realizing paths and fruits, Attaining the deathness. You could see that if the monks did perform miracles that it would actually distract people from the teaching. So the Buddha said he dislikes them because psychic powers, Not only those who don't believe develop suspicion, Some others are jealous, Defame monks and nuns who have more ability because they're jealous of them. So the Buddha had a wise policy of discretion. Although he did perform great miracles even in his own life, He performed a miracle at one point where he elevated into the sky and he radiated fire and water from every pore in his body at the same time. There's only some Buddha that can do that. You have to have complete mastery of meditation to be able to have power over the fire and water element and space element all at the same time, And wind. So you've got the elevation into space radiating out with the wind and the water and the fire coming from every pore. So only a Buddha can do that. He did that once. That was a different miracle. He did a different miracle about making a tree grow and grow mangoes. So he could do all these things. And there was an occasion where it wasn't to show that he could teach a miracle, It was actually to teach one of the Brahmadevas where he and Maha Moggallana went. They overheard the thought of one of the Brahmadevas that he thought he could see everything in the universe and that he was superior. And the Buddha went to him and said, Actually, Brahma, There's even more subtle realms above you that you can't see. The Brahma didn't believe him. So the Buddha said, Okay, Well, I'll disappear and you try and find me. So the Buddha went to those realms and that Brahmadeva couldn't find him. So those realms were the realms where the non-returners, Very, Very subtle Brahma realms where the non-returners go in their very last life. But a Brahmadeva who wasn't yet attained to the deathless, Who hadn't established the mind in the stream of Dharma, Wouldn't be able to see that. It's too subtle. So the Buddha's psychic power is unequaled and awesome. But what he respected most was the miracle of teaching and the miracle of instruction. And he gave us 84, 000 verses of teaching to help us beings of different inclinations to know how to practice correctly. So I thought that might be a nice little break from knowing Dukkha. Think about the Brahmadevas and the Buddha's psychic powers and the miracle of teaching and the capacity to realize a signless, Deathless, Boundless radiance, Not in the Brahma realm. According to practicing the four foundations of mindfulness, To be experienced individually by the wise within this fathom-long body is another phrase that comes up in the suttas. Liberation is to be found within this fathom-long body. That doesn't mean it's to be found in the physical body. It means it's to be found in the space where your body is, Realized in your mind through correct meditation. So the good news is you have the right hardware already. Now you're uploading the right software. You just have to keep doing it without falling asleep. We have a very busy life, So come and retreat the first couple of days if it's sleepy. I might ring the bell every now and then. We might have to have a different kind of a bell. I'll give you this one. This bell means the end of the meditation session. This bell means wake up.

Reviews

Thank you for sharing this. Although I have been following a vendantic/ non dualist path that tends to Upanishadic type teachings (which use different scriptural references), I never theless appreciated where the story landed. It’s affirming/ inspiring to see different paths merging into a singularity.

Wise, kind, witty+helpful

Funny!

Wonderful! Thank you very much.

So insightful. The last line about hardware/software was great. Thank you! 🙏📿🌷🌹