Can I Learn Buddhist Super Powers? – Dialectic Two-Step

Question:

Is there someplace in the world where they teach Buddhist super powers?

Response:

What exactly do you mean by super powers? What super powers are you interested in? Would you take anything anyone had to offer? To what end would you want to use this super power?

The King Midas story offers a good view into the drawbacks of super powers. Everything he touched turned to gold. He found that he couldn’t eat or drink as all his food and wine turned to gold when he touched it!

Here’s another perspective I would offer with regards to super powers. We already have them. Human beings are one of the most successful species on the planets (bacteria are the most successful). Millions of years of evolution have adapted our species, allowing us to survive, even thrive, on this planet. On top of that our accumulated wisdom, passed down for ages, has given us the means to find contentment.

If we have bodies and wisdom sufficient for contentment, what purpose would a super power fulfill?

I’d categorize the options as

Compassionate, altruistic purposes
Selfish purposes

Starting with the latter, acquiring superpowers for personal gain will likely create more suffering for you and for those around you. This is a lose-lose situation.

With the former, I see trouble too. Your power would need to reduce the suffering of others. Right? Experience tells us that we cannot solve other peoples problems. People also don’t learn by having people try to solve their problems. So, the only super power I can imagine that would benefit others would be to magically let people learn from their mistakes the first time they make them.

Is Those Super Powers, or Are You Just Happy?

Wow, what a super power that would be! But alas, just like with King Midas, this would be a blessing, but mostly a curse. Mistakes come in all shapes and sizes. Little ones, big ones, and in between. Let’s take the example of making an remark about someone’s father being cruel. In most normal situations, this kind of remark would be considered a mistake. If I were to learn that this was a mistake, it would mean that I would never say that again about anyone’s father.

Now imagine you witness a friend’s father beat him. If you had learned to never call a father cruel, how would you respond to the situation? You would be impaired from telling the truth and be helpless to aid your friend.

Human learning is far more complex and flexible than our scenario assumes. In fact, our power to learn from mistakes is infinitely more refined and capable than any super power we might dream up to improve things.

To your question about where in the world you can go to learn super powers, my answer is simply this; stay right where you are. Live an authentic and natural life. Recognize and appreciate the super powers you have. Find contentment and don’t keep your light under a bushel.

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Dialectic Two-Step  is an ongoing series of my thoughts on questions that come my way.

Wisdom lies neither in fixity nor in change, but in the dialectic between the two. - Octavio

Dialectic Two Step, Modern Koans, Verse Us, Say What?, and Minute Meditations all copyright Andrew Furst

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