1161 From: meg
Date: Fri Jul 1, 2005 1:01pm
Subject: <no subject> margaretsueh…
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Something else to consider:
3Such unusual gifts [siddhis], whether cultivated or not, may deflect the
aspirant from his path to true mystical experience of God, and have never
been highly regarded by great teachers; one of the four cardinal sins in the
monastic order of the Buddha - after unchastity, theft, and killing - was
laying claim to miraculous powers. It is related that Sakyamuni once
dismissed as of small consequence a feat of levitation on the part of a
disciple, and cried out in pity for a yogin by the river who had wasted
twenty years of his human existence in learning how to walk on water, when
the ferryman might have taken him across for a small coin.2
- from The Snow Leopard by Peter Matthiessen