Spooky beings - are they necessary?

 Approximate script, with some variations and possible errors:

Hello, Hello, and welcome. Have you refreshed your knowledge of Defence Against the Dark Arts recently? If not, perhaps you shoul, as in this episode we are going to talk a tiny bit about magic, demons and dealings with the other side. I’m Alex Wilding and this is the Double Dorje podcast.

A year or two ago I paid a visit to an abandoned house 10 minutes away from where I live. It’s a single story building down a slope a few yards from the main road. No neighbours. Overgrown gate, overgrown entrance path, front door fallen in. Pots and pans and empty cans still in the sink, filthy bedclothes still on the bed. I confess I felt too iffy about it to do my chöd practice in there, but took myself to the balcony outside to do the chant, beat the drum, blow the trumpet and so forth. But perhaps my lack of courage was a form of wisdom – I showed some pictures of the place to my teacher who is, amongst other things, an experienced chöd practitioner and exorcist, and his reaction can be summed up as: “Hmm, maybe better not go back.” Perhaps I shouldn’t take things like this too lightly!

The Tibetan tradition knows a wide range of supernatural beings, but the classifications known to that tradition are difficult to map onto our Western ideas of fairies, ghosts, demons, angels and so on. Same general idea, but different in detail. To learn a bit more I would recommend Machik Labdron’s Complete Explanation. Machik Labdron was a very important figure in the development and spread of chöd in Tibet, and this book is one of her best-known works. Most of it is about the practice of chöd, and is both fascinating and instructive for anybody who is feeling their way in to chöd practice. There are, however, a couple of sections that deal with the classifications of the sorts of supernatural beings that can get stirred up through that practice.

An important side of this issue is whether or not a belief in these things is necessary to practice any form of Tibetan Buddhism. Is it possible to take all that stuff as “symbolic? I’ll say at the outset here that at some stage we will need to have a good look at what “belief” means – perhaps I’ll manage to circle back to that later in this episode.

Now Tibetan Buddhism – obviously – is full of fairy stories. Milarepa flew up to the top of Mount Kailas in a competition with a non-Buddhist practitioner. He survived alone in a cave under the snow for a whole winter without any food, thanks to the fact that his disciples made food offerings to him in the course of their practice. Treasure finders (who will be the subject of a future episode) have healed disease, walked on water, flown up to the side of an unclimbable cliff to discover treasure texts and other objects hidden in the rocks centuries before… the stories go on. It’s easy to say that believing in most of these things is optional. The stories are part of Tibetan culture, and most Tibetans will believe them unthinkingly. Equally, most modern people simply won’t. This is fine. It’s not a problem. The issue becomes more subtle when it comes to sadhanas.

[RING]

In general, the term “sadhana” covers quite a wide range of formal practices, but in the present context the meaning is somewhat narrower. It refers to a practice, structured according to a defined text, in which the practitioner invokes a form or emanation of the Buddha. The form may be male or female, peaceful or wrathful, alone or with a consort, and sometimes with a what can be a very large and complex retinue. These forms of the Buddha are often, perhaps misleadingly, called “deities”. This so-called deity may be visualised in the sky in front, above the practitioner’s head, or the practitioner may be you arousing her- or himself as the deity. As a rule, these practices are only done after receiving an empowerment, a reading transmission and instruction in the practice, though there are a few that can be done by anyone.

The word “sadhana” is used to refer both to performing this practice and to the text itself. I plan to look in more detail at the structure of typical sadhanas in another episode. There are, however, a few details worth mentioning here, in particular because in the modern world people often take up versions of these sadhanas in the opposite order to what was traditional. The standard approach was, and indeed in many cases still is, for a sadhana to include a moderately long liturgy, perhaps taking a few hours. This would be practised intensively for some time – perhaps months. With this experience under their belt, the practitioner would then continue a short “daily” practice to maintain the connection. These days, people often start the short practice, and perhaps work up to the full one later. So one or two of these apparently more magical things are maybe not that well known, as they are usually skipped in the short version.

At the start of a full sadhana it is common for the “Lords of the place” to be asked for permission to use the land where the practice is going to be done. A ritual cake, known as a torma, is offered in acknowledgement. A special incense, gugulu, which has an aggressive smell not unlike burning rubber tyres, although perhaps not quite that bad, is used to smoke out any obstacle spirits who might still be lurking in dark corners of the practice space, and another torma is offered for them.

As a second example, it is almost invariable that towards the end of the practice, prayers and offerings are made to at least one but often many protector deities, asking that deity to protect our practice, and to look after our lives often in more straightforward ways. This too is accompanied by offering tormas.

 

Significant parts of this practice can of course be understood as taking place entirely in the practitioner’s mind – the prayers for taking refuge and generating compassion are an obvious example. But some do clearly and explicitly address some kind of spirits, some of whom are generally well disposed while some are the opposite. It would be possible, I suppose, to attempt to “psychologize” this in terms of “acknowledging the environment”. Also possible to wave our hands in the air, and call it symbolic, thoughts that are acted out in a concrete way to make them hit home. Or they may be dismissed as Tibetan “cultural trappings”, a phrase that usually signals that the writer is going to adopt the bits they like and reject the bits they don’t. But it is hard to get away from the thought that the Tibetan culture that has nurtured these practices for many centuries takes these things as at least in some way “real”. Without that, is there not a little something being missed out? The whole activity becomes less rich and less comfortable. The view that I want to put to you here is that there might be a deeper understanding, one that bridges the gap between “symbolic” and “real”.

[RING]

Tibetans are very superstitious. We know that, and so do they. Some 30 years ago I met a young woman, Sarah, in the Stupa View restaurant, who was a student of a terton, a lama who finds what are known as treasures. He was known simply as Karma Rinpoche, and had a centre in a remote part of eastern Tibet. She related how she had been present when excavations were being done at an important stupa in Nepal. Rumour had gone round amongst the Tibetans that the remains of Kasyapa, the Buddha who appeared in this world before the one we call “the Buddha”, were buried at the bottom of the stupa. The Tibetans did the obvious thing. In case you can’t guess I’ll explain that they started scrabbling around getting bits of dirt from the bottom of the stupa to eat. Sarah herself got carried away and did the same thing. When she admitted this to her teacher, he was more than a bit amused, saying, “You didn’t? You did! You are so superstitious! As bad as the Tibetans!”

Most Tibetans have not the slightest difficulty believing in things that we moderns would call “magic”, but it’s important to note that their concept of magic is not the same as is held in some western magical circles. Aleister Crowley, for example, makes it very clear that he viewed magical operations as simply a kind of occult technology. If the ritual is followed precisely, using the right words and the right pronunciations, the right substances, the right preparations all done at the right time in the right way, he taught, the result will follow as surely as “acid plus base gives salt plus water”, as my old chemistry teacher drummed into us.

This attitude contrasts sharply with that shown in yet another story of Milarepa. At the time he was living, in a cave I suppose, as was his wont, and would offer tormas to the Nagas, spirits who live in the waters of the lake. Another hermit was established on the other side of the lake, and would feel jealous because he would see the Nagas actually coming to the surface to accept Milarepa’s tormas, but nothing of the sort happened when the rival hermit cast his cakes in to the lake. He went to see Milarepa, and found that the difference was not that Milarepa had some special prayer, text, mantra or whatever that was superior to those possessed by the hermit. The difference was in Milarepa’s “samadhi”. If you look this word up, and again I will provide a list of most of the technical terms I’m using here in the description on podbean, you will see definitions and descriptions referring to ferociously intense concentration. In my experience, however, in practice the word is often used, as here, a little more broadly, and translation as “focus” probably captures the meaning better.

In short, while the transmission from teacher to disciple of the relevant mantras, visualisations, texts and so forth may be crucial, the real magic is done by the practitioner’s mind, not by the precise ritual.

RING

Next question: what do we mean by magic anyway? Do we really have to choose between “all-in” acceptance and the attitude that “there ain’t no such thing”.

I have been given to believe that there are some writers and practitioners of Western magic whose views are more subtle, more nuanced, so I may be about to offer a rather shallow view of Western ideas on the subject, but I’m not a student of that field, and I’m only trying to describe some commonly held assumptions. Hand-in-hand with Crowley’s presentation of magic as something that is akin to a physical law, only needing the correct external ritual to be performed, goes the understanding that magic, the supernatural, the spiritual and all that, is a kind of “add on” to the mechanical, material world. The very word “supernatural” reveals this assumption that there is a split between the natural, blindly following its physical and chemical laws, and the supernatural coming in from outside with its miracles and its messing about with physics.

Some have tried to bring in the fuzziness or uncertainty of quantum physics as a way to get round a blind inevitability of classical physics. There may perhaps be something in that, but I don’t think I’m the only one who reacts with a snort, a yawn, and a rapid retreat when I hear people, who clearly have no idea of what quantum physics actually says, using it to throw magic fairy dust over everything and come up with the conclusion that, “everything is possible – it’s all in your mind – miracles are only a matter of paying to take my course in the deep truth of the universe that will make you rich.”

The understanding of the spiritual or “psychic” potentials that we may have as being an “add-on” is shown again by some experiments under the umbrella of parapsychology such as the famous Zener cards used for trying to detect extrasensory perception. In order to preclude any possibility of cheating or even of quite innocent information leakage, serious steps are taken to isolate the would-be seer from the target to be seen, and to remove any meaning from that target. The consequence, unsurprisingly, is that the target is so sterile, so isolated and so meaningless that the experiment only leads to trivial results.

[RING]

Is there another approach? The Buddhist tradition has it that everything is connected. Every event is a cause, however tiny. And the prime mover of our experience is in fact nothing more than our own mind. Of course, all those events, all those actions out there, taken over the course of unthinkable time have an enormous momentum, and when we let go of the brick we are holding we can be perfectly certain that it will fall. A sharp backward movement of the foot will do far more than a magic spell to save us from a trip to A&E.

It’s my view – and I’m not pretending that this is something widely taught by Buddhism, just that it’s consistent with Buddhism and makes a lot of sense – that when something happens in a “spooky” way, it’s usually something that would, or perfectly well could, have happened anyway. The thing is, why did it happen in THIS way at THIS moment in THIS place? The tradition often speaks of “tendrels”, sometimes translated as “auspicious coincidences” or “meaningful coincidences”. This means that by the time the brick is falling to the ground, it’s far too late for magic – the question is: how do you come to this in the first place? This puts meaning, and perhaps even consciousness, at the root of things.

There is a traditional philosophy, the “cittamatra” school, for which the common translation is “mind only”. The distinction between that view and others such as the “middle way” are rather subtle, and definitely beyond the scope of a podcast like this. I mention it mainly to avoid confusion, because it’s not actually what I’m talking about, and I’m not trying to claim it as an authority. I am simply trying to stress the idea that “inner and outer are not separate”.

So PERHAPS the Tibetan view of hundreds of spirits surrounding us is a bit over the top, although what do I know? Perhaps they are there. But we don’t have to go that far to accept that there is a spiritual dimension to everything, that it influences everything, and especially under the magnifying glass of a big Sadhana that dimension the forces in it can be very powerful.

This is not only inspiring but I also find it a bit scary. EVERY TINY THING WE DO OR THINK MATTERS.

So that’s it for today.

Don’t forget to like, subscribe, share, tell your friends, whatever – and always remember that every moment – and every little thing you do – is magic!

 

Words you might want to look up:

• Machik Labdron
• Machik Labdron’s Complete Explanation (book)
• Chöd
• Milarepa
• Mount Kailas
• Sadhana
• Stupa
• Terton
• Kāśyapa
• Torma
• Gugulu
• Samadhi
• Tendrel
• Cittamatra