Supernatural Powers

I spent some time in the asylum as a mental patient. The psychiatrist asked me whether I had psychic powers or did I think that she was psychic. I said, "No No No No No", I am neither psychic nor am I searching for someone with psychic powers.

I have many spiritual teachers over the past three decades of my life as a Buddhist. Not a single one of them had psychic powers, and I am grateful for that. I don't believe in psychic powers but instead I believe in the Buddhist Triple Gem, the Three Marks of Existence, the Four Noble Truths, the Five or Eight Training Precepts, the Noble Eightfold Path, and so on and so forth. Buddhist endeavour to me is simple and without any magic.

Maybe one has met a teacher with special abilities, but I am not sure whether is it a good thing or bad. During the Buddha's time, some of His disciples had mind reading abilities and the Buddha allowed them to read His mind and ascertain for themselves whether was the Buddha's views and practices pure. However, there were other mendicants during the Buddha's time such as His cousin Devadatta who focused heavily on psychic powers and went astray. He went to hell eventually for trying to kill the Buddha. As a result of this, I am very careful to pick teachers who did not focus extensively on practising supernatural powers because to me it's an unnecessary burden.

A teacher with intuition and insight is good enough for me, there's no need in my opinion for psychic communication between teacher and student.