[Buddha-l] Magic

[Joy Vriens]

Franz wrote:

>As our good Bhikkhu Dhammanando says, there's no Vinaya rule against  
>displaying magic, per se, though in the Cullavagga showing off a  
>psychic power gets compared to sexual exhibition for money.

Lovely :-) "Just as a woman might expose her sexual organ for the sake of a miserable wooden coin, so too have you displayed a superior human state, a wonder of psychic power, to lay people for the sake of a miserable wooden bowl."
He could have added "You girlyman!" And those women...

>and scroll 4/5 down the page to the heading "Displaying psychic  
>powers.") 
> 
>By contrast, in the category of Nissaggiya Offenses (Requiring  
>Expiation through Forfeiture), rule 23 begins with an origin story of  
>Bhikkhu Pilindavaccha creating a golden chaplet for a poor girl.

Now, how he did he do that? If he used alchemy in India, he would have had to wait til the 3-5th century AD. 

>She  
>and her family end up imprisoned for theft! (Since they could never  
>have acquired the chaplet through normal legal means.) Only  
>Pilindavaccha's turning King Seniya Bimbis¨¡ra's palace gold shows the  
>king he's erred in condemning the family. As a result of his displays  
>Pilindavaccha gets such fame folks give him way too much medicine and  
>he and his monks hoard it up and their vihara gets overrun with rats.  

And what's this medecine? I am completely conditioned by my current reading on magic and alchemy, so I may see it everywhere (I am like an overtrained drug dog). What sort of medecine attracts rats?

>But none of this causes a rule against showing powers. Instead there's  
>just the institution of a rule against keeping medicine longer than a  
>week. So the display of magic is not such a central Buddhist sin  
>(Protestant imported terminology intended) as the Carus quote would  
>indicate. Certainly nothing compared to the heinous offense of hoarding  
>medicine. 

It seems like medecine has always been very pricy.