Once upon a time, the Buddha arrived at Magadha, one of the countries in ancient India for a visit. He resided in a mango orchard, located in suburb of Nalanda.

In this particular day, Mukta-sara, a householder came to visit the Buddha. After prostrating to the Buddha, Mukta-sara said that Nalanda was a rich a prosperous city, and suggested that if the Buddha could dispatch a monk to display supernatural power in the public, then, the Nalandans would be respecting and believe in the Buddha even more.

The Buddha answered: “I have never taught the monks to display supernatural power to the householders. I only teach them stay away form the noisy places and to quietly contemplate the Dharma. If they have achieved something, they should keep to themselves. If committed mistakes, they should confess and be penitent.

However, the householder Mukta-sara repeatedly requested the Buddha to allow the monks to display supernatural power to residents of Nalanda, to win over more people to respect and believe in the Buddha, to facilitate the Buddha and his followers to spread the Dharma and benefit more people in this populated city.

The Buddha again repeatedly refused, and provided reasons why he would not utilize supernatural power to spread the Dharma. The Buddha said: “I can use three of my own verified methodologies to teach: The first is Meditative Concentration Supernatural Power, the second is Telepathy Supernatural Power and the third is Teaching Commandment Supernatural Power. What is Meditative Concentration Supernatural Power? It is the supernatural abilities of multiple manifestation of oneself; perform invisibility; passing through a wall, entering the ground; walk on water; fly in the sky; emitting smoke and fire from the body and directing reaching the Brahman Heaven etc. However, if one Buddhist who took refuge in the Triple Gem and told a non-Buddhist friend: “It is rare and marvelous, I have seen Buddhist monks who are able to display endless spiritual supernatural power, he can reach the Brahman Heaven directly, it is indeed great spiritual power and great prestigious virtue.” The non-Buddhist friend could have answered: “Yes, there are indeed existence of such excellent mantra, the monk was relied upon such excellent mantra to display the endless supernatural power.” As such, it not only failed to attain truly the goal of spreading the Dharma, but also became slandering the Dharma instead? Therefore, the Buddha said that according to his observations, he was fully aware of the shortcomings of displaying supernatural power, therefore rejected the idea of displaying supernatural power in such way.

What is Telepathy Supernatural Power? It is the spiritual power of perceiving others thinking without being told. Similarly, if one Buddhist who took refuge in the Triple Gem and told a non-Buddhist friend: “It is rare and marvelous, I have seen Buddhist monks who are able to perceive others thinking, it is indeed great spiritual power and great prestigious virtue.” The non-Buddhist friend could have answered: “Yes, there are indeed existence of such mantra, the monk was relied upon such mantra to perceive what others are thinking.” As such, it not only failed to attain truly the goal of spreading the Dharma, but also became slandering the Dharma instead? Therefore, the Buddha said that according to his observations, he was fully aware of the shortcomings of Telepathy Supernatural Power, hence rejected the idea of displaying telepathy in such way.

Therefore, the Buddha said: “For these reasons, I do not teach the monks display the supernatural power, only teach them to quietly contemplate the Dharma, confessing their own mistakes and not bragging their achievements. These are my monastic disciples’ Spiritual Concentration Supernatural Power and Telepathy Supernatural Power.”

What is the supernatural power of Teaching Commandment? Examples are teaching such commandments as “You should be thinking this way, not that way; perceiving this way and not the other way; should discard this here and dwell peacefully over there.” Teaching the Dharma from the approach of its pure content and peace and quiet argumentation so that people can practice satisfactorily. Such commandment teaching and Dharma disseminating would allow the elders at home and householders, after listening, truly and correctly recognize the Dharma; enable them to develop faiths in the Dharma, willing to leave home to study, and achieve the Three Understand Liberation. (Understand one’s or others previous lives; understand one’s or others future lives; and understand how to utilize wisdom to cut off vexation) This is my pedagogy of Teaching Commandment Supernatural Power for the monks.

按語：

一、本則故事取材自《長阿含第二四堅固經》、《長部第一一堅固經》。另，有關世尊的「三種教化」，參考《雜阿含第一九七經》?《長阿含第一大本經經》、《中阿含第一四三傷歌邏經》、《增支部第三集第六十經》。

1. The story was derived from Dirghagama 24th Mukta-sara Sutra; Brahmajala 11th Mukta-sara Sutra. Also, regarding Buddha’s “Three Teachings” references were Samyuktagama 179th Sutra; Dirghagama First Sutra; Madhyamagama 143th Sutra; Anguttaka-nikaya Volume III, 60th Sutra.

2. Spiritual power is the supernatural abilities accompany with the attainment of Meditative Concentration Practice. It has the elements of mystery and wonders which became most attractive to the ordinary people. However, what the Buddha wants to teach us are the total cessation of vexation, liberated from life and death. These could not be achieved by spiritual power. As stated in texts of Samyuktagama 1212th Sutra; Madhyamagama 121th Sutra; Samyukta-nikaya Samyukta 7th Sutra, as high as 320 among the 500 liberated monks (64%), achieved the Arhatship through Wisdom Liberation. According to Samyuktagama 347th Sutra, those Arahans who achieved Wisdom Liberation had yet to reach the state of First Concentration in Meditative Concentration Practice. Moreover, Anguttaka-nikaya 12th Anguttaka, 70th Sutra, stated directly that those Arahans who achieved Wisdom Liberation were liberated without possessing of spiritual power.

3. To this date, some people still believe that utilization of supernatural power or spiritual power to expand Buddhism appears to be a good ploy. In fact, the Buddha had clearly rejected such suggestions. At that time Brahman followers accounting non-cause as cause, took mantra and incantation acts as fashion, emphasizing spiritual power and miracle. If the way of expanding Buddhism is cater to the general public, rush to ride the bandwagon, it is obvious that disseminating the pure Dharma is impossible because they are based on erroneous grounds. The Buddha had assessed that such means could cause greater harms than benefits, thus unwilling to utilize spiritual power to spread the Dharma. He did not wish the monks employing spiritual power to attract people. In today’s environment, ordinary people still being attracted by spiritual power and miracle, basically it has little difference from the time when the Buddha was living. If one wishes to display spiritual power with the objective of spreading Buddhism, he would still miss the main point, and would loss the clarity of pure Buddhism; the disadvantage would out weigh the advantage after all.

4. The Teaching Commandment Supernatural Power is different from the Meditative Concentration Supernatural Power and Telepathy Supernatural Power. It is not exactly what ordinary people regarded as supernatural power. According to Buddha’s explanation, it is through teaching with skill and patience to guide methodically a person in studying Buddhism, and then arrive at cessation of vexation and realized liberation. It had nothing to do with supernatural power. However, if from the perspective of the enormous changes of an ordinary person, after having been guided to become a liberated sage, it could be regarded as the alternative supernatural power. Perhaps it is the reason why the Teaching Commandment being labeled as supernatural power.