/lit/ - Literature

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In an interview with Trungpa Rinpoche for “The Laughing Man” journal, the interviewer brings up a friend reporting visions of Marpa and Milarepa at a ceremony carried out by Trungpa. In keeping with the general Buddhist attitude that unique phenomena and magical experiences should be looked at skeptically, and do not necessarily have any bearing on enlightenment, Trungpa, funnily enough, does not stress its significance.

>THE LAUGHING MAN: A friend once told me about attending a session in which you ceremonially manifested the consciousness of your lineage. Some people had visions of Marpa and Milarepa and he personally felt a rather extraordinary force being communicated. That transmission was obviously a real event in this guy’s life. How is the transmission of the lineage communicated?

>CHOGYAM TRUNGPA: Well, I’m rather suspicious about visions of that nature. [Laughs]

https://beezone.com/beezones-main-stack/interview_trungpa.html
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Strangely similar passage by Idries Shah in his “Oriental Magic” (1956), in Chapter 7, “The Fakirs and their Doctrines”, p. 94.

>While nearly every Sufi following the Path is a properly coached and entered Member of his Order, one other form of Sufism is known. This, called Uwaysi, is practiced by those who, while following established Sufi patterns of discipline and thought, are yet affiliated to no Order. The name is derived from one Uways ul Qarani, of Yaman, a contemporary of Muhammad, who is said to have been in spiritual contact with the Prophet in spite of never having met him.

>Two important facts about Sufism are exemplified in this Uwaysi doctrine. First, it shows the spiritual or telepathic link which forms a significant part of the cult. Just as time has no established meaning to the Sufi, so it is possible for one of their number to be in communication with another who may be far away — or may even be dead. Hence we find important Sufi saints claiming inspiration and cooperation with others whom they may never have met; or else from the spirit of one long dead. Secondly, it is acknowledged by Sufism that progress may be made in the Path by one who is not under direct or constant instruction from his Pir or master. At the same time, it is emphasized that such cases are rare.

Hence, by a little bit of ranting, rather long comparative religious study between, for the time being, two traditions which seem they couldn’t be any more different or further part (Islamic Sufism and Tibetan Buddhism), the relatively open-minded person might see, strangely, how they both discuss and claim eerily similar magical or miraculous phenomena, including mind-to-mind meetings or telepathic communion between disciple and master; as well as a broader spiritual communion between all authentic devotees of the past, to the point of visions of and inspiration by the dead saints and masters of this path being possible.