< Spirituality? What Kind? >
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(1) "A wise man can recognize a fool, but a fool cannot recognize a wise person." 'Foolish' in Buddhism usually means having no understanding or discernment of cause and effect. (The Buddha also said that only those who have integrity themselves can tell whether someone has integrity or not.)
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(2) "If any monk claims that he has psychic power, you'd better run away" because he is crooked. If you are foolish enough to chase such a person, then you will be cheated and mislead. The Buddha prevented one from showing off one's supernatural power even if one does indeed have some. Curing a dying person with paranormal power is nothing to be praised in Buddhism. That's not the sort of mettā/慈/goodwill Buddhism teaches. And this is also why the Buddha never used his supernatural powers for such a purpose.
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(3) "An idle mind is a devil's workshop," so you need to always maintain mindfulness on or off the cushion. To be mindful does not mean to be simply passive and receptive to whatever going on here and now. No matter how 'calm' you are, as long as your mind is dull or idle, your mind becomes that of an animal, and thus you will be reborn to the animal realm. That kind of inferior 'equanimity' has nothing to do with wisdom or character in Buddhism.
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(4) A spirit which wants to take a person's body is a ghost. A deva (a being at a higher realm than the human world) would not consider a human body desirable. This may mean that keeping your consciousness level low or your mind dull is like inviting lower spirits to enter your body.
Yes, this sort of phenomena is 'spiritual', but it is just the kind related to an inferior spirit to a human. Don't be mistaken that anything 'spiritual' is necessarily 'superior' to materialistic because 'spiritual' merely means 'out of the ranges of a human's normal senses'. Even the devas of higher planes are just unenlightened beings like ourselves. So, when you hear the word 'spirituality', you want to ask what exactly they mean by the word and exactly what sort of spirituality it refers to. The contemplative life in Buddhism is to study one's own mind for nirvana. You shouldn't be distracted by anything else.
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