Eight Mundane Features of the Buddha’s Willpower

In the Teaching, eight mundane features of the Buddha’s willpower are generally cited. The eight are briefly described below:

(a) Animā: The Buddha can transform Himself as small as small can be, even to an atomic size. This was the power He employed in taming Brahmā Baka, where assuming the power of invisibility was the bet between them.

(b) Mahimā: He can transform himself as big as big can be, even making Himself taller than Mount Sineru (to any conceivable size up to one that might cover up the entire world-system), and still appear proportionate and glorious. This was the power He employed to impress the Lord of Asurā (who had previously thought he might have to look down on the Buddha because of his own enormous size).

(c) Laghimā: He can levitate at will and travel in the air due to this power which causes lightness of the body comparable to His lightness (buoyancy) of the mind.

(d) Patti: He can travel to any far away place at will. Ordinary people lacking in this power cannot travel bodily to far-off places as fast as their mind can travel. The Buddha can travel even to the deva realms and Brahmā realms bodily in an instant.

(e) Pākamma: He can accomplish anything that He wishes. In the eight assemblies He resolved to appear as one of their kind (i.e. among devas in deva realm He appears as a deva, etc.) (Ref: Chapter 50 on the Passing Away of the Buddha). In preaching the Doctrine to the inhabitants of the other world-systems, He assumes the form, the voice, etc. of one of the kings of those places.

(f) Īsitā: Dominating the will of others. All the Buddha-routine is accomplished through this power; all beings having to fulfil the wishes of the Buddha.

(g) Vasitā: Mastery of psychic powers and absorptions. This is the power used to tame very powerful and arrogant individuals such as Uruvelā Naga, overpowering their powers in every respect, such as emitting fire, vapour, etc.

(h) Yatthāmavasāyitā: He has complete control over jhānic absorptions and in displaying miracles being able to terminate them as He wills. It is this power which accomplishes the Twin Miracle of fire and water strewing out of the various parts of His body, with fire glowing from the upper part of the body while water flowing from the lower part of the body, and then suddenly even when the audience are watching in awe, making fire glowing from the lower part of the body while water is flowing from the upper part of the body, etc.

The above eight powers of the will in mundane consciousness are included in iddhividha abhiññā, knowledge by which supernormal powers are accomplished. The Buddha stands unrivalled in this knowledge.

These eight mundane powers and the mastery in mundane willpower and supramundane willpower mentioned above together are called the first of the six exalted qualities, i.e. issariya (supremacy).