The Cult of Tara

APPLICATION
6) The ability to walk in the sky
7) Swiftness of foot
8) Magical eye ointment
There is some overlap in these two lists of magic powers, especially
where they touch upon the universal themes of invisibility, magical
flight, and instant transportation. But these traditional abilities
were worked into a larger scheme of functions by the Tibetans,
where their individuality was subordinated to the structures of the
ritual.
The first and most important distinction the Tibetans make is
between ordinary and extraordinary magical attainments: that is,
the ability to perform ordinary or extraordinary functions. This
latter—the highest possible magical attainment—is enlightenment
itself; we may call it the capacity to perform the soteriological
function of the deity whom the practitioner has become. This is the
function associated with the Process of Perfection, wherein the
yogin-god of the self-generation "gathers" himself into the divine
Emptiness and "arises" again as the deity in public nonreality.
The magical attainment of enlightenment—of whatever degree,
from the glimpses of the beginner to actual Buddhahood—is the
ability to perform the deity's function of ontological insight and
power, and thus it is the foundation for the performance of all the
ordinary functions. It is possible only through the prior identity
of god and yogin: it is the practitioner's identity with the deity in
self-generation which grants the capacity to appropriate magically
the divine understanding, the final "real-ization" of Emptiness. As
we read in one Tantric text: 25
And from then on one will have
the whole of the magical attainments
and be delivered from the "self"
which binds one to this world,
just as a lotus is untouched
by the water and mud in which it grows.
If one touches quicksilver, it breaks in pieces,
but gathered together it becomes one again;
if one becomes omniscient
and touches the quicksilver of attainment,
one's mind attained to the magical attainments,
then just as copper becomes alchemical gold,
the yogin touched with the mantra of attainment
gains the body of a Buddha.