A Belief without Superpowers

From The Golden Child movie to the wonderfully Buddhism-influenced anime series Avatar:  The Last Airbender, being enlightened or connecting to this state appears to give you superpowers.  Some Buddhist stories alledge Gautama Siddhartha had superpowers such as the ability to remove grass from a polluted well or to calm a drunk elephant.  Yet, a number of animal trainers have been known to calm crazed animals by approaching them with calm.  Many of these miracles appear to me to be legends attached to the story of the Buddha or 'superpowers' known to exist in other people with the proper training or attitude.  After all, Hindu holy men in India walk on hot coals, sleep on beds of nails, etc.

When the Buddha was asked about miracles and performing them, he pointedly said:

I dislike, reject and despise them.

The Long Discourses of the Buddha, A Translation of the Dīgha Níkāya by Maurice Walshe, Wisdom Publication, Boston 1995, p. 176

I think there is ample room for other Buddhists to contradict what I'm about to say, but I do not think Gautama Siddhartha had superpowers.  He grew old and died.  The core of his lifelong message was that anyone could wake up with proper training and living in the Now.  He pointedly viewed theism, astrology, miracles, and expectations that something outside of ourselves would save us as ultimately unknowable, frustrating, and counter-productive.  The more I study Buddhism the more I find the core message to be wonderfully mundane.  Superpowers seem extraneous to this message.

Years ago I found this image comparing Gautama Siddhartha and Jesus.  I forget where I found this image, but the Christian author meant this as a way to show Jesus was divine and the Buddha was not.  Yet, this image helped push me to consider Buddhism.  Frankly, if I met these two men today, I would think Jesus was crazy unless he performed some miracle right then and there which I could see and experience.  What this image claims for him is supernatural in much the same way a belief in Zeus or Frigga would require me to believe stories outside of my lived experience -and untestable by me- were real.  Did such beings really ever exist?  Are there practical applications and messages to my life that do not require me to suspend belief and have blind faith?  How can I tell if a prophet and the stories later written down by his/her followers are true other than by faith alone?

I came to Buddhism because in this image and in teachings, Gautama Siddhartha's practices seem applicable to my daily life.  I can be an atheist, Muslim, Christian, etc. in my thinking on my ultimate fate, I believe, but Buddhism teaches me how to live today.  The Buddha doesn't seem crazy and/or supernatural.  There is a minimum of superpower stories and mumbo-jumbo to cut through.  

At least, my own construction of my personal Buddhism increasingly emphasizes a very pragmatic view to Buddhism.  Many other people seek spiritual guidance in their daily lives and find it in Christianity, Islam, Wicca, etc.  So, as Anais Nin reminds me:

We see things as they are, we see them as we are.

So, I do not mean to offend or demean other spiritual paths.  For me though, I seek a pragmatic spirituality that pairs with science and reason.