5. Telekinesis (Supernormal locomotion)
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Moggallana also had mastery over, what appears to be solid matter. Once there were monks staying at a monastery, who were negligent and of distracted minds, busying themselves too much with material trifles. Learning of this, the Buddha asked Moggallana to shake their excessive faith in materiality by a supernormal feat and to stir them on to renewed and serious effort. In response to the Buddha's request, Moggallana pushed the building with his big toe, so that the entire monastery, called "The Terrace of Migara's Mother," shook and trembled as if there was an earthquake. By this experience the monks were so deeply stirred that they became again receptive when the Buddha instructed them, explaining the four Roads to Power (iddhipada), from which Moggallana's great supernormal prowess derived (Samy, 51, 14; Jat. 299E).
When Moggallana visited Sakka in his heavenly realm and saw that Sakka was living rather light-heartedly and was captivated by the heavenly sense pleasures of his world, forgetful of the Teaching, Moggallana performed a similar magic feat by shaking slightly the celestial palace, called "Banner of Victory," in which Sakka took much pride. This had a "shock effect" on Sakka too, and he now recalled the teaching on the extinction of craving, which the Buddha had briefly taught him not long ago. It was the same teaching by which the Buddha had once helped Moggallana to attain sainthood (Majjh 387).
Once there was a famine in the area where the Buddha and his community of monks stayed, and the monks could not obtain sufficient food. On that occasion Moggallana asked the Buddha whether he may overturn the ground, so that the nourishing substance underneath would be accessible and could be eaten. But the Buddha told him not to do so, as this would cause the destruction of a large number of living beings. Then Moggallana offered to open by his magical power a road to the (mythical) Uttara Kuru country, so that the monks could go there for alms. This, too, was rejected by the Buddha. But all survived the famine unharmed, even without such supernormal devices. (Paraj. I, 2) This was the only occasion when the Buddha disapproved of Moggallana's suggestions.
Moggallana's supernormal power expressed itself also in his ability to bring things from long distances by his magical locomotion. Thus for instances he brought lotus stalks from the Himalayas when Sariputta was ill and needed them for medicine (Maha Vagga VI, 20; Cula Vagga V, 34). He also fetched a shoot of the Bodhi tree for Anathapindika to be planted at the Jetavana Monastery (Jat. 78E). But when his fellow-monk Pindola asked him to prove the superiority of the Buddha's Sangha over the sectarians by magically bringing down a precious bowl that had been Hung up in town so high that nobody could take it down, Moggallana refused, saying that Pindola himself possessed sufficient powers to do it. But when Pindola actually performed that feat, the Buddha rebuked him: a monk should not display supernormal powers for the sake of impressing the laity (Cula Vagga V, 8).