Is there any place for Omens in Buddhism? An omen is viewed as a sign from the natural world that delivers a message of some sort. Typically this message is seen as an indicator of coming good or evil events.
I know this has nothing to do with the Noble path and Buddhist practice in general, but I know that some lamas or highly attained monks from other traditions demonstrate psychic powers. Also, there are various rituals in Vajrayana which are performed to attain certain spiritual and mystical energies states.
So can we train our minds to read omens? Also, can we make use of omens to grow spiritually? Like for e.g. in India. if a black cat crosses our path we consider it as a bad omen and usually abort what we were set to do or become more cautious doing it.
Omen reading, astrology, palmistry and other such things are considered &quot;animal arts&quot; and wrong livelihood for monks in DN 2 quoted below. In general, even for laypersons, this would be considered &quot;animal arts&quot;, and therefore unskillful or unwholesome.

&quot;Whereas some contemplatives &amp; brahmans, living off food given in
faith, maintain themselves by wrong livelihood, by such &quot;animal&quot; arts
as: reading marks on the limbs [e.g., palmistry]; reading omens and
signs; interpreting celestial events [falling stars, comets];
interpreting dreams; reading features of the body [e.g., phrenology];
reading marks on cloth gnawed by mice; offering fire oblations,
oblations from a ladle, oblations of husks, rice powder, rice grains,
ghee, and oil; offering oblations from the mouth; offering
blood-sacrifices; making predictions based on the fingertips;
geomancy; making predictions for state officials; laying demons in a
cemetery; placing spells on spirits; earth-skills [divining water and
gems?]; snake-skills, poison-skills, scorpion-skills, rat-skills,
bird-skills, crow-skills; predicting life spans; giving protective
charms; casting horoscopes — he abstains from wrong livelihood, from
&quot;animal&quot; arts such as these.
&quot;Whereas some contemplatives &amp; brahmans, living off food given in
faith, maintain themselves by wrong livelihood, by such &quot;animal&quot; arts
as: determining lucky and unlucky gems, staffs, garments, swords,
arrows, bows, and other weapons; women, men, boys, girls, male slaves,
female slaves; elephants, horses, buffaloes, bulls, cows, goats, rams,
fowl, quails, lizards, rabbits, tortoises, and other animals — he
abstains from wrong livelihood, from &quot;animal&quot; arts such as these.
&quot;Whereas some contemplatives &amp; brahmans, living off food given in
faith, maintain themselves by wrong livelihood, by such &quot;animal&quot; arts
as [forecasting]: the rulers will march forth; the rulers will not
march forth; our rulers will attack, and their rulers will retreat;
their rulers will attack, and our rulers will retreat; there will be
triumph for our rulers and defeat for their rulers; there will be
triumph for their rulers and defeat for our rulers; thus there will be
triumph this one, defeat for that one — he abstains from wrong
livelihood, from &quot;animal&quot; arts such as these.
&quot;Whereas some contemplatives &amp; brahmans, living off food given in
faith, maintain themselves by wrong livelihood, by such &quot;animal&quot; arts
as [forecasting]: there will be a lunar eclipse; there will be a solar
eclipse; there will be an occultation of [a conjunction of the moon or
a planet with] an asterism; the sun and moon will be favorable; the
sun and moon will be unfavorable; the asterisms will be favorable; the
asterisms will be unfavorable; there will be a meteor shower; there
will be a flickering light on the horizon [an aurora?]; there will be
an earthquake; there will be thunder coming from dry clouds; there
will be a rising, a setting, a darkening, a brightening of the sun,
moon, and asterisms; such will be the result of the lunar eclipse ...
the rising, setting, darkening, brightening of the sun, moon, and
asterisms — he abstains from wrong livelihood, from &quot;animal&quot; arts such
as these.
&quot;Whereas some contemplatives &amp; brahmans, living off food given in
faith, maintain themselves by wrong livelihood, by such &quot;animal&quot; arts
as [forecasting]: there will be abundant rain; there will be a
drought; there will be plenty; there will be famine; there will be
rest and security; there will be danger; there will be disease; there
will be freedom from disease; or they earn their living by accounting,
counting, calculation, composing poetry, or teaching hedonistic arts
and doctrines [lokāyata] — he abstains from wrong livelihood, from
&quot;animal&quot; arts such as these.
&quot;Whereas some contemplatives &amp; brahmans, living off food given in
faith, maintain themselves by wrong livelihood, by such &quot;animal&quot; arts
as: calculating auspicious dates for marriages — both those in which
the bride is brought home and those in which she is sent out;
calculating auspicious dates for betrothals and divorces; for
collecting debts or making investments and loans; reciting charms to
make people attractive or unattractive; curing women who have
undergone miscarriages or abortions; reciting spells to bind a man's
tongue, to paralyze his jaws, to make him lose control over his hands,
or to bring on deafness; getting oracular answers to questions
addressed to a spirit in a mirror, in a young girl, or to a spirit
medium; worshipping the sun, worshipping the Great Brahmā, bringing
forth flames from the mouth, invoking the goddess of luck — he
abstains from wrong livelihood, from &quot;animal&quot; arts such as these.
&quot;Whereas some contemplatives &amp; brahmans, living off food given in
faith, maintain themselves by wrong livelihood, by such &quot;animal&quot; arts
as: promising gifts to deities in return for favors; fulfilling such
promises; demonology; reciting spells in earth houses [see earth
skills, above]; inducing virility and impotence; preparing sites for
construction; consecrating sites for construction; giving ceremonial
mouthwashes and ceremonial baths; offering sacrificial fires;
administering emetics, purges, purges from above, purges from below,
head-purges; ear-oil, eye-drops, treatments through the nose,
ointments, and counter-ointments; practicing eye-surgery [or:
extractive surgery], general surgery, pediatrics; administering
root-medicines and binding medicinal herbs — he abstains from wrong
livelihood, from &quot;animal&quot; arts such as these. This, too, is part of
his virtue.&quot;