This is the second talk on the Pali Canon sutras. The text referred to in the talk is the photocopied booklet “Sutras from the Old Way – Selections from the Pali Canon,” which can be downloaded as a PDF.

 

Sutras from the Old Way – 2nd Sutra – Fingersnap
By Zoketsu Norman Fischer | Nov 30, 2002
Transcribed and edited by Murray McGillivray and Barbara Byrum

“The Fingersnap” is an obscure sutra, which I wouldn’t have found without the help of my friends in the Western Buddhist Order. Sangharakshita, who’s the founder of the order, thinks it’s important, because one of the purposes of the book is to show the continuity between the Mahayana and the “Old Way,” the original way of Buddhism.

The Buddha begins by saying that the nature of mind is luminous, “This mind, oh monks, is luminous,” meaning “bright, shining, full of light.” That’s the nature of mind, but it gets obscured and covered over by defilements, but its nature is brightness. This is a saying in the Pali canon, but it’s very much like the Mahayana Buddhist idea of buddha nature that we’re all so familiar with. There’s not so much difference between saying “this mind is inherently luminous” and saying “all sentient beings have Buddha nature.”

This mind, monks, is luminous, but it is defiled by taints that come from without. But this mind the uneducated many-folk understand not as it really is. Therefore for the uneducated many-folk there is no cultivation of the mind, I declare.

So this is archaic language, but it just means ordinary people don’t understand that the nature of the mind is luminous, and that it has been covered over by defilements that are not inherent to it, that are not necessary, and can be removed. They’re not built in to the nature of mind. Quite the opposite, the nature of mind is light and enlightened, but people, not realizing this, take for granted the way that the mind appears to them, and so they don’t make the effort to remove these taints, find out how they got there, and reverse them.

So you may think, “Now wait a minute! Didn’t the Buddha teach that the nature of conditioned existence is suffering? Isn’t that the opposite of this? Doesn’t that sound like the nature of mind is not luminous but messed up?” Well, not really, because what the Buddha said was the nature of conditioned existence is suffering, but then he says that when you discover how this comes about, you can be free of that conditioning by virtue of the path.

Even though the first noble truth is rather shocking and stark in a way—”The very nature of conditioned existence is suffering”—I think it’s a way to get our attention. There are two things we really need to get, I think, in order to practice. We really need to get that, first of all, our nature is luminous, we have the potential and the nature of awakening. But also we have to get how thoroughly it’s going to take some effort to remove the taints and return to the luminous nature of our mind. So, therefore, it’s very skillful for the Buddha to have made this very strong and dismaying statement, “The nature of conditioned existence is suffering, is to be tainted.”

Then the Buddha repeats:

This mind, monks, is luminous, but it can be cleansed of these same taints that come from without. [In other words, that are not inherent to it, that they can be removed.]

This, the educated disciple understands as it really is. Wherefore, for the educated disciple, there is cultivation of the mind, I declare.

Monks , if just for the lasting of a fingersnap…

Believe it or not, “fingersnap” is a scientific term in Buddhism. It’s technically the shortest possible length of time. They were very interested in the nature of mind and time. The idea was that mind would flash into existence with all of its constellated components, would flash out of existence, and then another mind would flash into existence. We think the life we are living has continuity, but actually it doesn’t. It’s like a film. Little, still pictures flash on and off and make our life look like it’s continuous.

…you (the practitioner) would indulge…

The translation is not too good. What it means is that if, just for an instant, you stumbled by accident on the thought of goodness or a positive thought —not intending to do anything about it – you would be a true cultivator. “Monk” here means a worthy cultivator of the Way.

… not empty of result is his musing.

In other words, his or her meditation practice is worthwhile because of that one instant of a wholesome thought.

He abides doing the Master’s bidding.

This means that he’s really following Buddha’s way, just by virtue of the fact that for an instant one thought of goodness crossed his mind.

What, then, should I say of those who make much of such a thought?

So, in other words, if somebody, who just stumbles into an instant a thought of good will is a worthy person, what about somebody who does more than stumble into it, but cultivates such a thought and pursues it and strengthens it? The next paragraphs repeat the same idea with exactly the same words, except that the person is doing a little bit more in that instant. In the first instance he just bumps into the thought. In the second instance he intentionally tries to cultivate that thought of good will. In the third instance he’s cultivating it with even more diligence.

Monks, if just for the lasting of a fingersnap, a monk cultivates a thought of good will, such a one is to be called a monk. Not empty of result is his musing. He abides doing the Master’s bidding. He is one who takes advice and eats the country’s alms-food to some purpose. What then should I say of those who make much of such a thought?

The monk understanding this would cultivate and be active in trying to uncover the luminous nature of the mind.

Monks, whatsoever things are evil (better to say “unwholesome” or “leading to suffering”)

Whatever phenomena – inside or outside – are unwholesome and cause suffering. The mind is the ultimate cause of thoughts and feelings.

First arises mind as the forerunner of them, and then all the rest of the unprofitable, unwholesome things will follow.

So this is a curious and important thing here. The nature of the mind is luminous, and the taints – the defilements that mess up this luminous mind – are adventitious, which is to say they’re not inherent. They’re added from outside. And yet, at the same time, the cause of all those things is ultimately the mind itself. So that’s good! Because it means we can change the way we work with, operate with, understand, and function with our mind.

Monks, I know not of any other single thing of such power to cause the arising of all of these unwholesome suffering states when they haven’t arisen, or to cause the waning of the good states, in case they should arise, as negligence.

“Unwholesome” means lack of mindfulness, carelessness, not paying attention, not being aware. So the power of lack of mindfulness is great. And of course, the next thing is the opposite statement, which is that the power of diligent mindfulness.

Monks, I know not of any other single thing of such power to cause the arising of good states that haven’t yet arisen or to cause the waning of negative states that have arisen as earnestness. [Or, I would say, diligence in mindfulness, diligence in awareness.]

In the person who is earnest, good states, if not yet arisen, do arise, and negative states, if arisen, will wane. Monks, I know not of any other single thing of such power to cause the arising of evil states, if not yet arisen, or to cause the waning of good states, if arisen, as indolence, laziness. In the person who is indolent these negative states not yet arisen do arise and the good states if arisen o wane.

So this is a talk to the monks to spur them on to action, and hopefully it does that for us, too. We think to ourselves that it’s really the truth. These things seem true to me. Don’t they seem true to you? It really is true that people are good, that we all have within us, everyone without exception, a beautiful power of goodness. And everyone, probably without exception, has not brought that potential out to the fullest. And some of us haven’t brought it out hardly at all! So the power of a diligent mindfulness, to pay attention, can increase the light. And not paying attention can decrease it. And it’s such a beautiful thing to increase the light. Don’t we all want to do that? And don’t we want to be diligent in our practice, so that we can more and more have that kind of light and lightness in our lives?

The Buddha says that all of the negativity in the world comes from the mind, so that when we take care of our mind and our practice, on some deep and fundamental level, it’s not just our own self that we’re taking care of, but we’re reducing, to whatever extent possible, the sum total of negativity in this world, and we’re increasing, to whatever extent we can, the sum total of the light in the world.

So this is really good news, because it means that we don’t have to look in dismay at this large, out-of-control world and think, “What can we do, a poor small person such as ourselves, with very little resources and capacity to influence policy? My God it’s hopeless!” But this is saying, no, that your capacity to work with your mind and increase the light of the world matters, that it does have an effect. Maybe we don’t know exactly how or how much, but it does have an effect. It’s worth pursuing in some way for one’s own happiness, and,¡¡¡ maybe in some way that we can’t understand, the happiness of others as well.

[Question: I’ve studied Theravadin and Tibetan and Zen traditions, and my understanding is that there are a whole bunch of words for mind in Tibetan, and I have no idea whether that’s true in Pali, but when at the beginning it says “This mind, monks, is luminous,” and then later when it says that mind is what causes evil things to arise, do you think that they’re using the same word for mind there? Because it seems to me that they’re not.]

You’re bringing up a really good point, and when you’re working in translation it’s very hard to get down to that level of detail. Of course, it’s very important, but you really can’t do it because you’re dependent on the translator’s choices. But I think your point is very well taken that there are numerous words in Pali and Tibetan and Sanskrit and Chinese for mind, all of which are really fundamentally untranslatable, because we’re talking about very subtle issues here. But I think what you’re pointing out is probably quite true, that in the first instance what’s being talked about is the fundamental nature of mind, and in the second instance what’s being talked about is the mind’s manifestations as created by karma. So those to things are not exactly different from each other, and in fact there’s confusion, as far as my knowledge goes, and that’s not very far, even in Sanskrit and Pali, as in English, the same word is used to denote different things. In other words, the word citta in Sanskrit means mind and the nature of mind, and it also means a thought. So the ambiguity is, I think, deliberate, because there is no mind, as an entity, apart from the function of mind.

So sometimes you’re referring to mind as its fundamental nature, but there really isn’t such a thing as the fundamental nature of mind without the functioning of mind, because if you drop dead and there’s no functioning body, there’s no functioning mind because there’s no functioning—mind doesn’t exist without functioning. So that’s why the ambiguity is even in the original languages, and it’s on purpose. In a way, we’re looking at one thing which has many aspects that can never be separated, but in language we’re speaking of it in this aspect or that aspect, and so the confusion is kind of built in to the way things are. So thank you for bringing that up.

Sutras_from_the_Old_Way.pdf

In his first talk on the Pali Canon sutras, Zoketsu discusses the teaching on the Four Noble Truths. The text referred to in the talk is the photocopied booklet “Sutras from the Old Way – Selections from the Pali Canon,” which can be downloaded as a PDF.

 

Sutras from the Old Way – 1st Sutra – Four Noble Truths
By Zoketsu Norman Fischer | Nov 30, 2002
Transcribed and edited by Murray McGillivray and Barbara Byrum

Some years ago, I and some other colleagues at Zen Center participated in creating a study curriculum for Zen Center, which would be not only a study of Zen texts per se, but a study of all of Buddhism that would be relevant to a Zen practitioner. We thought that it would be very important for people who study Zen to know some basic teachings from the Pali Canon, since this is part of our practice as well.

So we made a compendium of a selection of teachings from the Pali Canon, not necessarily the most important ones, or the greatest ones, but the ones that we thought were important. We created a little book called “Sutras from the Old Way.”

In the beginning of this book there’s an introduction to the selections that I want to read and comment on. There’s a text called Hokyoki, which is the journal of Dogen’s studies with his teacher that he kept when he was a young man studying in China. When Dogen heard his teacher say “Drop off body and mind!” he had his awakening experience. So this phrase, “drop off body and mind,” is a kind of a code for Dogen for the essence of the meaning of Buddhism, the essence of the meaning of Buddha’s mind or teaching. His teacher, Rujing, said, “Dropping off body and mind is zazen. When you do just sitting, you are free from the five sense desires and the five hindrances.”

Dogen was astonished to hear his teacher say that zazen is already the essence of Buddha’s mind. This is maybe not surprising to us, but it might be surprising to hear that it’s also the same thing as being free from the five sense desires and the five hindrances. So he’s saying, “Are we supposed to be practicing not just Zen but also the old way?” And the Master said, “Descendants of ancestors (meaning Zen students) should not exclude the teachings of either vehicle. If students ignore the Tathagata’s sacred teachings, how can they become the descendants of buddha-ancestors?

So there were, and still are, some Zen people who advocate Forget studies, forget Buddhism, it’s just the insight from the cushion! But Dogen wasn’t one like that. He actually advocated studying Buddhism. He didn’t even like to talk about Soto Zen or even Zen. He said we’re just doing Buddhism, just doing buddha-dharma.

I believe, and many scholars agree, that the later developments of Buddhism – Mahayana Buddhism and tantric Buddhism and Zen – are not contradictory to these early teachings. They’re simply developing and bringing out aspects of the teachings. Much of everything that you find in Buddhism is really found in the early teachings, in either explicit or in implicit form.

So having said that, I thought we’d start at the beginning with the first sutra, the Sutra on Setting in Motion the Wheel of Dharma. It is said that this is the first sermon that the Buddha gave after his awakening.

Thus have I heard.

As everyone here no doubt knows, that line is spoken by Ananda. Every Buddhist sutra begins with Ananda, who remembered everything that the Buddha ever taught.

Once the Blessed One, the Buddha, was staying in the Deer Park in Isipatana near Varanasi.

I was just talking to a friend the other day who’s about to go to India. I once went to India, and I went to this place—you can go there, maybe some of you have been there—the Deer Park outside of Varanasi, where there is a great stupa. It’s kind of amazing. I’m not that sentimental myself, but somehow when I went outside Varanasi to the Deer Park and saw this circumambulating the great stupa at the Deer Park, I just burst into tears.

The Buddha addressed the bhikkhus of the group of five, the five ascetics that I was mentioning.

There are two extremes which should not be followed, bhikkhus, by someone who has gone forth (that means, gone forth into the religious life and given up worldly pursuits and seeking truth). One extreme is pursuing sense-pleasure, which is low, vulgar, worldly, ignoble and produces no useful result.

He is talking about excessive profligacy and hedonistic indulgence. I think the Buddha recognized that there is grabbiness – so much desire and thirsting and craving – even in very ordinary states of mind and average, everyday experience. Grabbiness is that kind of attachment, that kind of thirsting and craving within any sensual experience. It is not just overeating, or overdrinking, or overindulging in this or that, but any time you see or hear or taste or touch. If you are craving and grasping and pursuing that experience, that’s one extreme. The other extreme is the opposite of that: devotion to self-denial. Here he’s telling this to the ascetics, right? They need to hear this!

With practice you see how subtle craving is. You begin to see that craving, and this kind of thirsting that he’s talking about, is the cause of suffering. It’s not that one action is bad and one action is good. It becomes clearer to you: Oh, I see, as soon as I have this kind of grasping, very quickly after that, I have suffering. I didn’t really see it before, but now I see how unsuccessful and how kind of stupid the way that I’ve been conducting myself was.

The problem with the language of some of these texts is that they sound as if what’s being advocated is a kind of self-denial or tremendous discipline and restraint. But, no, I think what’s being indicated is a kind of simple and quiet enjoyment of one’s life, absent this kind of craving and grasping. And seeing the difference takes some subtlety. It actually takes some sensitivity to one’s own experience, and I think, realistically, some time and discipline of practice. One’s pleasure in this or that is relative to one’s own sensitivity and one’s own mind, one’s own spirit. So as you develop your mind and your spirit, you find ways of enjoying very simple things, and you realize that to crave and take more than is necessary is actually uncomfortable.

The opposite is devotion to self-denial, which is painful, ignoble, and produces no useful result. Avoiding both these extremes, bhikkhus, the middle way that the Tathagata has awakened to gives vision and insight-knowledge, and leads to peace, profound understanding, full realization, and to nibbana.

So he’s saying that one extreme is worldly life, which is the pursuit of accumulation of things and experience – the affirmation and building on desire. The opposite of that, retreat into a religious life, would be full of self-denial and the demonization of worldly things. What we’re looking for, he says, is a kind of way of life that brings us pleasure in the sense of peacefulness and stability and sustainability. He didn’t always speak of the middle way in this particular way, but I think he spoke of this initially because he was addressing ascetics, who exactly saw these two extremes. They demonized the world; they were trying to mortify their flesh, because it was somehow wrong or bad.

So, then, the basic question: What is the middle way? How do you live that?And what is the middle way that the Tathagata has awakened to, which gives vision and insight-knowledge, and leads to peace, profound understanding, full realization, and to nibbana? It is the eightfold path; that is, right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration. This is the middle way that the Tathagata has awakened to.I’m not that big a fan of the word “right” here, because it evokes a strait-laced attitude. I think that this word actually means “attuned,” or “aligned,” not “askew.” If something is “right,” it means it’s straightforward. It’s perfectly aligned and attuned.

This is saying is that the middle way requires a whole way of life, which has many different aspects to it. In each aspect one should strive for a kind of attunement, where you’re not leaning to one side or the other. Religious practice can be just another avenue for greed and delusion; all the things that you can do in the world you can do exactly in the same way in religious practice! So he’s saying be attuned, be aligned with reality as it really is. Don’t be fighting it. Align yourself with it. That’s the way to be peaceful; that’s the way to be happy.

In your views, in the way that you look at things and understand things, you align and attune your views away from selfishness, away from avoidance, and toward a kind of accurate and clear acceptance of what is. And then, when you have a view like that, your mind and heart will produce the proper intentions based on accurate views. You have intentions that are in tune with what’s best in you as a human being. The words that come out of your mouth will be helpful and beautiful, and not nasty and negative.

When you speak words like that, it will inspire you towards action, which is also attuned and aligned, and when you have attuned and aligned action, naturally you’ll want to have a way of life, a way of earning your daily alms, that will be righteous and not harm others.

When you have all that taken care of, you’ll want to make the right kind of effort to practice meditation. Then you’ll practice awareness in your daily life, and that awareness you’ll also take to your cushion, where you’ll be able to practice a strong concentration. And that strong concentration will deepen your mind and deepen the subtlety of your understanding, so that you will have views that are even more accurate and more aligned with the way things are.

In other words, the eightfold path, the program that he’s laying out here, is an endless program of going back to living your life with an ever greater degree of clarity, understanding, and alignment with reality and with what is.Then he teaches the bhikkhus the first formulation of the four noble truths:

Bhikkhus there is a noble truth about dissatisfaction.

This famous “dissatisfaction” is translated many other ways. “Suffering” is usually the way that you hear the word dukkha translated. This is the first truth. It is the recognition that all conditioned things have the nature of suffering. In later sutras it becomes clear that when he says “the noble truth of dissatisfaction,” what he means is that this is the nature of conditioned existence – not just things we don’t like, or certain things we would call suffering. He’s saying, Suffering is a lot more pervasive than you think it is. The word dukkha means that even if things are going well, there is dissatisfaction, there’s a little anxiety. You know that feeling: I can’t believe things are going so well, what’s going to happen next? The anxiety that’s inherent in existing in a human world with an impermanent mind and body.

The Buddha gives a few really good instances of what he means by dissatisfaction or suffering.

Birth is a problem.

It’s true, you know. When you’re born you have many problems right away, and they continue. So even coming into the world in the first place is a problem. We know this because everybody who comes into the world starts crying immediately when they get there, because it’s a shock. It’s a big shock and trauma to come into the world after you’ve been floating around in space, in this wonderful situation of total love and belonging. All of a sudden, somebody says, Alright now, breathe. And don’t stop until you die. This is a shock! It’s a problem! It’s a lot of work. Then there are all kind of problems: they make you go to school, you have to learn relationships, and you have to get a job! Even if everything goes well, you still have those problems.

Then, if you’re born, you’re going to age. Aging is difficult. The older you get, different things start not working. It’s very hard. And then, you have to die. All these things are a consequence of being born. People think, Oh, she died of cancer. Well, that’s not really true, she didn’t die of cancer, she died of life! If she were never born, she wouldn’t die. Cancer is an incidental cause of death. The real cause of death is birth.So this is all a big problem. Then there’s sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, and despair that come into every human life, no matter what. These things are also unpleasant and difficult.

In brief, the five grasped aggregates are unsatisfactory.

“The grasped aggregates” mean you. In other words, being a person with sense organs, a mind, emotions, impulses, in an impermanent body. This is a drastically unworkable situation. Recognition of this is the beginning of wisdom, the beginning of happiness, the beginning of real pleasure. If you don’t recognize this, you’re already doomed, because then you’re going to be looking for some sort of quick fix, some sort of band-aid. This is going to be your problem: you’re going to be putting a band-aid on that which is a bigger wound than a band-aid can fix. And the more you keep doing that, your frustration is only going to grow as time goes on. At first you might think, Oh, good! I put the band-aid on, and I feel much better now. But as time goes on, the wound is bigger, and the band-aid is not working, and you become much more unhappy. So you first have to realize the fix you’re in, as it really is.

The Four Noble Truths are set up as the most simple form of logic, almost like a medical diagnosis. First of all, what is the disease; then what causes the disease; then find a way to remove the cause; and then, finally, there’s health. So that’s basically what the four noble truths are saying.

So the second truth is the cause. What is the cause of this condition? It is desire.

Or, I would say, clinging, grasping, craving, endlessly wanting – something more or different from what’s there. This is the human condition. That’s what moves us forward: grasping and clinging and desiring something that isn’t there.

This clinging and craving and grasping gives rise to relish and passion, running here and there, delighting in this and that. This might sound good, actually, to most of us! That’s not so bad! Passion? Excellent! Running around here and there? I like to travel! Delighting in this and that? Why not! But he’s saying, that’s exactly the point. We like all that. We hear that, and we think, Oh, that’s really good! But that is the problem. We don’t understand the real nature, the fundamental nature, of our conditioned existence, and so we’re following our craving and our grasping and our desires. We are running around, delighting in this and that.

Bhikkhus, there is the noble truth of the cessation of suffering.

It is the complete fading away and cessation. It is the quieting, I would say, the calming, the spaciousness that can surround this kind of clinging and desire. When that happens, there is abandonment and relinquishment. There’s freedom, peace, ease, and joy.

That’s possible. How? He then repeats the noble eightfold path, which he mentioned earlier: right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration.

Sutras_from_the_Old_Way.pdf

This is part 1 of the fourth talk on the Pali Canon sutras. The text referred to in the talk is the photocopied booklet “Sutras from the Old Way – Selections from the Pali Canon,” which can be downloaded as a PDF.

 

Sutras from the Old Way 4 (Part 1)
Zoketsu Norman Fischer
Transcribed and edited by Murray McGillivray and Barbara Byrum

There are many, many, sutras in the Pali Canon. They’re all worth reading, but the reason I made this selection is that I figured it’s too much for most people to read, and so if people wanted to read a particular selection, it would be nice to have one. But I chose each sutra for a particular reason. Sometimes the reason was because it gave teachings that were particularly important, but sometimes the reason wasn’t so much in the teaching per se, but in the way that you get a feeling for the Buddha’s personality and his activity: how he acted and how he was as a person.

In this sutra you really get a feeling for how Buddha handled his disciples, and that’s one reason why I chose it. The other reason why I chose it is that in this sutra the Buddha emphasizes something very important in our practice, but not so often mentioned this directly, and that is the importance of our practice relationships and how key they are in our spiritual development.

Thus have I heard. On a certain occasion the Exalted One (meaning the Buddha) was staying at Calika, on Calika Hill. Now on that occasion, the venerable Meghiya was in attendance on the Exalted One.

Meghiya was taking care of the Buddha, and they were in close proximity to each other. It is clear, as we’ll see in a moment, that the Buddha and Meghiya are wandering, just the two of them.

Then the venerable Meghiya came to the Buddha, and coming to him saluted him and stood at one side. As he thus stood, he said to the Buddha, “I desire, sir, to enter Jantu village for alms-quest.”

So this is the formality of how, even though there’s just the two of them, the code of conduct of the order was such that the Buddha was accorded this kind of respect. We think of formality as a distancing function; we think of social formalities as militating against intimacy, but I have the feeling from reading these sutras that the formality in the Buddha’s sangha was the opposite, that it actually provided a way of expressing regard and intimacy. At least, at its best, it would give people a way to express respect, which would then allow them to increase their feeling of intimacy and respect, by virtue of doing ritualized actions.

Even though there’s just the two of them – maybe they’re outside under a tree or by the road – Meghiya bows and stands to one side to ask his question. The Buddha says, “Do whatever you think it is time for, Meghiya.” A beautiful response. So, in effect, Meghiya is saying, “I’m asking permission to go beg for alms”—probably on behalf of both of them—and the Buddha acknowledges his kindly asking for permission and says, “I trust you. Do whatever you think is right.”

So the venerable Meghiya, robing himself in the forenoon and taking bowl and robe entered the Jantu village in quest of alms-food, and after questing for alms-food, there returned after his rounds, and after eating his meal, went toward the bank of the river Kimikala, and on reaching it, while taking exercise by walking up and down and too and fro, he saw a lovely, delightful mango grove.

It seems that wearing the robe was a very important part of the practice. And when you wore the robe, you had to therefore comport yourself in a way that was in accord with the wearing of the robe. So you couldn’t lift weights or go jogging, because it would be unseemly to be wearing Buddha’s robe and be jogging along in sneakers. And you were always supposed to wear the robe. You were not supposed to be dressed in anything else other than the robe.

So to this day, Theravada monks get their exercise by walking up and down. Even though in Zen we don’t wear our robes all the time, I think similarly when we’re wearing the robe, we’re supposed to behave as if we were a person worthy of wearing the robe. And even more so in Zen, the robe is venerated. Even the rakusu is considered to be the Buddha’s own garment, borrowed by us temporarily.

So that’s why he’s walking up and down, to get his exercise. And mango groves are delightful. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen mango groves, but they are quite delightful because mango trees are very beautiful and they seem to encourage a soft open kind of ground underneath them, at least the mango groves that I’ve seen are like that. So it’s easy to see how someone spying a mango grove could think, Oh boy, that is a great-looking mango grove, I feel like hanging out in there for a long time! That’s apparently what Meghiya was feeling. So he thought “How truly lovely and delightful is this mango grove.” And of course, being a well-trained monk, the first thing he would think of when he saw this great mango grove is what a wonderful place this would be to practice meditation. This would be a great place for meditation. If the Buddha lets me do this, I will come here to this mango grove and I will practice meditation right here in this mango grove. This is a great place. I’m going to rush back now to the Buddha and see if he will let me do this.

So he goes back to the Buddha, sits down at one side, and he told the Buddha of his find and what he thought.

If the exalted one gives me leave, I would go to that mango grove to strive for concentration.

Now I would say you could read between the lines here. It’s not hard to do, to see that the Buddha is thinking that this is not a great idea for Meghiya to go to this mango grove and strive for concentration. But he doesn’t say that. Instead he says:

Wait a little, Meghiya, I am alone, till some other monk arrives. Don’t go yet, please stay for a while. When someone else comes to relieve you of your duties as my attendant, then you can go.

There are two things about this that I think are important, as the rest of the sutra will show. First of all, I think that maybe the Buddha thinks that Meghiya is not quite ready for meditation practice at that level of intensity yet. The other thing that may be in the Buddha’s mind, and I think the rest of the sutra will make this clear, is that more important than meditation practice and cultivation, is dharma relationship. In other words, if Meghiya had really been thinking about the dharma, he would have seen that this was not the time to meditate, when he was alone attending on the Buddha. He should have waited really until his services were not needed, when many other people were there, and it was just the right time. So the Buddha, I think, was very gently trying to teach him this, and also, perhaps, indicate that he wasn’t quite ready. Anyway, he said, wait a little bit. But Meghiya was a very enthusiastic fellow, and he pressed the point. Now this is interesting that he would do so, because you would think, Whoa, the Buddha! Somebody’s going to contradict the Buddha? Meghiya’s is probably twenty years old, and the Buddha is an older man.

So it’s actually wonderful and gives you an idea about the Buddha’s sangha, and throughout the sutras you see that, that people don’t always pay attention to the Buddha; they don’t always agree with him. They’re always respectful, they’re always polite, but sometimes they don’t go along with the Buddha’s suggestions—because the Buddha is always making suggestions. He’s never laying down laws. He assumes that he and the person in question have the same interests at heart, which is awakening, and that that’s the person’s commitment. The suggestions he’s making are for the purpose of awakening.

So Meghiya says to him, “Well, you see it’s not fair, because you, Buddha, have nothing more to be done in the way of meditation. You have already, through your meditation practice, achieved awakening. But that’s not true for me. I have a lot of work to do in meditation, and I shouldn’t be wasting time. So I can see where you might think that meditation wouldn’t be necessary now, but I have a sense of urgency about that, so I’m asking you again, please, if you would give me permission I will go to the mango grove to strive for concentration.”

So the Buddha says, Well, Meghiya, wait a little bit. I am alone until some other monk arrives. But Meghiya asks a third time, and the third time the Buddha says, Well, Meghiya, what can I say? How am I going to forbid you to meditate? After all, here I am, trying to get everybody to meditate night and day, and you want to meditate, so how can I deny you this? Do what you think it is time for, Meghiya. It’s up to you. In the end, it’s really up to you. Whatever you think. I mean, I tried to tell you what I thought, but OK.

So the venerable Meghiya rose from his seat, saluted the Exalted One with his right side and went away to that mango grove.

And on reaching it he plunged into it, and sat down for the midday rest at the foot of a certain tree. [And he started to meditate. And he was very excited about this meditation.]

Now, as the venerable Meghiya was staying in that mango grove (sitting there meditating) there came habitually upon him three evil, unprofitable forms of thought (in other words, distractions from the meditation that made it impossible for him to sit there meditating).

The word “evil” is unfortunate here. It doesn’t mean he was thinking of murdering somebody! Maybe he had such thoughts, but the point is his mind was distracted with thoughts “lustful, malicious, and harmful,” so that he was unable to meditate. He was really sitting there in a state of shock that such thoughts were running through his mind, and he was unable to pay attention.

Then what a wonderful reaction he has to this! The rest of us would probably be full of self-loathing and full of disappointment, anger, frustration. But Meghiya is so wonderful. He says, Isn’t this strange! This is a wonderful thing! It’s an amazing thing, that here I am, a monk who gave up everything and took these vows, and I’m totally committed to the homeless life, and then finally I get to this beautiful mango grove to meditate, and the only thoughts I have are lustful, malicious, harmful thoughts!

The Buddha taught, not a preordained curriculum, but teachings that would always be in response to the condition of a person’s heart and circumstances. So that’s what happens here. The Buddha is about to launch into a teaching that is good for all of us and particularly good for Meghiya. So he begins by saying,

Meghiya, when the heart’s release is immature, five things conduce to its maturity.

Now, “the heart’s release” means nirvana. It’s a wonderful translation for nirvana. I don’t know what words are used in the original text in Pali, whether it just says nibbana or whether it literally says “the heart’s release,” but there’s no doubt that this is a synonym for nirvana. It’s a wonderful thing to contemplate. It’s a good way to think about the goal “the heart’s release” – that the heart would be open and free of all that constricts it and makes our feeling twisted and small. The heart being open, the heart being free. The heart being released of constriction – that is the goal of the path. That’s the point of meditation practice.

So he’s saying to Meghiya that when you have not yet been able to effect the heart’s release, when even the path toward the release of the heart is as yet quite immature, there are five things that will conduce to its maturity.

What are the five things? First, a monk has a lovely intimacy, a lovely friendship, a lovely comradeship.

Isn’t that wonderful? The first thing for the path towards the heart’s release, the first thing, is a lovely friendship, a lovely intimacy, a spiritual companionship.

When the heart’s release is immature, this is the first thing that conduces to its maturity.

That’s why the Buddha said, stay awhile, don’t go yet. Because first thing is our relationship and our friendship and our mutual trust. Based on that relationship, based on that trust, you meditate, but that trust needs to be there.

Then again, Meghiya, a monk is virtuous,a monk abides restrained with the restraint of the obligations (meaning the precepts), a monk is perfect in the practice of right behavior, sees danger in trifling faults, undertakes and trains himself in the ways of training. When the heart’s release is immature, Meghiya, this is the second thing that conduces to its maturity.

That means ethical conduct, following precepts, not causing harm is the second thing for the heart’s release. The third thing:

As regards talk that is serious and suitable for opening up the heart and conduces to downright revulsion, to dispassion, to ending, to calm, to comprehension, to perfect insight, to nibbana, that is to say…

Now this language is a little objectionable and take us off the point. “…to downright revulsion, to dispassion”—I wouldn’t translate it like that. I would say “talk that causes us to let go of our attachment, let go of our aversion, so that our passions don’t get the best of us.” It doesn’t mean that we should be bloodless, boring people! It means that we should just not be so stuck on our needs and desires. The way you talk will condition that, so pay attention to the way you talk:

Talk about wanting little, about contentment, about solitude, about avoiding society, about putting forth energy (for practice), talk about virtue, concentration of mind and wisdom, talk about release, knowledge and insight of release. Such talk as this a monk gets at pleasure, without pain and without stint. When the heart’s release is immature, Meghiya, this is the third thing that conduces to its maturity.

So the third thing is our speech practice, what comes out of our mouth, because how we speak conditions how we think, conditions how we act, conditions how our life goes. So speak with kindness, speak of things that are tending you in the direction of your spiritual cultivation. Don’t speak of things that are tending you in the direction of letting go of that cultivation. That’s very important. That’s the third thing.

Fourth, a monk abides resolute in energy for the abandoning of unprofitable things, for the acquiring of profitable things. He is stout and strong in effort, not laying aside the burden in things profitable. When the heart’s release is immature, Meghiya, this is the fourth thing that conduces to its maturity.

So that’s the fourth thing, is to put forth energy, strong energy for practice, taking up what’s worthwhile, letting go of what’s not.

Finally, the last of the five things, is insight “that goes on to discern the rise and fall.” In other words, a deep appreciation of impermanence.

. . . with the Aryan (that means noble) penetration which goes on to penetrate the perfect ending of ill. When the heart’s release is immature, Meghiya, this is the fifth thing, and these are the five things that conduce to its maturity. So first is a lovely relationship; second is cleaning up your conduct so that it doesn’t create distractions and confusions in the mind; third, your speech is careful and in accord with your commitment to practice; fourth, you make strong effort to practice; and fifth, you have insight into the nature of impermanence. These five things you need to mature your path toward the heart’s release.

Sutras_from_the_Old_Way.pdf

This is the fifth talk on the Pali Canon sutras. The text referred to in the talk is the photocopied booklet “Sutras from the Old Way – Selections from the Pali Canon,” which can be downloaded as a PDF.

Sutras from the Old Way 5

Zoketsu Norman Fischer

Transcribed and edited by Murray McGillivray and Barbara Byrum

“The Sutra on the Simile of the Saw.”

Thus have I heard. On one occasion the Blessed One was living at Savatthi in Jeta’s Grove, Anathapindika’s Park. Now on that occasion, the venerable Moliya Phagguna was associating overmuch with bhikkhunis.

Moliya Phagguna was a monk and a bhikkhuni was a nun. As you’ll see in a moment, this does not mean that he was flirting with them or doing anything that was not proper. His relationship to them was not quite right, but not in the way that one might think.

He was associating so much with bhikkhunis that if any bhikkhu (which is a male monastic) spoke dispraise of those bhikkhunis in his presence, he would become angry and displeased and would rebuke him, and if any bhikkhu spoke dispraise of the venerable Moliya Phagguna in those bhikkhunis’ presence, they would become angry and displeased and would rebuke him.

So this is the idea, that he had a very special relationship with a particular community of bhikkhunis.

Then a certain bhikkhu went to the Blessed One (meaning the Buddha), and after paying homage to him, he sat down at one side and told the Blessed One what was taking place (how Moliya Phagguna was overmuch associating with the bhikkhunis).

Although there are moments in the Pali sutras in which the Buddha displays various sorts of powers, most of the time the Buddha is viewed as a human being, who finds out what other people are doing because someone comes and tells him. So what does he do about it? This is very instructive about how the Buddha would operate. We’re all in this together, we’re all trying to help each other achieve freedom from our own delusions and confusions, and so I notice that this is a place where Moliya Phagguna needs some work. Maybe the Buddha has a good idea how to help him:

Come, bhikkhu, tell the bhikkhu Moliya Phagguna, in my name, that the Teacher calls him. “Yes, venerable sir,” he replied, and he went to the venerable Moliya Phagguna and he told him, “The teacher calls you, friend Phagguna.”.

“Yes, friend,” he replied. And he went to the Blessed One and after paying homage to him, sat down at one side. And then the Buddha asked him, “Phagguna, is it true that you are associating overmuch with the bhikkhunis?”

When someone tells me something, I often catch myself and have to remind myself, “Oh, they’re telling me what they think, not necessarily facts.” Even though they may believe that it’s a fact, we all are only seeing as far as we can see. So, especially, if somebody tells you what somebody else is doing, you always have to remember, Oh, that’s just what they think. So he asks,

Is it true that you are associating so much with the bhikkhunis that if any bhikkhu speaks dispraise of those bhikkhunis in your presence, you become angry and displeased and rebuke him? And if any bhikkhu speaks dispraise of you in those bhikkhunis’ presence, they become angry and displeased and rebuke him? Are you associating so much with bhikkhunis as it seems?

Phagguna, are you not a clansman who has gone forth out of faith from the home life into homelessness? (In other words, haven’t you made this big commitment?)

Here “the home life” really means not so much the home life per se, but attachment, non-spiritual endeavor. The reverse of the home life, “the homeless life,” means freedom in the path. And of course, Phagguna says, Yes, I have, that’s true, that’s right. And then the Buddha says,

Then, Phagguna, it is not proper for you, who has made this tremendous commitment, to associate overmuch with bhikkhunis. Therefore, if anyone speaks dispraise of those bhikkhunis in your presence, you should abandon any desires and any thoughts based on the household life. (In other words, any thoughts of attachment and non-freedom.)

According to the Buddha, That’s attachment, Moliya Phagguna! You really have to pay attention to that, and instead of that, you should train in the following way:

“My mind will be unaffected, and I shall utter no evil words. I shall abide compassionately for his welfare, with a mind of loving-kindness, without inner hate.”

In other words, the Buddha is saying, Do you see what’s happening here, Phagguna? When someone is complaining about those nuns, your attachment to the nuns is so strong that you have, because of that attachment, aversion to the person who’s speaking, and you’re complaining and rebuking that person. You should know that that action comes from your attachment. That’s really not in line with your goal as a home-leaver, so notice that that’s what’s happening and replace that thought, somehow, with a thought of compassion and loving-kindness for the person who’s making that comment, and commit yourself to not speaking rebuke against that person.

You may ask, How would you train your mind in that way? That is one of the most important things, really, about the Buddha’s path – the possibility that thought, attitude, and feeling can be shaped according to cultivation and intention. If that’s not true, then what’s the point? We all think of our thought as automatically arising: This is how I think! I can’t help it! But actually, over time, we can help it. We can think differently as a result of our cultivation and practice.

So he’s asking Phagguna to note that this kind of response, that he has habitually had, is a problem. Now whenever it comes up, note it as attachment, and then mindfully memorize this phrase and repeat it to yourself. When you note that kind of attachment, try to be calm and breathe and notice, and then try to cultivate this affirmative attitude of kindness, compassion, and non-blame.

Even if they would hit the bhikkhuni a blow with their hand, if somebody should do that, or with a clod, with a stick, or even with a knife in your presence, you should abandon any thought based on attachment and the household life and train your mind in the same way. If anyone speaks dispraise in your presence, you should abandon any desires or thoughts based on the household life and train the mind in the same way. If anyone should give you a blow with his hand, a clod, a stick, or a knife, you should abandon any desires and any thoughts based on the household life and train your mind in the same way.

And it’s repeated every time, the same formula:

My mind will be unaffected, and I shall utter no evil words. I shall abide compassionate for his welfare, with a mind of loving-kindness, without inner hate.

In other words, even if all these things happen – which would give rise to your attachment and complaining – let go and practice kindness.

Then the Blessed One addressed all the assembled bhikkhus: Bhikkhus, there was an occasion when the bhikkhus satisfied my mind (in other words when they really made me happy, when I really felt that they were doing the right thing). When was that? That was when I addressed the bhikkhus in this way. I said to them, “Bhikkhus, I eat at a single session. (I only eat one meal a day.) By doing so, I am free from illness and affliction, and I enjoy health, strength, and a comfortable abiding. Why don’t you do that, too? If you do that, you too will be free from illness, affliction, and you will enjoy health, strength, and a comfortable abiding.”

Suppose there were a chariot on even ground at the crossroads, harnessed to thoroughbred horses, waiting with the goad lying ready, so that a skilled trainer, a charioteer of horses to be tamed might mount it, and taking the reins in his left hand and the goad in his right hand might drive out and back by any road whenever he likes.

So too I had no need to keep on instructing those bhikkhus. I had only to arise mindfulness in them.

Therefore, bhikkhus, abandon what is unwholesome and devote yourself to wholesome states, for that is how you will come to growth, increase, and fulfillment in this dhamma and discipline.

The issue here is abandoning what is unwholesome and increasing what is wholesome. But very specifically, the Buddha is talking about getting angry at people who are giving you a hard time. When you find yourself angry at somebody who’s giving you a hard time, you need to notice that that really is because of attachment, and then you cultivate equanimity and loving-kindness.

It’s no trick to be a nice guy when everybody’s nice to you. It’s easy to be nice when everybody’s nice to you. That’s no big deal. But what about when people are rotten to you? How do you behave then? That’s the question. If you depend on these very nice conditions to be kind and nice, then I’m not so sure how kind and nice you actually are.

I do not call a bhikkhu easy to admonish who is easy to admonish and makes himself easy to admonish only for the sake of getting robes, alms food, a resting place, and medicine. Why is that? Because a bhikkhu is not easy to admonish nor makes himself easy to admonish when he gets no robes, alms food, resting place, and medicine. When a bhikkhu is easy to admonish and makes himself easy to admonish because he honors, respects, and reveres the dharma, him I call really easy to admonish.

Our minds will remain unaffected and we shall utter no evil words. We shall abide compassionate for their welfare, with a mind of loving-kindness, without inner hate. We shall abide pervading that person with a mind imbued with loving-kindness, and starting with him we shall abide pervading the all-encompassing world with a mind imbued with loving-kindness, abundant, exalted, immeasurable, without hostility and without ill will. Thus you should train, bhikkhus.

Now you may be wondering at this point: this sutra is called “The Simile of the Saw” Where’s the saw? The saw comes at the very end.

Bhikkhus, even if bandits were to sever you savagely limb by limb with a two-handled saw, he who gave rise to a mind of hate toward them would not be carrying out my teaching. Herein, bhikkhus, you should train your mind thus: (and then he repeats yet again) our minds will remain unaffected, we shall utter no evil words, we shall abide compassionate (and so on and so forth). Bhikkhus, if you keep this advice on the simile of the saw constantly in mind, do you see any course of speech, trivial or gross, that you could not endure?

If you’re a schoolteacher, they call it the “teachable moment”—something happens and this is the perfect moment—so in this case the teachable moment is Moliya Phagguna’s relationship with these nuns. It specifically has to do with how you practice when people are speaking to you in ways that you don’t like, and how you should cultivate a mind that is so deep and wide that when you’re spoken to in a harsh way or an untimely way, or a nasty way, or with hatred, you are actually able to come back with kindness.

If you keep this advice on the simile of the saw constantly in mind, do you see any course of speech, trivial or gross that you could not endure? “No, venerable sir!” Therefore, bhikkhus you should keep this advice on the simile of the saw constantly in mind. That will lead to your welfare and happiness for a long time.” That is what the Blessed One said. The bhikkhus were satisfied and delighted in the Blessed One’s words.

It may strike you that this teaching is very challenging, and you may even doubt whether it’s a good idea to even undertake such a thing. I think the indication is that we should go in that direction. We should, as much as possible, as much as we can, cultivate loving-kindness. I think that having perfect loving-kindness is maybe not possible. That shouldn’t be a problem. It’s not a question of being perfect at this. The bigger problem is whether this is a good idea to do at all.

Some of us might not agree with that. In other words, no matter what anybody says or does, right or wrong starts yelling and screaming at me. Am I right to be angry and defend myself? The Buddha seems to be saying that the practice is to have an attitude in all cases, regardless of what anybody is doing or saying, of acceptance, loving-kindness, non-blaming, non-defensiveness, and so on. You might say, Isn’t this enormously passive? You’d let people walk all over you! My idea would be, not necessarily. This teaching is not talking about the specificity of various kinds of actions. What it’s talking about is attitude. So it is possible, I think, to have an attitude of non-blaming and caring, and yet prevent somebody from doing something that is somehow bad or wrong or unjust. This is really talking about our inner feeling and the attitude and the feeling that we have to cultivate toward anyone who is in this case very specifically speaking to us in any way.

Sutras_from_the_Old_Way.pdf

This is the sixth talk on the Pali Canon sutras. The text referred to in the talk is the photocopied booklet “Sutras from the Old Way – Selections from the Pali Canon,” which can be downloaded as a PDF.

 

Sutras from the Old Way 6: Angulimala
Zoketsu Norman Fischer
Transcribed and edited by Murray McGillivray and Barbara Byrum

We’re going to read the Angulimala Sutta. This is a really interesting text about karma, because here’s a murderer, who is obviously accruing huge amounts of very, very bad karma, and, then, by virtue of the power of the Buddha’s presence, manages to see what he’s done, repents, changes his life, and even becomes an arhat. And as the story shows, he still has to endure the karmic effects of his deeds, even though he’s enlightened and an arhat. So let’s see how the story goes:

Thus have I heard: on one occasion, the Blessed One was living at Savatthi, in Jeta’s Grove, Anathapindika’s Park. Now on that occasion there was a bandit in the realm of King Pasenadi of Kosala bandit named Angulimala . He was was murderous, bloody-handed, given to blows and violence, merciless to living beings. He was constantly murdering people, and he wore their fingers as a garland.So he actually wore a necklace around his neck – if you can imagine this – which had on it the fingers of all the people that he had killed

One day when it was morning, the Blessed One [the Buddha] dressed, and taking his bowl and outer robe, set out on the road leading toward Angulimala.

So lest you thought that the Buddha was passive and was not one who would confront aggression head on, here he’s being not only proactive, but we might say proactive in a foolhardy way. He’s going all by himself to confront this serial killer. And the way he goes about it is quite astonishing. He takes care of business and just goes through the day nicely, peacefully, and then he sets out on the road leading toward Angulimala.

Cowherds, shepherds, and plowmen passing by saw the Buddha walking along the road leading toward Angulimala, and they said to him, “Do not take this road, recluse, on this road is the bandit Angulimala, who is murderous, bloody-handed, given to blows and violence, merciless to living beings. Villages, towns, and districts have been laid waste by him. He murders people, and he wears their fingers as a garland. Men have come along this road in groups of ten, twenty, thirty, and even forty, but still they have fallen into Angulimala’s hands.” When this was said, the Buddha simply continued on in silence.

There’s something in this phrase, “he continued on in silence,” that gives you the feeling that he’s not going along here with a vigilante spirit, or being stubborn. He’s just going along peacefully, as if he were going walking anywhere. And you’ll see the power in a moment of the Buddha’s peaceful walking.

So he finally approaches the bandit Angulimala who sees him coming in the distance, and when he sees him coming he says, “It is wonderful, it is marvelous —how amazing! Here comes this single person confronting me, apparently without any big weapons, not riding a horse, but just walking peacefully along. People have been coming to get me in groups of ten, twenty, thirty, and even forty but they have all fallen into my hands, and now here comes this recluse, this monk, unaccompanied, as if driven by fate.

The bandit Angulimala set out after the Buddha, who is going along at his Buddha pace, quite slowly. The text here tells us that the Buddha is going to perform a feat of supernatural power. The bandit Angulimala is walking as fast as he could behind the slowly walking Buddha. He was walking at his normal pace, but one thing about the Buddha is that the Buddha always walked at his normal pace. In other words, the Buddha was not a person who would hurry or rush.

So he was doing that, and here’s the bandit Angulimala, who we can presume is in pretty good shape and strong and big, is running as fast as he can behind the Buddha, who’s walking quite slowly. But he’s not catching up! This is the amazing thing! He’s not catching up to the Buddha! He remains too far away to lay a hand on him. So he thinks to himself, This is amazing! Every time before this I could catch up even with a swift elephant and grab it, even a horse I could outrun and seize it! He finally yells out. “Stop, recluse, stop!” And the Buddha says to him, “I have stopped already, Angulimala. Now you must stop.”

Then the bandit Angulimala thought: “These recluses, sons of the Sakyans, speak truth, assert truth, but though this recluse is still walking he says, ‘I have stopped.'”

So here the Buddha is walking along at his normal pace, and he’s saying, “I have stopped.” So now there are two marvellous things: How come I can’t catch up to him when I’m going at full speed and he’s walking slowly? And how come he’s saying that he’s stopped when he clearly has not stopped but is still walking? What does he mean by this? I’m going to ask him.

While you are walking, recluse, you tell me you have stopped;But now, when I have stopped, you say I have not stopped.I ask you now, O recluse, about the meaning:How is it that you have stopped and I have not?

The Buddha say, Angulimala, I have stopped forever;I abstain from violence towards living beings;But you have no restraint towards things that live.That is why I have stopped and you have not.

Now, this is a little bit deeper statement than it seems. The Buddha is not only saying here, I believe, that he doesn’t kill people. He’s saying that on a deep, deep level he has stopped the arising of even those subtle impulses in the human heart, that when not checked and dealt with, eventually will lead to real violence. So not only does he not kill people, but he has totally stopped the arising of any impulses toward aggression, selfishness.

Angulimala says,

Oh, at long last this recluse, a venerated sage,

Has come to this great forest for my sake.

Having heard your stanza teaching me the Dhamma,

I will indeed renounce evil forever.

So, that was pretty easy! It should be so easy for the rest of us! We can only imagine in our mind’s eye or in our heart’s eye encountering a person who would have such a powerfully good heart that just being in their presence would inspire us to change our lives. Such a thing may be possible, that you would encounter a person that suddenly sees your life, and on that occasion, you would be sincerely willing to change your life completely. Well, this is what happens to Angulimala in hearing this teaching from the Buddha, and, of course, it’s not only the Buddha’s words, but it’s also this miraculous act that Angulimala could not catch up with the Buddha that turns his heart around utterly and completely. He says, I now understand. The spell has been broken under which I’ve been living all this time in my delusion and confusion, and I now see that I also must make the effort to stop as you have done.

So saying, he took his sword and weapons

And flung them in a gaping chasm’s pit.

The bandit worshipped the Sublime One’s feet,

(in other words, he prostrated himself)

And then and there he said “I want to be ordained, I want to be a monastic, right here and now.”

Again, this is not unusual. In the sutras it happens many times exactly like this. And the ordination ceremony is in the next stanza:

The Enlightened One, the Sage of Great Compassion,

The Teacher of the world with [all] its gods,

Addressed him with these words, “Come, bhikkhu.”

So now here you can imagine: the Buddha walks back home with this new bhikkhu, and somebody is going to recognize him as a serial killer. The Buddha seems to have full confidence that Angulimala has literally become a different person. Because this is the idea: when you become a bhikkhu, when you take monastic vows, you actually become a different person. The Buddha is convinced that Angulimala is not the Angulimala that he was a moment before.

The people of the town apparently didn’t recognize him, at least not at first. But eventually the word got out and great crowds of people were gathering at the gates of King Pasenadi’s inner palace, crying out, “Sire, the bandit Angulimala is in your realm; he is murderous, bloody-handed.”

Now, I don’t think they realize at this point what has happened to Angulimala. They just know he’s in the realm and terrorizing everybody and they want him out. So the king sends the cavalry out, five hundred men, looking for Angulimala. And he went as far as he could on the carriage, and then dismounted from the carriage and went forward on foot to the Blessed One, to the Buddha. After paying homage to the Buddha, he sat down at one side, and the Buddha said to him,

What is it? Is King Seniya Bimbisara of Magadha attacking you, or the Licchavis of Vesali, or other hostile kings?

In other words, what are you doing here, with a five hundred person cavalry? Is there a war going on that I don’t know about? “No,” he says, “there is no such thing like that, but there is a bandit in my realm, named Angulimala, who is murderous, murdering people all the time, and having this absolutely hideous finger garland. What am I going to do? This is going to be a hard job for me.”

the idea here is quite astonishing, Before he goes out looking for Angulimala, the first thing he does is go to the Buddha and say, “What do you think? What’s your counsel on the matter here? Do you have any thoughts on how I’m going to catch this murderer?” Anyway, he says to the king,

Great king, suppose you were to see that Angulimala had shaved off his hair and beard, put on the yellow robe, and gone forth from the home life into homelessness; that he was abstaining from killing living beings, from taking what is not given and from false speech; that he was refraining from eating at night, ate only in one part of the day, and was celibate, virtuous, of good character. If you were to see him thus, how would you treat him?

When you think about this, this is amazing, because as you see the king says, “I would pay homage to him. We would respect him as we respect all monastics.” So much faith! There are different groups of monastics, travelling around, But it would appear as if they conducted themselves with so much integrity and peacefulness that they had gained the respect of everyone. But to the king, such a thing would be absolutely unthinkable. Nobody would ever think, so much respect would this tradition be held in, even a serial killer would never think of putting on this robe with false pretences. If somebody put on the robe and followed the way of life, they would be doing so sincerely. So if Angulimala were to appear as a monastic, I would have to respect that, there would be no other choice but to respect him and honor him. But, he says, such a thing would never happen, because Angulimala is a terrible murderer and he’s an evil person, and how could he ever possibly have any virtue and restraint?

Now as this conversation is going on, Angulimala is sitting there nearby. The king doesn’t recognize him. And so the Buddha says, This monk right here, sitting over here, is the ax-murderer, the serial killer that you’ve been looking for. You’re worried about how you’re going to capture him with five hundred men, well I’m telling you he’s sitting right here peacefully, two people away from you. Don’t worry. You have nothing to fear from this man. And the king calms down and he goes over to Angulimala, looks him up and down and says, Are you really—is this noble monk really Angulimala?“And he says, Yes, great king. And the king says, This is truly amazing. You, oh Buddha, have tamed the untamable. You have brought peace to the unpeaceful, and led to nirvana those who seemingly could never attain it.

Venerable sir, we ourselves with our armies and so forth, could never tame this person, and yet the Blessed One has tamed him without force or weapons.

The next day, Angulimala goes out for alms, and he sees a woman giving birth to a deformed child. When he sees this, his heart is touched, This is a tragedy I’m seeing in front of me, but how much sentient beings have such things happening to them! He goes back to the Buddha and he tells him. Now the Buddha says something very strange to him. He says, Since your heart has been touched by this woman, you should try to help her. You should try to take away this pain. And here’s how you can do it. Go back to that woman and say to her,

Sister, since I was born I do not recall that I have ever intentionally deprived a living being of life. By this truth, may you be well and may your infant be well.

Now one thing you have to understand about this is that there was an ancient tradition in India, not only Buddhist but throughout Indian culture, that there was the power of truth-telling. That is, somebody would stand up and say something that was significant and really true, usually something that had to do with spiritual attainment. The idea is if you swore this truth, you could use the power of that truth to effect change, to make things happen

So the Buddha’s suggesting that Angulimala do this in relation to this woman, that he go back to her and say to her, I now swear that I have never, since I was born, intentionally hurt a living being and by the power of the truth of that statement, may your child be whole. You can imagine how Angulimala would have felt when he heard the Buddha say that. I think that he was saying this for a reason. Angulimala had already truly repented and turned his life round and had become a monk. But there was still something in Angulimala’s heart that needed cleansing. The Buddha realized that since his heart was opened by seeing this woman, this was good, andhe said to Angulimala,

Then, Angulimala, go into Savatthi and say to that woman, “Sister, since I was born with the noble birth, I do not recall that I have ever intentionally deprived a living being of life. By this truth, may you be well and may your infant be well.

In other words, Since I have been reborn in the dharma, and have become another person in the dharma—since that time, I have never intentionally taken another life. And I think Angulimala upon hearing this, something in him releases, and he really does grieve over his past actions, really lets them go, and really recognizes that he has truly been reborn into a new life. So he goes and tells that to the woman. It actually works, and the woman and the infant become whole again.

Angulimal has learned something and let something go, and also for the first time, maybe ever in his life, has been able to effect goodness instead of harm. Immediately after that, what happens? He is released with direct knowledge.

Here and now he entered upon and abided in that supreme goal of the holy life for the sake of which clansmen rightly go forth from the home life into homelessness. He directly knew: birth is destroyed, the holy life has been lived, what had to be done has been done, there is no more coming into any state of being. And the venerable Angulimala became one of the arhats.

So that’s interesting. Encountering the woman and this emotional moment is what he needed to become an arhat. What happens immediately after he becomes an arhat? He’s now released and enlightened. Everything goes well from now on, right? No. Just the opposite. Instead of everything coming up roses, somebody throws a clod of earth at him, somebody throws a stick at him, someone throws a potsherd at him. He comes back to the Buddha in this condition and the Buddha sees him coming in the distance and says to him,

Bear it! Bear it! You are experiencing here and now the results of deeds because of which you might have been tortured in hell for many years, for many hundreds of years, for many thousands of years.

But you’re experiencing it now in a less virulent form—this is nothing, he’s saying, compared to what you deserve. But because of your good deeds and your heart-opening experiences and awakening, this is all you have to bear. Don’t complain about it. Be grateful for this suffering. In other words, his enlightenment does not wipe out his karma. He has to still suffer for it. But because of his practice, the suffering in bearable.

Sutras_from_the_Old_Way.pdf