So last week I introduced an important and really profound sutta from the Buddhist canon,
The story of Angulimala.
And Anguli means finger and mala is like a necklace,
Like the prayer beads that some of you have.
So his name Angulimala,
It means a necklace of fingers.
So the story is clearly about a person who may not be functioning very well in society,
Right?
But at the heart of the story,
What I want to explore with you is the transformation of this human being from a killer,
From a serial killer,
To a healer.
That's the direction of the story.
Angulimala was so deluded that he couldn't see how much harm he was causing.
And the Buddha came into the forest looking for him and kind of held up a mirror.
He said,
You know,
Look,
Stop.
And Angulimala saw that the Buddha was accurate in that he was not showing any restraint.
Angulimala was,
You know,
Had this twisted compulsion to collect the fingers of his victims for the benefit of his twisted teacher that he was following.
And so when the Buddha said,
Look,
Stop,
He could see how well this was this was true.
He had no restraint.
And so he dropped his weapons.
And he vowed to stop.
And there is so much just there.
There's so much teaching just there.
The seeing,
You know,
The resolve.
Okay,
I'm not going to do this,
The intention.
It is truly the eightfold path spreading at his feet.
And he started to walk that path as the student of the Buddha.
So after some time as a disciple,
He was out on his morning alms round,
Which monks still do in Asian countries.
And he came across a woman who was having a difficult labor.
And he thought to himself and later said to the Buddha,
How beings are afflicted,
How beings are afflicted.
That's,
Yeah,
That's all of us,
Right.
So after hearing this,
The Buddha suggested that Angulimala go back to the woman and offer his compassion.
He said,
Tell her that you never intentionally have taken another life.
And by that truth,
May I help you bring this child into the world?
Well,
That's a lie,
Like right there,
Right?
So Angulimala,
He was a killer.
And so he said to the Buddha,
You know,
That's a deliberate lie to say that.
So the Buddha responded with,
Well,
Tell her that since your noble birth,
You have never intentionally taken the life of another living being.
Since the noble birth,
So what does that mean?
Clear seeing,
The wisdom,
The restraint.
So he does what he said,
Like what's been suggested.
And he says these words,
And he offers his compassion to the woman,
His metta,
And the baby is born,
And the mother is healthy.
And for Angulimala,
This becomes his path of transformation,
To bring compassion to the suffering of others.
Transformation is what happens for him.
You know,
And my own journey on this path has been closely linked to the power that we human beings have to change.
We can change our hearts,
We can change our actions.
Nobody is beyond redemption.
And what a relief.
Like even the most misguided,
Deluded person can awaken if they encounter the Dharma and practice with sincerity.
This has been my experience.
I was blessed that day that I went to Green Gulch Farm and heard the Dharma.
September 1997.
Instead of the Buddha saying,
You stop,
Like you stop,
It was Norman Fisher,
The teacher at Green Gulch Farm.
With a talk on craving,
A talk on desire and compulsion.
It was so powerful to see my life unfold in snapshots while he spoke about the unquenchable thirst of the human experience.
Like how did he know me?
I had just arrived.
And that set me on a path that I have been on ever since.
And I feel confident that you have a story like this too.
The details are different,
But something happened and the possibility of transformation,
Of stopping a direction that maybe wasn't serving and choosing another direction,
That became available.
This practice of seeing suffering and slowly learning to suffer less has informed my entire life.
And the Buddha didn't meet Angulimala with anger or punishment.
He met him with compassion.
He met who he was and who he could become.
And that's the invitation for us to meet all parts of ourselves.
The anger that could lead to violence,
The harsh and reactive parts of ourselves.
And we meet these parts not by condemning them,
By hating them,
By pushing them away,
But through awareness,
Seeing and through compassion,
Caring about it.
Angulimala was once the taker of life and he became the protector of life.
His words became blessings and his presence became healing.
This really shows us that our habits that once caused harm can be transformed and become our deepest medicine.
Each time that we refrain from harm,
And in our current world it's mostly harmful speech and action,
But each time we restrain ourselves and choose kindness instead of judgment,
We are reenacting Angulimala's transformation.
We too are moving on this path,
You know,
Step by step from being hostile or angry or hating to healing those afflictive habits of the mind with awareness,
With mindfulness and care.
And this is the path to become healers in the world.
So just like Angulimala,
We've encountered the Dharma and the suggestion is to practice with sincerity and every week we're here together practicing together.
You know,
At the end of the meditation,
I open my eyes and see all of these pixels,
All of these squares of your sincerity of practice.
It's so wonderful to grow in the Dharma together.
So,
I thank you.
