ANGULIMALA-BUDDHIST PRISON CHAPLAINCY
Mar 10, 2005 22:03:09 GMT 1
Post by Shi Da Dao on Mar 10, 2005 22:03:09 GMT 1
www.angulimala.org.uk/
AN INTRODUCTION TO ANGULIMALA
by Venerable Khemadhammo Mahathera OBE
The Buddhist scriptures relate that one day, after his meal, the Buddha went out from the monastery where he was staying and walked towards a great forest, seeing him going in that direction various people working in their fields called out to warn him that in that forest dwelt the dreaded Angulimala. Little is known for certain about Angulimala but the usual account of his life has him the son of a well-to-do family and at one time a brilliant student at the university of Taxila, then the Oxbridge of India. At Taxila, other students were jealous of him and succeeded in poisoning their teacher’s mind against him with the result that the teacher asked of him what he must have believed would be an impossible honorarium, a thousand, right hand, human, little fingers. Unbelievably, instead of giving up and slinking off home without graduating, this young man set out to collect those fingers and pay the fee. Presumably, he quickly discovered that people were reluctant to willingly give up their little fingers and so he was forced to resort to violence and killing in order to obtain them. Then he found he had nowhere to store these fingers. He tried hanging them on a tree but the birds stole them so his solution was to string them about his neck. For this gruesome and growing garland of bloody fingers he was nicknamed Angulimala, meaning ‘finger garland’. This was the man then who peering out from his lair spotted the Buddha coming towards him and who that day had about his neck nine hundred and ninety-nine human, right hand, little fingers. This powerful and athletic serial killer who had already successfully resisted several attempts to apprehend him grabbed his weapons and dashed out to murder the Buddha and complete his score. He expected quickly to overtake his prey and finish the job but a very strange thing happened for even though the Buddha was only walking, serene and unhurried, Angulimala, despite his formidable strength and speed found he couldn’t catch up with him. Eventually, exhausted, angry, frustrated and dripping with sweat, Angulimala screamed at the Buddha to stop. Then the Buddha turned and speaking quietly and directly told Angulimala that he, the Buddha, had already stopped. He had stopped killing and harming and now it was time for him, Angulimala, to do likewise. Angulimala was so struck by these words that there and then he stopped, he threw away his weapons and followed the Buddha back to the monastery where he became a monk. Later, the King, ignorant of what had happened, came by leading his troops out to arrest Angulimala. Being a very pious monarch, he called in to pay his respects to the Buddha and to inform him of what he was up to. The Buddha asked the King what his reaction would be were he to discover that amongst this assembly of monks sat Angulimala. To the King it was utterly unbelievable that such a foul and evil person could now be a Buddhist monk and seated amongst such exalted company but were it the case, he answered, he would certainly pay his respects and make offerings. Then the Buddha stretched forth his right hand and pointing announced that there sat Angulimala. When he’d mastered his fear and recovered from the shock, the King having paid his respects said to the Buddha how incredible it was that, “What we have tried to do by force and with weapons you have done with neither force nor weapons!” In the course of time, after a period of some trial to himself, Angulimala did eventually succeed in purging his mind of all greed, hatred and delusion and realised the Buddhist goal of Enlightenment.
In pursuit of that same ideal, in 1971 I abandoned my promising career as an actor and went out to Thailand to further a consuming interest in Buddhism and deepen my practice of meditation. I was then twenty-seven years old. I had the good fortune to be accepted by the Venerable Ajahn Chah, one of the greatest of the Thai Buddhist masters and I spent my years in Thailand in the northeast, close to the Lao and Cambodian borders, at forest hermitages and monasteries under Ajahn Chah’s guidance. In 1977, Ajahn Chah was invited to London and being English it was natural that I should accompany him. It was supposed to be a stay of just two months to explore possibilities but within a week or two Ajahn Chah had decided that while he would have to return to Thailand as planned, I would be staying on. This was at the old Hampstead Buddhist Vihara on Haverstock Hill and this was the address that the Prison Service then had as its Buddhist contact. It wasn’t long before letters came from Pentonville and Parkhurst prisons asking for someone to go to those prisons as the Buddhist ‘Visiting Minister’ and coincidentally the chaplain at Holloway women’s prison also rang up for someone to visit a newly arrived Buddhist prisoner there. Later, on the weekend when the Queen was celebrating her Silver Jubilee, Ajahn Chah and I were seated together on a train and I asked him what he thought about my responding to those requests. He answered with one word, “Go!” And I’ve been going to prisons ever since.
Inevitably, the people I began to see at the first prisons I visited were moved on to other establishments and I dutifully followed. Rapidly I began to collect appointments as the Visiting Buddhist Minister to an increasing number of gaols and more and more of my time came to be spent sitting or standing on trains and walking and hitching from prison to prison. From 1979, I was based on the Isle of Wight but in 1984, I accepted an invitation to move up to Warwickshire. That move enabled me to team up with Yann Lovelock living in Birmingham who by this time I had drawn into the prison work and we were able to push forward the idea of providing a properly organised Buddhist prison chaplaincy with the aim of making Buddhism available in the prisons.
AN INTRODUCTION TO ANGULIMALA
by Venerable Khemadhammo Mahathera OBE
The Buddhist scriptures relate that one day, after his meal, the Buddha went out from the monastery where he was staying and walked towards a great forest, seeing him going in that direction various people working in their fields called out to warn him that in that forest dwelt the dreaded Angulimala. Little is known for certain about Angulimala but the usual account of his life has him the son of a well-to-do family and at one time a brilliant student at the university of Taxila, then the Oxbridge of India. At Taxila, other students were jealous of him and succeeded in poisoning their teacher’s mind against him with the result that the teacher asked of him what he must have believed would be an impossible honorarium, a thousand, right hand, human, little fingers. Unbelievably, instead of giving up and slinking off home without graduating, this young man set out to collect those fingers and pay the fee. Presumably, he quickly discovered that people were reluctant to willingly give up their little fingers and so he was forced to resort to violence and killing in order to obtain them. Then he found he had nowhere to store these fingers. He tried hanging them on a tree but the birds stole them so his solution was to string them about his neck. For this gruesome and growing garland of bloody fingers he was nicknamed Angulimala, meaning ‘finger garland’. This was the man then who peering out from his lair spotted the Buddha coming towards him and who that day had about his neck nine hundred and ninety-nine human, right hand, little fingers. This powerful and athletic serial killer who had already successfully resisted several attempts to apprehend him grabbed his weapons and dashed out to murder the Buddha and complete his score. He expected quickly to overtake his prey and finish the job but a very strange thing happened for even though the Buddha was only walking, serene and unhurried, Angulimala, despite his formidable strength and speed found he couldn’t catch up with him. Eventually, exhausted, angry, frustrated and dripping with sweat, Angulimala screamed at the Buddha to stop. Then the Buddha turned and speaking quietly and directly told Angulimala that he, the Buddha, had already stopped. He had stopped killing and harming and now it was time for him, Angulimala, to do likewise. Angulimala was so struck by these words that there and then he stopped, he threw away his weapons and followed the Buddha back to the monastery where he became a monk. Later, the King, ignorant of what had happened, came by leading his troops out to arrest Angulimala. Being a very pious monarch, he called in to pay his respects to the Buddha and to inform him of what he was up to. The Buddha asked the King what his reaction would be were he to discover that amongst this assembly of monks sat Angulimala. To the King it was utterly unbelievable that such a foul and evil person could now be a Buddhist monk and seated amongst such exalted company but were it the case, he answered, he would certainly pay his respects and make offerings. Then the Buddha stretched forth his right hand and pointing announced that there sat Angulimala. When he’d mastered his fear and recovered from the shock, the King having paid his respects said to the Buddha how incredible it was that, “What we have tried to do by force and with weapons you have done with neither force nor weapons!” In the course of time, after a period of some trial to himself, Angulimala did eventually succeed in purging his mind of all greed, hatred and delusion and realised the Buddhist goal of Enlightenment.
In pursuit of that same ideal, in 1971 I abandoned my promising career as an actor and went out to Thailand to further a consuming interest in Buddhism and deepen my practice of meditation. I was then twenty-seven years old. I had the good fortune to be accepted by the Venerable Ajahn Chah, one of the greatest of the Thai Buddhist masters and I spent my years in Thailand in the northeast, close to the Lao and Cambodian borders, at forest hermitages and monasteries under Ajahn Chah’s guidance. In 1977, Ajahn Chah was invited to London and being English it was natural that I should accompany him. It was supposed to be a stay of just two months to explore possibilities but within a week or two Ajahn Chah had decided that while he would have to return to Thailand as planned, I would be staying on. This was at the old Hampstead Buddhist Vihara on Haverstock Hill and this was the address that the Prison Service then had as its Buddhist contact. It wasn’t long before letters came from Pentonville and Parkhurst prisons asking for someone to go to those prisons as the Buddhist ‘Visiting Minister’ and coincidentally the chaplain at Holloway women’s prison also rang up for someone to visit a newly arrived Buddhist prisoner there. Later, on the weekend when the Queen was celebrating her Silver Jubilee, Ajahn Chah and I were seated together on a train and I asked him what he thought about my responding to those requests. He answered with one word, “Go!” And I’ve been going to prisons ever since.
Inevitably, the people I began to see at the first prisons I visited were moved on to other establishments and I dutifully followed. Rapidly I began to collect appointments as the Visiting Buddhist Minister to an increasing number of gaols and more and more of my time came to be spent sitting or standing on trains and walking and hitching from prison to prison. From 1979, I was based on the Isle of Wight but in 1984, I accepted an invitation to move up to Warwickshire. That move enabled me to team up with Yann Lovelock living in Birmingham who by this time I had drawn into the prison work and we were able to push forward the idea of providing a properly organised Buddhist prison chaplaincy with the aim of making Buddhism available in the prisons.