My Blog

Dear all,

Just wanna share some reflections on the film "Angulimala".

1. In the movie we saw Angulimala being fooled/ deluded by Mara. It
looked almost impossible that someone sane will do what he did (kill so
many innocent beings), yet in truth (as far as I understand it), what
he did is what every man on the street is capable of doing. That
includes you and I! There’re two factors in play here: Strong faith in
something and the power of thought.

Strong Faith

When we have so much faith in someone or something, whatever he
says, we’ll listen, even though sometimes we may think that it’s not
common sense.

For example, I have a lot of faith in the Ajahn Lee, who’s
practicing the Thai Forest Tradition. I trust that what he said is the
truth. I regard myself as a blind man, who doesn’t see the road in
front of me, and he’s my guidance, leading me to the direction of
light, step by step. I have to trust him and depend on him, because I
can’t see the light myself, yet. In other words, I practically leave my
life in his hand. If he is to lead me astray, he can do so easily, just
as Mara can lead Angulimala astray when he trusted him so much. On the
other hand, it’s necessary to have such strong faith in a teacher to
really follow his teaching and thus progress in one’s practice. If we
doubt the teacher and keep on questioning what he teaches, the truth of
which we are yet able to comprehend, when are we ever going to start
practicing? It’s only when we start practicing that we begin to see the
truth of what is taught.

So to have a strong faith in the teacher is necessary for one to
start practicing, and to progress in one’s practice. However, one must
be extremely careful when one chooses a teacher, because if the teacher
teaches the wrong thing (just like Mara in this movie), one can easily
be led astray.

Power of Thought

Actually to kill someone, all that is required is one thought. That
one-thought then leads to another thought, and still another thought,
which may weaken or strengten that initial thought. In the case of
things one is not used to doing, it takes many accumulation of thoughts
to do it. But once it becomes a habit, one does it almost
automatically.

What am I trying to say here, is that all of us have the potential
to commit the crime that Angulimala committed, if we don’t take care of
our thoughts carefully. So select your food for thoughts!

In fact, for this reason, I don’t see the prisoners as any different from any of us.

2. Angulimala repented when he met the Buddha, and since then never harm any living beings.

This point is especially inspiring for me. To break a habit is
extremely difficult, especially if it has been so strongly inculcated
into one’s character. Angulimala has killed 999 people before he met
the Buddha, so the habit energy of killing was pretty strong in him (I
suppose). Yet, just a word from the Buddha and he completely refrained
from killing!

Are we capable of doing that? When we know that what we’ve done is
wrong, are we able to change ourselves and turn a new leaf overnight?
Angulimala can, and he did. Can we?

Fen