This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Many of you know this story of Angolimala. Okay, then you'll get my version since most of you don't. So it's a classic story from early Buddhism. But here's how I'd like you to relate to it. Relate to it as a story about practice. Your practice. It's an interesting story. It's a little exotic. I think I heard it had been made into a movie. Have you ever heard that? Okay. Here's the story.

[01:00]

Maybe it's going to be made into a movie. So there's this person in India at the time of the Buddha, Shakyamuni Buddha, and he was practicing with a guru, and his name was Ahamsaka, the one who practices peace or nonviolence, Ahimsa, Ahamsaka. And... He was a very talented practitioner and was the star student of the guru. The guru had many students and he was the star student. In fact, he mastered the many teachings that the teacher had to offer. But somehow in the process, he stirred up the envy, the animosity of many of the other students. And as an expression of their animosity and envy, they told the teacher that Ahamsaka had been trying to seduce the teacher's wife and actually had succeeded in seducing the teacher's wife.

[02:21]

And here's how the teacher responded. The teacher said to Ahamsaka, Okay, you've qualified. You've graduated. You're Dharma transmitted. But here's what I want you to do in payment for all these teachings I've given you. I want a thousand little fingers from people's right hands. And Ahamsaka was such a dedicated practitioner. You do what your teacher tells you. But he said, okay. And he set about collecting these fingers. As a part of the story, I got to tell you, I don't quite understand. Now why he didn't just chop off the fingers, but apparently he killed every person.

[03:24]

So he killed each person and cut off the fingers. And in order to keep kind of them, he kept them on a string. In order to keep the string of little fingers available, he wore them around his neck. And apparently he got up to 990-something, and then he thought, now wouldn't it be good if the very last one was his mother, the last person he killed and the little finger he got. And as you can imagine by this time, a lot had changed in who he was, you know, that the murdering 990-odd people had obviously influenced him and affected who he was. And then he heard about Shakyamuni Buddha, so he decided, now wouldn't it be great would not be even better than killing my mother, as the one thousandth want, to kill the Buddha. So he decided that's what he would do.

[04:29]

Now in the meantime, Shakyamuni Buddha, and he terrorized this whole area of India that he lived in. So, in the meantime, Shakyamuni Buddha had heard about this person collecting the one thousand fingers. And I think... I'm not totally clear on this detail, but I think 1,000 fingers translates as Angulimala. And that's what he was now known as, you know, or I think it translates as the necklace of little fingers. Do you know? Okay. Yes? The necklace of little fingers. And so Shakyamuni Buddha decided to go to that area because everybody was so terrorized and anxious and frightened by Angolimala. And he was walking peacefully through the forest when Angolimala saw him and thought, great, now is a great time to kill Shakyamuni Buddha and get that last finger.

[05:38]

And what a great finger to have is the last one. So he started... chasing after Shakyamuni Buddha who was walking peacefully and steadily and mindfully the way you would expect a Buddha to walk. And Anangalimala kept running after him but couldn't catch up with him. And then eventually he called out to Shakyamuni Buddha and said, stop, stop. And the Buddha answered, I am stopped. It's you that needs to stop. And this set up a brief but powerful exchange between them in which Angave Mala was deeply touched by this teaching, that he was all caught up in something that he couldn't stop, and he had met someone who was completely stopped.

[06:44]

and he decided to ordain as a monk. And so he ordained as a monk, and this woman who was pregnant and was having a very difficult time giving birth, was nearby, and this was much later in this time as a monk, And the Buddha said, Dangalimala, you should go and help that lady. And he said, well, what should I say? And he said, Shakyamuni said, you should tell her that in this life, since you were born, you have never harmed a living being. And you wish for her this abiding, peaceful nonviolence. And Angalimala looked at the Buddha and he said, but how could I say that?

[07:50]

Me of all people, how could I say that? And the Buddha said, okay. In this life, since I've been born in the way, I have never harmed a living being. And so that became... And so he said it to the lady, the woman, and she gave birth. It helped ease her anxiety and she gave birth successfully. And this became his slogan, his mantra, the way he approached life and approached each person. And something in him deeply changed. But even though something in him deeply changed, there were still people who remembered him as this mass murderer, this extreme violent person. And when they would see him pass as a monk, they would get sticks and beat him and throw rocks at him.

[08:57]

And Angolimala just accepted that. So be it. This is how it is. And the way the story, the version of it that I'm familiar with, these two kind of coexisted, that he became renowned for his peacefulness, and there was still lingering animosity and active aggression towards him. Here's my question to you in the realm of practice. What detail in that story stands out for you in the realm of practice? Two wrongs don't make a right.

[10:07]

Thank you. Did he obey his guru? That he did obey his guru. Is that what you were going to say? So maybe as a personal statement that that for you was perplexing. Why would guru asks for such horrific activity? Maybe you should question the guru or view yourself as guru, like Ndidi Yoga or something. I don't know. I don't know how to look at that. I don't know. Or maybe, I don't know. Just like you are a guru or the eternal guru.

[11:11]

But I don't know. So within the context of the story... shouldn't have gone around cutting out people's hands, fees and dahimza, or was it... Why did... So within the context of the story, why was he not guided by some inner sense of propriety? Why did he simply follow such an extraordinary, violent instruction? Maybe he was out of coldness, out of not being taken seriously by his contemporaries. But somehow within... Within this story, that's the detail that comes forward for you. Yeah, why did he go and cut off people's fingers? I like Dakini's kind of with nexus of skulls, or Kali. Yeah, okay, thank you. The difference between a guru and a teacher. Okay, thank you. That he didn't retaliate. That he didn't retaliate?

[12:14]

The chasing. The chasing. Chasing after the fingers, and then also chasing after the Buddha. Okay. Thank you. That phrase, since I've been born and away, offers this new life. I was thinking of the part when the Buddha said, since I've been born, He said, since I've been bored, I haven't harmed Bibi. Yes. One gave the question back. But I have harm Bibi. Okay. Thank you. Kelly. I felt, I was confused or heart-warmed by the Buddha asking him to do that. Out of all the other students who may have been in the area, here's a task for you. It seems very... Maybe the guru asked him to do this because it was a rumor that he had had an affair with his wife.

[13:30]

I don't know. That's like a curse to him. Why would guru ask this disciple? Here's the exercise in this story. The exercise in this story is, here's this story with all these details. And then something, in the midst of all those details, something comes forward and strikes you as, well, look at that. And this is our life. We're living our life and we're having all these experiences. And then it's like we pull something forward and say, well, look at that. And what is being pulled forward is relevant, but... the selection process, you know, the one who's pulling it forward, the mindset, the disposition. It's a little bit like we select something and then there's a request to practice with it.

[14:40]

There's a request to relate to it in the context of practice. whether it meant that this person had really looked at what they'd done and had to examine it and face it, or whether being born in the way was sort of an epidemiological pre-thought. I got out of this another thing that I just remembered, is that even if you're into Ahimsa, or even if you're vegetarian, you can still be violent. or maybe you're not aware of how you're violent. And what's also interesting is when you're looking at a story, like anything, is you have paranoid ideations. It's selecting, like, you naturally, the flow of thoughts that arise, you naturally select stuff out of it. But it's interesting, even if you are vegetarian, you can still be violent, like, without being aware of it.

[15:46]

Or what is violence? Or, like, you can't see the effect of all of your actions. I mean, maybe, I don't know. You can't see the effect of all your actions. Yeah, because there's so many different mind fields or Buddha fields. Maybe that's something that came forward from you from this story. Is maybe I'm more violent than I think I am. Okay, just a second. Someone who hasn't spoken. Go ahead. It strikes me that his actions, both good and bad, are not actions that he chose in a way, like Well, he chose them, but they're all dictated to him by someone else. I think the detail of his past catching up with him and not being able to freely travel and getting attacked by people, is it because of this past? Yes. Yes.

[16:48]

Stopping. Stopping. in there's a word shamatha or Samatha in Pali and he translated in two ways maybe it's translated in many ways but most usually it's trying rated in two ways and one of them is stopping we're all the product of of causes and conditions. We all grew up in some system, you know, with all its intrigues and ways in which it inspired us and brought us here to practice, in ways in which it hurt us and we hurt others. And these are mixed together.

[17:49]

I remember when someone told me he came to City Center and he was recently ordained. And he said, well, here's what happened. I was talking to my teacher and my teacher said, you should get ordained. And he looked at the teacher and he said, I should get ordained? I'm a heroin addict. And the teacher looked at him and said, well, that's better than being a mass murderer. Yes, you should get our date. And then he started to sew. And from the moment he started to sew, he never did heroin again. And it's like... You know, how mysterious and wonderful human life, right? We can get ourselves into so much trouble. And yet, it's also possible...

[18:56]

stop no it's also possible to change course and it's not like well then all your karma all the the consequences of your previous actions magically float away no don't produce whatever they produce And in a way, that stopping and turning, you may think of it as a single act. You meet the Buddha. You meet the wise teacher who looks at you and says, you are Buddha. You are completely worthy of practice. And it shatters your notion that you're not. You have no idea of all the ways I'm screwed up, all the things I'm clinging to.

[19:59]

all the hurt I've caused. What sent you from being born in the way? Something like that. And then it's interesting, the term shamatha is usually thought of in the context, in the yoga of meeting the moment completely. There's the yoga of meeting the moment completely and letting that cause a radical recalibration. The context of how a life is related to shifts. You know, in spiritual terms, you know, to be born again. And then there's living according to.

[21:08]

And then to what degree is that an internal process? To what degree is it? There's a koan that says, Iko goes to the teacher and says, what is Buddha? And the teacher says, Iko is Buddha. To what degree is it internal affirmation, confirmation, and what degree is it the support of other, the teacher, the sangha, the dharma, whatever. So sometimes in Zen we talk about body and mind dropped away. This is Dogen's NG's famous phrase. And to my mind it's notable that modern scholarship now says, I'm not sure how they get there, but this is what they're saying, that Dogen misunderstood the phrase that the teacher was saying to the monk that was sitting beside him.

[22:30]

And in his misunderstanding, he dropped away all his hang-ups, all the things he was holding on to, all the ways in which he was wrestling and struggling with the consequences of his karmic life. You know, what is it in Zazen? Right there... When you notice a narrative, a stream of linked thoughts, ideas, images embellished with emotions, when it's noticed and it's dropped, you know, and you just return to the breath. You know, often that stream is powerful expression of our life, of what we are, of what's important, of what we don't like, of what we wish would happen, of what we dread happening, you know, and to just drop it and come back to the body and the breath.

[23:48]

Some ways I think about this story is that You know, there's something marvelous when you first sit, you know, in the first couple of times you sit, and it's such a big deal, you know, and it's a little bit exciting and scary and all sorts of things. And then you keep sitting, and it's like, yeah, yeah, sitting. I can do that. Done it. Been there. And how many thousands of times... maybe if we could wear them like a necklace around our neck, that we paused, let go, dropped off that mind stream, and returned to body breath. How can it be, how can we remind ourselves what an extraordinarily potent and powerful

[24:57]

and relevant thing it is in terms of relating to human life. And in our zazen, why is it to dispose body-mind in a way that makes it available for such an activity? And when the activity happens, what is it to let it be What is it to let it resonate? What is it to let it be a potent event rather than almost like a momentary pause until we reconnect to this world according to me, to the me according to me? What is it to enable it to be transformative? How much can someone else teach us this? And how much is this the product of the inquiry, of the resonance, of the workings of our inner being?

[26:06]

So in sotozen, sometimes we say zazen is a koan. Zazen is an inexhaustible inquiry. Every time we sit down, Okay, what's happening? How is it being related to? And what happens when it's related to in that way? And how is it to relate to it in a way that illuminates the nature of what is? So something about stopping. And then the other translation, common translation of shamatha or samatha in Pali, is calm abiding. It's like there's this process of stopping.

[27:19]

And often I call it the process of pausing. Because powerful challenge to make a radical shift. The practice of pausing, when you notice the mind caught off, to pause, to notice, acknowledge. And interestingly, the last part is not push away. The last part is not suppress. The last part is to experience completely. To notice, acknowledge, experience. And in the experiencing, there no longer is someone outside of the experience making a story about it.

[28:25]

There no longer is someone outside the experience making a story about it. Now, if you turn it into a kind of progression, there's something about doing this hundreds and thousands of times until it starts to become familiar territory. What is that kind of availability? Well, it's an experientially learned thing. And what is it to pause and connect rather than to pause and then start doing something to it. Oh, I'm meditating, I'm supposed to do something to this experience. What is it to allow the experience to be exactly what it is?

[29:32]

So, in a longitudinal sense, We do it, and we [...] do it, and all the time it keeps teaching us variations on a theme. You start to see, oh, actually there's a way in which I'm kind of suppressing my experience. Oh, there's a way in which I'm not really letting it go, I'm just sort of like holding my breath a little bit and then picking it up again. There's a way in which I'm trying to detach from the experience. I'm trying to separate from being me, being this karmic stream. And I would say something like this, that we all have a genius for ways in which we make up a variation on a theme.

[30:41]

our suppression, our denial, our controlling urges, that we all have a genius for that. We have an endless repertoire. And that's part of what we study. It's like coming to terms with who you are and the patterns of how it is for you. It's like hearing a story and noticing what part stands out for you. and thinking, okay, well, that's a place to start. Isn't it interesting that of all those details, that was the one that stood out? So this is what makes shikantaza, in a way, a sophisticated practice. But to remember that the initiation of shikantaza is very straightforward.

[31:44]

You attend to posture, you attend to breath, you attend to the state of mind, you attend to what arises in the mind, and when you notice it, experience and let go. And more fully, experience all the ways that isn't what happens. What's it like to cling? What's it like to not be able to let go of something? What's it like to make it an issue of control? I know it should happen and I'm going to make it happen. What's it like to suppress? This is about being calm. About some kind of purity. About some kind of sanctity. Well, if you think about what I'm saying, notice, connect, experience.

[33:02]

So any experiencing, if you remember what I said earlier, when there's nothing separate, making something, then the experience just sort of like takes care of itself. It's a momentary event. It's impermanent. It's like the letting go is inherent in its impermanence. Yes. And in a way we could say This is the 8.15 or 8.30. In a way we could say experiencing and letting the experience be just itself is realizing the emptiness of it.

[34:18]

It's like the narrative makes it a something. The narrative gives it a kind of solidity. It's like if you think about it in your internal process in Zazen, experience happens as a stream, like that story. It's a stream of images and ideas. And consciousness says, this is the important one. and then you know you have you know it's important because it's meaningful it's important because it resonates with some aspect of my personality or psychological makeup it's important because of the emotion it triggers at this moment and and in that importance it's reified.

[35:20]

It's turned into a solid thing. When it's experienced, it's more like a dynamic play. It's more like an energy. It's more like something that comes into being caused by causes and conditions and falls away. It's the activity of mind that continually reifies it, that gives it the quality of solidity and permanence. And emptiness, shunyata, you know, Thich Nhat Hanh translates it as interbeing, the interplay of causes and conditions. That's what the word shunyata is referring to. Now when we get that, when you're in the throes of something, and you get that, oh, there is stuff happening here, and then there's me having this kind of response to it.

[36:33]

And it's a dynamic play. It's active. And it's coming into being through those arising... causes and conditions meeting each other in this moment. It comes into being, it falls out of being. And I'd like to come at this from a poem. I'd like to read you this little quote at the end of this. It's a little article by a student of Norman's. Ruth, a sad king. She wrote a little article about a poem written by a Palestinian poet. And here's a little quote from him. In my poetry, Tahal Muhammad Ali says, there is no, he grew up in Palestine and lived in Israel with all the turmoil of the violence and as you can imagine, its own kind of Angolimala story being enacted.

[37:39]

In my poetry, There is no Palestine, there is no Israel, but in my poetry there is suffering, sadness, longing, fear, and these together make results. Palestine and Israel. In my poetry there is no Palestine or Israel, but there is suffering, sadness, longing, fear, and these together make their results. Palestine and Israel. The art is to take from life something real and then create it anew with your imagination. And I would say the practice of Zen is to meet the moment, to take from life the experience of the moment, something real, and to embrace it, to meet it with the intention of

[38:44]

and the expression of the intention of practice and create something in you. And let me read this poem. It's very interesting. The poem's called Revenge. You know, that sense of aversion. animosity that causes within us hardening, a resentment, a sense of something's being wronged and it needs to be righted. At times I wish I could meet in a duel the man who killed my father and raised our home, expelling me into a narrow country. And if he killed me, I'd rest at last.

[39:45]

And if I were ready, I would take my revenge. How easy it is to play that story and add our own details. But if it came to light when my rival appeared that he had a mother waiting for him, or a father who'd put his hand over his heart's place in his chest whenever his son was late by just a quarter hour for their meeting they'd set. Then I couldn't kill him. Then I wouldn't kill him even if I could. Likewise, I could not murder him if it were soon made clear that I had a brother or sisters who loved him and constantly longed to see him. or if he had a wife to greet him, or children who couldn't bear his absence, and whom his gifts would thrill, or if he had friends or companions, neighbors he knew, or allies from prison or a hospital room, or classmates from a school, asking him and sending him regards.

[41:01]

So the way in which There can be turning. There can be some agent of calm abiding. There can be some agent through which we're reborn. Through which the drama, the painful drama we've added to our suffering, our hurt, that helps it to persist. That helps it to be ingrained. and part of our cellular structure. There is, in this world, there are also agents that can turn it, that can send it in a different direction. There can be forgiveness. There can be understanding. There can be compassion.

[42:10]

So in the territory between the moments of pausing and noticing and the ease, the freedom, where it's all just an interplay arising in the moment. There's nothing to resist and there's nothing to cling to. there's no attainment, and there's nothing that needs to be swept away. So in the territory between those two, you know, in the interplay that we create with our human hearts and minds and with each other, that, you know, as the Kohen says, as Uman says, Medicine and disease arise together.

[43:15]

We create resentment and we create forgiveness. We harden our hearts and we soften our hearts. We hate somebody and then we remember. But you know, if he had a brother or a sister or friends or a father or a mother who loved him or children, When people are being trained to fight wars, the important thing is to dehumanize the enemy. When we are in the throes of our aggression, we forget the human element of this person, that they have moments of tenderness, of vulnerability, They have people who are excited to see them and sad when they leave. That very compassion is transformative too.

[44:24]

In this great territory between the pausing, the stopping and the seeing through and the emptiness. This is where we learn how to be human. This is how we learn how to enter the world. How can we ever enact the Bodhisattva vow if we don't explore within ourselves the inner wars and discover how to create peace, how to experience the potency of of forgiveness and compassion. And you think, well, that's a great place for the poem to stop. It's so sweet. It's so exalting. But he doesn't stop. And it's interesting.

[45:29]

I remember when I first read this, I was a little troubled by the rest of the poem. And here's what it says. But if he turned out to be on his own, cut off like a branch from a tree, without a mother or a father, with neither a brother nor sister, wifeless, without a child, without kin or neighbors or friends, colleagues or companions. Then I'd add not a thing to his pain within that aloneness, not the torment of death, not the sorrow of passing away. Instead, I'd be content to ignore him when I passed him on the street. as I convinced myself that paying him no attention in itself was a kind of revenge. As we watch what we cling to, as we notice and feel

[46:44]

It's authority. It's humbling. When you watch your mind in Zazen and you watch its unrelenting nature, when you see that your karma continues even after you've met the Buddha, and you've taken on the robes, and maybe even done good works, and even there is within you a part of you that does embody ahimsa. But still there's other forces at play too. There's an interesting phrase in one of the commentaries on the cons.

[47:53]

And it says, dropping the water pitcher and not even looking back. It's like, but it's pointing towards, it's like... Not becoming all agitated and distressed... by your own, the ways in which you're still stuck or clinging. A kind of a radical honesty that seems almost like shamelessness. Yeah, that is where I get stuck. When I truly feel compassion and the warmth and tenderness it creates, it washes away. But at other times, other things happen. There's other parts of me that can come forth.

[48:55]

So can we practice a kind of radical honesty? Okay. Can there be humility? that knows that about this one, that knows that about all of us. We do get stuck. And it isn't the entirety of who we are. And that practicing is a daily event. You don't have your moment of compassion, and then that's it. You're coaxed on that. Day after day.

[49:58]

You come back to your cushion. You come back to who you are and how you are. And... And whether it appears to be a medicine or appears to be a disease, it's teacher. And you meet it, and as the poet says, you meet it, and the power of your vow is what brings to it the turning, is what keeps the path, keeps on the path. Okay, well, for good measure, I'll read, no, I'll read a different poem.

[50:59]

These are short little poems by Rumi. Let yourself be silently drawn by a stronger pull of what you truly love. Keep walking, though there's no place to get to. Don't try to see into the far distance. That's not for human beings. Move within, but don't move the way that fear makes you move. I lived on the lip of insanity wanting to know reasons, knocking on a door, it opens, I've been knocking from the inside. Thank you. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our programs are made possible by the donations we receive.

[52:04]

Please help us to continue to realize and actualize the practice of giving. by offering your financial support. For more information, visit sfzc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[52:25]

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