“While walking, contemplative,
you say, ’I have stopped.’
But when I have stopped
you say I haven’t.
I ask you the meaning of this:
How have you stopped?
How haven’t I?”
The Buddha:
“I have stopped, Aṅgulimāla,
once & for all,
having cast off violence
toward all living beings.
You, though,
are unrestrained toward beings.
That’s how I’ve stopped
and you haven’t.”
Aṅgulimāla:
“At long last a greatly revered great seer
for my sake
has come to the great forest.
Having heard your verse
in line with the Dhamma,
I will go about
having abandoned evil.”
So saying, the bandit
hurled his sword & weapons
over a cliff
into a chasm,
a pit.
Then the bandit paid homage
to the feet of the One Well-Gone,
and right there requested the Going-forth.
The Awakened One,
the compassionate great seer,
the teacher of the world, along with its devas,
said to him then:
“Come, bhikkhu.”
That in itself
was bhikkhuhood for him.
Who once was heedless,
but later is not,
brightens the world
like the moon set free from a cloud.4
His evil-done deed
is replaced with skillfulness:
he brightens the world
like the moon set free from a cloud.5
Whatever young monk
devotes himself
to the Buddha’s bidding:
he brightens the world
like the moon set free from a cloud.
May even my enemies
hear talk of the Dhamma.
May even my enemies
devote themselves
to the Buddha’s bidding.
May even my enemies
associate with those people
who—peaceful, good—
get others to accept the Dhamma.
May even my enemies
hear the Dhamma time & again
from those who advise
endurance,
forbearance,
who praise non-opposition,
and may they follow it.
For surely he wouldn’t harm me,
or anyone else;
he would attain the
foremost peace,
would protect the
feeble & firm.
Irrigators guide the water.
Fletchers shape the arrow shaft.
Carpenters shape
the wood.
The wise control
themselves.6
Some tame with a blunt stick,
with hooks, & with whips
But without blunt or bladed weapons
I was tamed by the one who is Such.
“Doer of No Harm” is my name,
but I used to be a doer of harm.
Today I am true to my name,
for I harm no one at all.
A bandit
I used to be,
renowned as Aṅgulimāla.
Swept along by a great flood,
I went to the Buddha as refuge.
Bloody-handed
I used to be,
renowned as Aṅgulimāla.
See my going for refuge!
Uprooted is [craving],
the guide to becoming.
Having done the type of kamma
that would lead to many
bad destinations,
touched by the fruit of (that) kamma,
unindebted, I eat my food.7
They’re addicted to heedlessness
—dullards, fools—
while one who is wise
cherishes heedfulness
as his highest wealth.8
Don’t give way to heedlessness
or to intimacy
with sensual delight—
for a heedful person,
absorbed in jhāna,
attains an abundant bliss.9
This10 has come well & not gone away,
it was not badly thought through for me.
From among well-analyzed qualities,
I have obtained
the best.
This has come well & not gone away,
it was not badly thought through for me.
The three knowledges
have been attained;
the Buddha’s bidding,
done.
Notes
1. The PTS reading here, followed in MLS and MLDB—“I will not stamp him out”—is surely a mistake. I follow the Thai reading on this passage, even though it is somewhat ungrammatical. There are passages in MN 90 where King Pasenadi’s sentences don’t quite parse, and perhaps this is another example of his brusque language.
2. This blessing is often chanted at house blessings in Theravāda countries.
3. This incident illustrates the kammic principle stated in AN 3:101.
4. This verse = Dhp 172.
5. This verse = Dhp 173.
6. This verse = Dhp 80.
7. This verse is another illustration of the principle stated in AN 3:101.
8. This verse = Dhp 26.
9. This verse = Dhp 27.
10. “This” apparently refers to the abundant bliss mentioned in the previous verse.
Origin URL: https://www.dhammatalks.org/suttas/MN/MN86.html