Stopping

The twentieth year of the Buddha’s ministry was spent in Shravasti at the Jeta Grove Monastery. It was around this time that Angulimala began his depredations. Things had gotten so bad that people would no longer travel on the road through the forest where Angulimala laid in wait. Angulimala apparently was so swift and strong that he could single-handedly wipe out whole caravans on his own, but now he was hard put to find any more victims. He then began to attack the villages near the forest, and eventually the villagers abandoned their homes and as refugees streamed into Shravasti demanding that King Prasenajit lead his army into the forest and hunt down the killer. At this point, Angulimala’s mother, suspecting that the killer was her son who had not returned as expected from his studies, set forth to find him. Angulimala, in the meantime, was desperately searching for one last victim in order to complete his thousand-fingered garland for his guru. His determination was such that he would have killed even his own mother, who in fact was headed his way.

It was at this time that the Buddha decided to intervene. After collecting alms in Shravasti and eating he took up his bowl and outer robe and headed out on the road to the forest where Angulimala made his lair, overtaking Angulimala’s mother. On the way, the cowherds, shepherds, and ploughmen warned him to head back and go no further down the road from which the refugees had come fleeing the infamous killer. But the Buddha passed on in silence. Finally he arrived in the area where Angulimala lay in wait.

The bandit Angulimala saw the Blessed One coming in the distance. When he saw him, he thought: “It is wonderful, it is marvelous! Men have come along this road in groups of ten, twenty, thirty, and even forty, but they still have fallen into my hands. And now this recluse comes alone, unaccompanied, as if driven by fate. Why shouldn’t I take this recluse’s life?” Angulimala then took up his sword and shield, buckled on his bow and quiver, and followed close behind the Blessed One.

Then the Blessed One performed such a feat of supernormal power that the bandit Angulimala, though walking as fast as he could, could not catch up with the Blessed One, who was walking at his normal pace. Then the bandit Angulimala thought: “It is wonderful, it is marvelous! Formerly I could catch up even with a swift elephant and seize it; I could catch up even with a swift horse and seize it; I could catch up with even a swift chariot and seize it; I could catch up with even a swift deer and seize it; but now, though I am walking as fast as I can, I cannot catch up with this recluse who is walking at his normal pace!” He stopped and called out to the Blessed One: “Stop, recluse! Stop, recluse!”

“I have stopped, Angulimala, you stop too.”

Then the bandit Angulimala thought: “These recluses, sons of the Shakyans, speak truth, assert truth; but though this recluse is still walking he says: ‘I have stopped, Angulimala, you stop too.’ Suppose I question this recluse.”

Then the bandit Angulimala addressed the Blessed One in stanzas thus:

“While you are walking, recluse, you tell me you have stopped;

But now, when I have stopped, you say I have not stopped.

I ask you now, O recluse, about the meaning:

How is it that you have stopped and I have not?”

“Angulimala, I have stopped forever,

I abstain from violence towards living beings;

But you have no restraint towards things that live:

That is why I have stopped and you have not.”

“Oh, at long last this recluse, a venerated sage,

Has come to this great forest for my sake.

Having heard your stanza teaching me the Dharma,

I will indeed renounce evil forever.”

So saying the bandit took his sword and weapons

And flung them in a gaping chasm’s pit;

The bandit worshipped the Sublime One’s feet,

And then and there asked for the going forth.

The Enlightened One, the Sage of Great Compassion,

The Teacher of the world with [all] its gods,

Addressed him with these words, “Come, monk.”

And that was how he came to be a monk.

Then the Blessed One set out to wander back to Shravasti with Angulimala as his attendant. Wandering by stages, he eventually arrived at Shravasti, and there he lived at Shravasti in Jeta’s Grove, Anathapindika’s Park.

(Adapted from Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha, pp. 710-712)

This teaching is pretty straightforward, though the Buddha initially presents it in a paradoxical fashion by making himself move miraculously faster than the superhumanly strong and swift Angulimala and then insisting that he has stopped already when he is clearly still moving out of Angulimala’s range. The actual meaning is that the Buddha has abstained from violence and has stopped moving towards or away from anything within samsara, the cycle of birth and death and its attendant sufferings wherein people are so deluded that they will even see mass murder as a ticket to heaven. Angulimala is said to have been a very sharp person, despite his lack of common sense or conscience, and understood immediately that the Buddha had found the correct way to end all suffering.

It was not just the miracle or the Buddha’s teaching that brought about such a change however. One could imagine that this miracle was actually nothing more spectacular than the Buddha’s awesome poise and calm presence. As the Buddha kept walking fearlessly on, Angulimala found himself unable to lay a hand on him, and had to keep pace with the Buddha just to talk to him. This man who was so feared that entire villages had fled, now found himself begging a lone monk to stop for a moment. And then he discovered through a simple exchange of words that this wandering monk knew exactly who he was and had purposely sought him out to deliver this message of peace and liberation specifically to him. It dawned on Angulimala that this was none other than the Buddha himself who had taken the trouble to find him and teach him. In fact, the Buddha had risked his life in seeking after Angulimala, and he did it for Angulimala’s sake. This was what moved Angulimala. This act of selfless compassion awoke the compassion that had long slumbered within the vicious killer. In that moment he renounced his old way of life and embraced a new one under the Buddha. He threw away his weapons and begged to become a monk, a disciple of the Buddha. The Buddha granted his wish and extended to him the earliest form of the invitation to join the monastic Sangha, “Come, monk.” Together they returned to the Jeta Grove Monastery in Shravasti.