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The story of Angulimala is well known in both Theravada and Mahayana Buddhism. The story of Angulimala comes originally from The Angulimala Sutta, Majjhima Nikaya 89 but was absorbed by Mahayana through the Agamas, Chinese translations of the four Nikayas.
But when I was studying Buddhism, this particular sutta affected me the way the Book of Job affected me in the Abrahamic tradition. An outrageous example of cognitive dissonance and gaming cosmic rules.
Angulimala was a serial killer who lived at the time of the Buddha. He enjoyed killing people and wearing their fingers around his neck. Today he would be considered an anti-social personality disorder, or just plain psychopathic. The story is Angulimala decided to kill the Buddha just for the fun of it, but in the process became converted to the Dhamma, and achieved Nibbana, the Unbinding.
Wait a minute. How about the law of kamma; the law of wholesome and unwholesome actions. The law of cause and effect. This is a critical point in Traditional Buddhism, that you sow what you reap. How could a vicious psychopath achieve nibbana and escape the samsaric kamma that is part of Traditional Buddhism.
In my opinion, this constitutes paradox.
This sutta is probably apocryphal, although it may well have been based on a story of a serial killer. But the point is that Angulimala gamed the system and escaped the consequence of his evil actions?
No. This is a Buddhist Book of Job. But no one ever questions the logic chain of this sutta. How could a psychopath achieve Enlightenment?
I hate to be the one to have to tell you this, but we're not here to ridicule anybody or any religion. We're here to discuss issues relevant to Atheism & Agnosticism.
Religion generally tries to sell its logical inconsistencies (to the extent it even recognizes them) as wisdom-inducing paradoxes or similar BS. I would assume that even Buddhism lives with the tension between needing to teach accountability (via karma) and yet hold out hope of redemption of some kind (via stories like this) so that they have a means of picking up the occasional reformed / repentant miscreant. And they'd have the same problem that Christianity suffers here: if god will forgive a horrible "sinner" at the moment of death, but condemn someone for simply not believing upon due consideration, where's the justice / righteousness in that?
It's child's play to actually address this kind of theist "thinking" but it bounces right off most of them because of operant conditioning.
The story of Angulimala is well known in both Theravada and Mahayana Buddhism. The story of Angulimala comes originally from The Angulimala Sutta, Majjhima Nikaya 89 but was absorbed by Mahayana through the Agamas, Chinese translations of the four Nikayas.
But when I was studying Buddhism, this particular sutta affected me the way the Book of Job affected me in the Abrahamic tradition. An outrageous example of cognitive dissonance and gaming cosmic rules.
Angulimala was a serial killer who lived at the time of the Buddha. He enjoyed killing people and wearing their fingers around his neck. Today he would be considered an anti-social personality disorder, or just plain psychopathic. The story is Angulimala decided to kill the Buddha just for the fun of it, but in the process became converted to the Dhamma, and achieved Nibbana, the Unbinding.
Wait a minute. How about the law of kamma; the law of wholesome and unwholesome actions. The law of cause and effect. This is a critical point in Traditional Buddhism, that you sow what you reap. How could a vicious psychopath achieve nibbana and escape the samsaric kamma that is part of Traditional Buddhism.
In my opinion, this constitutes paradox.
This sutta is probably apocryphal, although it may well have been based on a story of a serial killer. But the point is that Angulimala gamed the system and escaped the consequence of his evil actions?
No. This is a Buddhist Book of Job. But no one ever questions the logic chain of this sutta. How could a psychopath achieve Enlightenment?
Comments
It is more a Buddhist Book of Paul, then Job. The idea is that it is not even too late for the worst serial killer to convert to Buddhism and achieve perfect goodness (which is somehow not motivated by a selfish desire for Nirvana).
Quote:
Originally Posted by mordant
Religion generally tries to sell its logical inconsistencies (to the extent it even recognizes them) as wisdom-inducing paradoxes or similar BS. I would assume that even Buddhism lives with the tension between needing to teach accountability (via karma) and yet hold out hope of redemption of some kind (via stories like this) so that they have a means of picking up the occasional reformed / repentant miscreant. And they'd have the same problem that Christianity suffers here: if god will forgive a horrible "sinner" at the moment of death, but condemn someone for simply not believing upon due consideration, where's the justice / righteousness in that?
It's child's play to actually address this kind of theist "thinking" but it bounces right off most of them because of operant conditioning.
No, they just didn't think past their bias at the very story they propose. They are not often that deep of analysers and self-critics. I'm sure the story doesn't say that the murderer became a crony of the Buddha and started kissing Buddha's feet and the next second he achieved Nirvana, it probably just strongly outlines that even such a murderer was able to "become saved" and at some point be able to negate all his negative karma to achieve enlightenment and nirvana (before his death I'm guessing, rather than at future rebirths).
I'm sure the story doesn't say that the murderer became a crony of the Buddha and started kissing Buddha's feet and the next second he achieved Nirvana, it probably just strongly outlines that even such a murderer was able to "become saved" and at some point be able to negate all his negative karma to achieve enlightenment and nirvana (before his death I'm guessing, rather than at future rebirths).
No, it's not specified in this particular legend, but I'm just saying that any redemption narrative is seen as an on-a-dime turnaround and if that happens close to one's death it offends the sense of right and wrong of most reasonable people. And that is the downside of offering to welcome the prodigal son home.
In fairness, Buddhism generally teaches that one must go through the cycle of rebirth countless times before achieving enlightenment, and "countless" isn't very encouraging for the average joe, so it's not like a repentant serial killer would be in that much worse of a position to achieve that goal. It's sort of the inverse of "twice nothing is still nothing"; half of forever is still forever.
No, it's not specified in this particular legend, but I'm just saying that any redemption narrative is seen as an on-a-dime turnaround and if that happens close to one's death it offends the sense of right and wrong of most reasonable people. And that is the downside of offering to welcome the prodigal son home.
In fairness, Buddhism generally teaches that one must go through the cycle of rebirth countless times before achieving enlightenment, and "countless" isn't very encouraging for the average joe, so it's not like a repentant serial killer would be in that much worse of a position to achieve that goal. It's sort of the inverse of "twice nothing is still nothing"; half of forever is still forever.
Apparently, the story was expanded upon by later religious leaders. His past life was a man-eating super-strong spirit-entity (ghost, demon, spirit-animal, w.e.). His past lives were all strong and lacked compassion.
"countless" I thought the point of monkship was that that would thus be the life your "non-self rebirth spirit" would achieve Nirvana in.
I also find it interesting that the story of Angulimala is where the concept of "second birth/conversion birth" comes into play.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angulimala
"countless" I thought the point of monkship was that that would thus be the life your "non-self rebirth spirit" would achieve Nirvana in.
The possibility of achieving Nirvana is one of the motivations to be a monk, yes. But I have always heard that it is just that -- a possibility -- and a more likely outcome is that you will reduce the required number of remaining rebirths. And of course there is the problem of some monks failing to demonstrate even progress in the right direction, given the sexual scandals among some higher-ranking monks.
Every religion has a dirty secret (or three) and one of Buddhism's is that few there be who gain enlightenment, and the tiny number who lay claim to it or who have it claimed for them by others, upon examination, do not appear to be remarkably virtuous or ennobled. Some appear in fact to be downright venal, and use the aura of spirituality to disarm people.
Christianity fares no better when it has (being charitable here) 33% market penetration after 2,000 years, is losing ground in many parts of the world to Islam, and its adherents are jailed, divorced, and treated for mental illness at rates (again being charitable) indistinguishable from the general population. It's hard to claim success in the face of mediocrity and frequent outright fails (unless you're The Donald -- or one of his Christian friends).
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