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That Awkward Moment When Buddha Encountered A Serial Killer
Its inherent moral lesson is endlessly encouraging.
The story of Angulimala, the ancient Indian killer-turned-saint, has always fascinated me.
Anguli means finger and mala means garland. This was a serial killer who would lie in wait off a dark road, slaughtering his victims and collecting a finger from their corpse (for his ever-growing necklace).
But, funnily enough, he had a perfectly good reason for doing so.
One day, a disciple began living with his Guru.
In pre-colonial India, the system of education revolved around the Gurukula (kula = family) system.
Disciples were not sitting hundreds of meters from their Gurus, who would be on distant thrones, surrounded by hordes of hungry knowledge seekers, ultimately unable to really benefit.
Disciples would actually live with their teachers, serving them, and learning how humans learn best: through embodied, somatic, even precognitive imitation. This system worked, and enough teachers kept on being produced to keep the wheel of Dharma turning.
However, in Angulimala’s case, there was a little problem.
