The Angulimala in You

I get many comments everyday on my Youtube channel, despite me never saying “Please like, comment and share” in my videos.

Some are just scolding/mocking/taunting me but most of my audience thank me, encourage me and make the effort to ask insightful questions, so as to increase their wisdom.

Under this video: https://youtu.be/m5l01u-mDIw

💁🏻‍♂️ Mr Patrick commented:
Excuse me, Teacher, I would like to ask you. Those evil people can earn huge money this life, due to the incredible good fortune they amassed in their past lives. In Buddhism, it is said that our souls in this life inherit our cultivation from our past reincarnations.

The areas that you have cultivated well (positive affinities + good fortune) and the areas that you have not (negative affinities + negative karma) will follow you to this lifetime for you to continue your cultivation.

The eventual goal is reach the Great Perfection and then attain Buddhahood.

So my question is, if those evil people can accumulate so much good fortune, then intrinsically his soul should have more good in it.

Why do they end up deviating so far? This is perplexing. @@ And I would like to seek Teacher’s advice.

👩🏻‍🏫 My reply:
When a Bodhisattva is reincarnated, He becomes ignorant of His past life.

Also, Man’s nature at birth is muddled. When virtuous affinities arise, Man can become virtuous. When malevolent affinities arise, Man can become evil.

The thing is a person who have cultivated good fortune may not be a person who abide by the Five Precepts. He may not have cultivated his wisdom and retains many undesirable habits, so he lacks the meditative strength to restrain himself from doing wrong.

For example, Jackie Chan enjoys great wealth and fame, which is correlated to his love for philanthropy. However, he still committed sexual misdeeds, due to his inability to control his sexual urges and habitual lust. His only son, Jaycee Chan, unfortunately turns to be a drug addict for 8 years, a huge disappointment to many, and Jackie Chan got universally condemned again. Such is one retribution of sexual misconduct.

A person who likes doing good is not a virtuous man, if he also commits evil. When there is no repentance after evil is done, we will end up with a destiny that crosslinks good and evil.

However, no matter how evil a person is, when his virtuous conditions arise, there will still be a day when the butcher will lay down his knife and become a Buddha.

Just like Aṅgulimāla, who later became Buddha’s disciple.

He was a serial killer, who wore the fingers of his 999 victims on a necklace. He was chasing Buddha to murder him, so that he can reach his goal of killing 1000 people. He wrongfully thought that would ascend him to Heaven.

Yet no matter how fast he ran, he could not catch up with Buddha, who seemingly was just walking slowly not that far away from him.

He yelled at Buddha to stop, and Buddha said, without turning his head:

“Angulimala! I have already stopped. It is you who have not stopped.”

My dear friend, have the Angulimala in you stopped?

Or are you relentlessly planting seeds of evil only to inflict misery onto yourself?

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