Wise About Mistakes (extract)

"One of the results of practicing the Dhamma to a high level is that the results of your past bad actions get weakened and weakened, and have less of an impact on the heart and mind.

Think of the case of Angulimala. He had killed a lot of people, but the Buddha saw that he had potential. So, through his psychic powers, he was able to subdue Angulimala’s pride. Angulimala submitted and practiced the Dhamma under the Buddha until he became an arahant.

A lot of people were not happy with this. They may have been the relatives of people who had been killed by Angulimala. So when he was on his alms round, they would throw things at him — stones, pieces of pottery — tearing his robes, breaking his bowl, sometimes gashing his head. He’d come back from his alms round all bloody, and the Buddha would say, “Bear up with it. This is much milder than it would’ve been if you hadn’t gained this attainment.”

So it is possible to gain awakening even with bad kamma in your background. But that means you need to have a genuine change of heart, that you don’t want to do anything unskillful. You’re motivated by shame, motivated by compunction, because you realize that even though there is the possibility that, with the complexity of kamma, some of your bad actions will have only weak results, you don’t really know for sure because you don’t know what else you’ve got lurking in your kammic past. So you do your best right now."

~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Wise About Mistakes" (Meditations12)

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