Good morning!
Last night we still could have seen the round moon. The full moon represents
the Buddha heart/mind -perfectly round, brilliant, beautiful, clear, and calm.
However the clouds covered it to make the world dark, dull, and dangerous.
When our heart/minds are covered by clouds of karma with the triple poisons of
delusion, desire, and divisiveness, they make the world dark, dull, and dangerous,
and into the difficult destinies (du-gati) of hell beings, hungry ghosts, and beasts
or fighting devils.
To prevent them the Awakened Way provides the triple learning of morality,
concentration, and prognosis, which make the world brilliant, bright, and
beautiful, and into the delightful destinies (su-gati) of the triple treasures
of the Delighted (Su-gata), Dharma, and Dharma Community (Saṅgha).
Aṅglimālā, who had once worn a finger-necklace made of finger bones taken
from his murdered victims, made the following poem telling that one could be
like the moon cleared from the clouds of karma, if one completely changes one’s
heart/mind and enters into the supramundane realm.
The one formerly drunken,
But later not drunken,
Illuminates this world like
The moon cleared from clouds.
The one who formerly did vice,
But later repented with virtue,
Illuminates this world like
The moon cleared from clouds.
The one striving in the Awakened Way,
Even if still a young mendicant,
Illuminates this world like
The moon cleared from clouds.
The Theragāthā, 871-3
Note:
1. Su-gata literally means Well-being, another epithet of the Buddha (cf. Tathā–
gata, Thus-being, another epithet cp. hasta-gata amra, mango being on the hand).
2. The triple learning is sīla, samādhi, and prajñā.
3. The first and the last poems are in the Dhammapada,172, 392
