Today we will talk about Mahamaudgalyayana.  

Mahamaudgalyayana and Sariputra both took refuge in Shakyamuni Buddha at the same time. Mahamaudgalyayana is Sariputra’s childhood good friend. The name Mahamaudgalyayana translates to “clan of bean gatherers,” which means “bean gatherers.” 

What are bean gatherers? 

In ancient India there were many people cultivating, they didn’t eat anything much other than beans. This clan used the food they ate as their name and Mahamaudgalyayana was a descendant of these ancient cultivators who used the food they ate as their family name. 

Among the ten Great disciples of Shakyamuni Buddha, Venerable Mahamaudgalyayana was known as “foremost in supernatural powers.” 

There is a supernatural story concerning Venerable Mahamaudgalyayana that is very famous. It was also made into a movie before, “Mahamaudgalyayana Rescuing His Mother.” 

Mahamaudgalyayana missed his deceased mother and didn’t know where she was. Then he was looking at the water, the water in the big river was flowing. The water slowly flowed to the sea and then to hell, bringing along his thoughts. The small river connected to a big river, the big river connected to a lake, the lake connected to the sea. The sea went to where hell was, and there in hell he saw his mother suffering in the hungry ghosts realm. 

The realm of hungry ghosts is characterized by large bellies, small throats, and large heads. Their throats are like the eye of a needle, too small for anything to pass through, and their bellies are large and they are extremely hungry, hence the name “hungry ghosts realm.” 

Mahamaudgalyayana used his supernatural powers to bring food along and entered the hungry ghosts realm. He offered these foods to his mother but as soon as she put the food into her mouth, it turned into burning coals and she could not eat them at all! 

Mahamaudgalyayana was heartbroken and returned to ask Shakyamuni Buddha what should be done. Shakyamuni Buddha said, “This requires the combined power of many monks in order to save your mother.”

The Buddha meant that one person’s power is insufficient to save oneself, and heavy karmic obstacles are difficult to overcome. Only by gathering the power of many monks can one save one’s mother. Therefore, this evolved into the practice of offering alms to all monks during the Ghost Festival (July 15th of the lunar calendar), using their chanting and blessings to deliver sentient beings in the netherworld. 

Even though Venerable Mahamaudgalyayana was already the foremost in supernatural powers, he still could not save his own mother with his power, demonstrating that “supernatural powers are not the only way to overcome karmic obstacles.”

In the end, Venerable Mahamaudgalyayana because of this supernatural feat of saving his mother, became known to all the heretics and other religions in India at that time. 

They were extremely jealous of his supernatural powers—going to hell, ability to transform, ability to fly high in the sky, ability to enter hell, thus many practitioners were jealous. 

Finally, one time when he was cultivating in the mountains, he was stoned to death by naked heretics. 

In the past, many people have asked this question, why was it that  Venerable Mahamaudgalyayana who was foremost in supernatural power couldn’t save himself? 

Shakyamuni Buddha answered, “Because Venerable Mahamaudgalyayana had a predestined fate of being beaten to death. When his time of passing came, even his supernatural powers could not overcome his karma.”

Actually with Mahamaudgalyayana’s supernatural power, if a big rock was going to crush him, he could turn into dust and fly away. 

In the past, someone tried to harm him by burning down his house, locking and nailing the doors shut, but Mahamaudgalyayana could pass through the keyhole and escape. Venerable Mahamaudgalyayana could fly, he could seemingly fly from earth to Uranus, to listen to the Buddha of Uranus expound the dharma.

When the Bodhisattva on Uranus was listening to the dharma, she suddenly noticed something as small as a mosquito flying around. The Bodhisattva of Uranus asked the Buddha, “What is this thing?” 

The Buddha there replied, “This is Venerable Mahamaudgalyayana, the disciple of Shakyamuni Buddha foremost in supernatural power in the Saha world.”

This shows that Mahamaudgalyayana’s supernatural powers allowed him to travel to various parts of the universe to listen to the Buddha expounding the dharma. 

He displayed many different supernatural powers, he could contain the entire population of Seattle in his alms bowl. This Mahamaudgalyayana, just by lifting and tossing this bowl into the air, the entire Seattle including those seventy-stories buildings would all go inside. 

Clearly, Venerable Mahamaudgalyayana’s supernatural powers were indeed number one, then why couldn’t he overcome that piece of big rock? 

Everyone must remember the Buddha’s words: 

“Supernatural powers cannot overcome karma.” 

When the time comes, one will still suffer the karma. 

This concludes our introduction to Mahamaudgalyayana for today.

Om mani padme hum.