Mahamaudgalyayana

The Sanskrit word Maha has three meanings:

As an elder, one is respected by many kings and great ministers. Having studied the sutras in the Tripitaka, an elder has victoriously transcended all non-Buddhist religions.

Maudgalyayana is Sanskrit and means “descendent of a family of bean gatherers.” His name also means “turnip root” because his ancestors ate turnips when they cultivated the Way. He is also called “Kolita” after the tree where his father and mother prayed to the spirit of that tree for a son.

This Venerable One was the foremost in spiritual penetrations. In his cultivation of the Way, when he first certified to Arhatship, he obtained six kinds of spiritual penetrations: the heavenly eye, the heavenly ear, the knowledge of others’ thoughts, the knowledge of past lives, the extinction of outflows, and the complete spirit.

With the heavenly eye, one sees not only the affairs of men, but every action of the gods as well. With the heavenly ear, one hears the gods speaking. With the knowledge of others’ thoughts, one knows what others are thinking and planning before they speak. With the knowledge of past lives, not only does one know what they are thinking, but one clearly knows their causes and effects from former lives.

As to the extinction of outflows, all people have outflows. They are like leaky bottles: pour something in the top and it flows out the bottom. The bigger the hole, the faster the flow. The smaller the hole, the slower the flow. If there are no holes, there are no leaks, no outflows. The extinction of outflows is the absence of leaks.

What outflows do people have? Food and drink become the outflows of feces and urine. If you like to get angry, that’s an outflow. If you are greedy, hateful, or stupid, you have outflows. Pride and doubt are outflows, too.

With outflows, nothing can be retained, but without them, all leaks disappear. Outflows are simply our faults. People! If we don’t have big sicknesses, we have small sicknesses, and if we don’t have small sicknesses, we have little faults. If we don’t have big outflows, we have small outflows, and if we don’t have small outflows, we have slow leaks, little bad habits. A lot can be said about outflows. The absence of them is called the Penetration of the Extinction of Outflows.

The Penetration of the Complete Spirit is also called the “penetration of the realm of the spirit” and the “spiritual penetration of everything as you will it to be.” The complete spirit means that you have an inconceivable power. Not even the ghosts and spirits can know of your thousand changes and ten thousand transformations, for you have penetrated all realms and states without obstruction.

“As you will” means that everything is the way you want it. If you want to go to the heavens, you go; if you want to go down into the earth, you go. You can walk into the water without drowning, and into the fire without burning. If you’re in your room and think, “I’d rather not go out the door,” you can walk right through the wall. How can this be? It’s “as you will” according to your thought. However you think you would like it to be, that’s the way it is. You just have to make a wish and you attain your aim. These are the Six Spiritual Penetrations.

When Mahamaudgalyayana first obtained these penetrations, he looked for his father and mother. Not so much his father, actually, as his mother. Where was she? His mother was in hell. Why? Because she had not believed in the Triple Jewel: the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha; and what is more, she had slandered them. She had also eaten fish eggs and flesh, and thereby had killed many beings.

Seeing her in hell, Maudgalyayana sent her a bowl of food. She took it in one hand and hid it with the other because she was afraid the other hungry ghosts would see it and try to steal it from her. Being greedy herself, she knew that other hungry ghosts were greedy too, and so she covered it over stealthily.

Although it was good food, her heavy karmic obstacles prevented her from eating it. When the food reached her mouth it turned into flaming coals which burned her lips. Maudgalyayana’s spiritual powers could not prevent the food from turning into fire, so he asked the Buddha to help him.

The Buddha told him to save his mother by arranging an Ullambana offering. Ullambana means, “releasing those who are hanging upside down.” The Buddha told Maudgalyayana that, on the fifteenth day of the seventh (lunar) month, the day of the Buddha’s delight and the monks’ Pravarana he should offer all varieties of food and drink to the Sangha of the ten directions. In this way he could rescue his mother so she could leave suffering and obtain bliss.

Maudgalyayana followed these instructions and his mother was reborn in the heavens. Not only was his mother saved, but all the hungry ghosts in the hells simultaneously left suffering and attained bliss.

Now, you may say, “I don’t believe that food and drink become fire when hungry ghosts eat them.” Of course you don’t believe it! But the world is full of strange, strange things. It would be hard to speak about them all. How much the less can one be clear about those things beyond this world. Let’s take water, for example. People and animals see water as water, but the gods see it as lapis lazuli and the hungry ghosts see it as fire. It’s all a question of individual karmic manifestations. Gods have the karmic retribution of gods, men of men, and ghosts of ghosts.

This is how, with the Buddha’s help, Maudgalyayana saved his mother.