The Power of Right Action and Compassion : หน้า 161/263

the snake started to crush him in his coils, he thought again of killing the snake, but remembering his Precepts he threw down the knife. He thought to himself, that if he should die, at least he would die with pure Precepts. However, by the migh of the intention of the layman to lay down his life for his Precepts, his body became hot like a flame, making the snake unable to bear to touch him any more and it uncoiled and made its escape — this is an example of thinking that is Right Action on the level of having requested the Precepts in advance. Abstaining from killing either on the spur of the moment or because of having taken the Precepts in advance are both examples of Right Action on the ‘mundane’ path [lokiyamagga]. The following account, by contrast tells us how killing can be abstained from by having transcended the very intentions to kill: There was a fisherman called "Ariya" (lit. "noble one") who lived during the time of the Buddha. As a fisherman, he caught and killed fish every day. One day in meditation, the Buddha saw Ariya's potential to attain the fruit of stream-entry [sota,pattihala] and went, with a number of other monks to where Ariya was fishing. Seeing the Buddha approaching, Ariya became ashamed of his action and hid his fishing line. When the Buddha arrived, while standing in front of the man, he asked Sāriputta his name. "Sāriputta", replied Sāriputta. The Buddha then proceeded to ask the name of each of the monks and overhearing, the man wondered whether af-