Dear Piya, Danya and friends,

I am afraid that the word grace implies (in a theistic sense) that we
are in the mercy of a supreme, almight, all-powerful being. This
concept does not exist in Buddhism. The concept of grace and seeking
it, however, exists in all other religions that believe in one, two
or many divine beings.

Bringing up the word grace brings up the concept of sin too. I would
say both are irrelevant in the Buddhist context. Angulimala was a man
of good nature and was the most outstanding student of his teacher
before turning into a bandit. Circumstances brought him into a life
of wickedness, the compassion of Buddha brought him back to the right
path and Buddha's wisdom subdued his unfounded and ignorant excuses
for wrong-doing.

metta,
Yong Peng

--- In Pali@yahoogroups.com, Piya Tan wrote:
> It helps if you have a working definition of "grace".
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> > Hi! My name is Danya Furda and I live in Columbus, Ohio.
Currently I am working on my Ph.D. thesis (through McMaster
University, Hamilton, Canada) and hope to be finished by the end of
next year. My thesis is about Kamma and Grace in the story of
Angulimala. One of the main parts of my project has been to
translate all but one version of the story of Angulimala from the
Chinese Buddhist canon. Now I am working on my chapter regarding
kamma and grace within the Pali version (MN 86) and my seven Chinese
ones. I would really appreciate it if you could suggest articles or
books that you found particularly helpful in understanding how kamma
operates within Theravada Buddhism. Of course if any of you know
articles/books that might mention grace as a concept within Theravada
Buddhism, please pass that on as well. So far, I have only found
Divine Revelation in Pali Buddhism by Peter Masefield to be useful in
this regard.