there's indeed "fixed" or very
strong karma in Mahayana. karma is most powerful that not even
Buddhas can change. that mean it had already reached the
ending stage in the sour grapes example. u can't turn the grapes
sweet inside. what u can do is add sugar? :) 法无定法 mean
there's no fixed medication/method.
Shurangama Sutra got
example:-
And there were the mighty King
Crystal . . . . Crystal exterminated the Gautama clan. [He] sank
into the unintermittent hell while still alive. (SS VII
86)
"King Crystal and the Buddha were
supposedly relatives, though in fact they were not. King Crystal's
father, also a king, wanted to marry into the Gautama clan. Since
the Gautama clan was a more honorable one than the king's, the
members of the Gautama clan did not like the idea. No one wanted to
give a daughter to the king in marriage, but they didn't dare
refuse outright, because the king was powerful. A refusal might
have resulted in a lot of trouble. Finally they decided among
themselves to send one of their servant girls, a particularly
beautiful one, and pretend she was of the Gautama clan. King
Crystal was an offspring of that marriage.
"Once, while the king was still a
child, someone built a temple for the Buddha, complete with an
elaborate Dharma Seat.. When the seat was finished, but before the
Buddha himself had ascended the platform to sit on it and speak
Dharma, the child who was to become King Crystal climbed up and sat
on it. The Buddha's disciples and the donors who saw him all
scolded him, saying, 'You're the son of a slave; how dare you sit
in the Buddha's seat?' Hearing them call him that, he was outraged,
and he said to his attendant, 'Wait until I am king and then remind
me of what was said here today, lest I forget it. People from the
Gautama clan say I'm the son of a slave. Remind me of that. I
intend to get even.'
"Later, when he was king, his
attendant did remind him, and the king issued an edict that the
entire Gautama clan was to be exterminated, including the Buddha
himself. When Mahamaudgalyayana got wind of this, he went to the
Buddha to report. 'We have to think of away to save them,' he said.
But the Buddha didn't say anything. And so Maudgalyayana loosed his
spiritual powers, put five hundred members of the Gautama clan into
his precious bowl, and sent them to the heavens. He thought they
would be safe there. When the king had completed the extermination,
Maudgalyayana told Shakyamuni Buddha, 'I've got five hundred
Gautamans in a bowl stashed away in the heavens, and so the clan
isn't totally gone after all. I'll bring them down now and let them
go.' But when he had recalled them and took a look at his bowl, he
found nothing there but blood. "Why was I unable to save them?'
asked the puzzled Maudgalyayana. He wanted the Buddha to explain
the causes and conditions.
"'Ah, you don't know,' said the
Buddha, "On the causal ground, a long time ago, at a place where
the weather was hot, there was a pool with schools of fish in it.
The two leaders of the schools were named Bran and Many Tongues.
The water in the pool evaporated in the intense heat, and since the
people in the area didn't have anything else to eat, they ate the
fish. In the end there was just a mud-hole, but even then they
noticed a movement in the mud. Digging in, they found the two big
fish-kings--Bran and Many Tongues. At that time, I, Shakyamuni
Buddha, was a child among these people, who were later to become
the Gautama clan. Seeing that the two fish were about to be
devoured alive, I beat them over the head three times with a club
to knock them out first.' That is why in his life as a Buddha he
had to endure a three-day headache as retribution. 'Further, the
fish Bran was the present King Crystal, and the fish Many Tongues
was his attendant who reminded him of the words spoken by the
Gautama clan to the king as a child. And so it was fated that he
would exterminate the Gautama clan.' Even though Shakyamuni had
become a Buddha, he could not rescue his people from the fixed
karma they were destined to repay."
http://online.sfsu.edu/~rone/Buddhism/BuddhistDict/BDK.html
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