How To Construct a Sutta

This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video How To Construct a Sutta? A Middle Length Discourse Seminar with Gil Fronsdal. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.

The following talk was given by Gil Fronsdal at The Sati Center in Redwood City, CA on March 13, 2026. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

How To Construct a Sutta

So hopefully, as we go through this, everyone can follow along with the presentation. I can say a little bit about the genesis or the origin of my study of this Sutta. I'm very fond of this saying that I understood before: "Nothing whatsoever is worth clinging to." That's the way I liked it. Now I translate it differently, but I've taught it, just repeated it, and I thought it was really great. About a year ago or so, I thought, "Well, I want to find out the actual passage. Where is it in the Suttas?" So I found it in this text. I don't think I had read this text before.

As I looked at it, I said, "Wait, this has this literary structure that I've been familiar with in a few other Suttas." As far as I know, no one's ever reported or written about this structure in the Buddhist texts. It's a structure that was first found in Homer, maybe in the 1870s. They found it in Homer, they found it in the Bible, and then they found it all over the place. It's in a lot of different cultures. It seems to be particularly prominent in oral cultures around the world. Maybe it's a natural kind of structure for the human mind to operate under. I've seen the structures being similar to how rituals can be structured: you go into the ritual, there's a pivotal point where something happens, and then you return to the world again. So maybe it's a structure that's deep in human culture and the human mind that is being replicated in the composition of these kinds of texts. I think of it as a storyteller's technique.

So what we have here in this text is that the narrator has a huge role. The tradition is that all the Suttas came from Ānanda^[1] because Ānanda accompanied the Buddha everywhere and had a very good memory. He memorized everything and he's like the court reporter. So of course, whatever was written down by Ānanda, that's how it happened. But that's a fairly naive piece of orthodox teaching—that all the Suttas come from the Buddha and we can rely on them, that whatever it says there is the Buddha's teachings.

One of the things that stands out in the Shorter Discourse on the Destruction of Craving (Majjhima 37) is that it has this literary structure and it has a lot of elements that are the words of the narrator, not the words of any of the characters. We have someone's creativity. Everyone remembers things in selective ways and presents it in ways that they want to. You present something sometimes for a larger purpose. The question is, for what purpose was this particular text composed? Some of this involved the Buddha teaching something, so maybe Ānanda was there. But there's no evidence that Ānanda went with Moggallāna^[2] to Sakka's^[3] heaven to see what was going on, to do his court reporting and capture it. So how did he learn this if it was Ānanda?

Textual Archaeology and the Pāli Canon

More likely, what we'll see is this text was written many centuries after the Buddha lived. One of the fascinating things about this text for me is how it's a very clear example of something that could not have come from the Buddha's time. It puts a big question mark beside all the Suttas: Do we naively accept them all as teachings of the Buddha, or can we find evidence for historical stratifications of the texts? Texts that were written early, middling, or fairly late in the history of their composition. How late were they composed? Where were they composed?

The earliest really concrete evidence for the Middle Length Discourses (Majjhima Nikāya), for example, as a collected body of work in the form that we have today, is not until some point in the fifth century CE. About a thousand years after the Buddha is when we get real evidence that we can rely on dating that this book existed at that time. A thousand years is a long time for things to change. There's a very strong wish among Theravādin Buddhists to believe that this has been unchanged since the time of the Buddha.

There's an interesting phenomenon that we see by looking at Chinese translations of Suttas. We see that in Sanskrit versions of certain texts, over the centuries they were added to and changed. But the Chinese, when they translated a Buddhist text into Chinese, tended to preserve it the way it was translated. They didn't change it anymore. I did my dissertation on a sutra that was translated into Chinese in the year 179. The Sanskrit version that survives of this text was probably completed about a thousand years later, around the year 1100, and there's a lot of additions to it. It has changed a lot since 179. In India, there's no evidence of what the text looked like in Sanskrit at the beginning of the Common Era. But that was saved in China. We see that staying faithful to a text and keeping it exactly how it was passed down was not something that people in India were particularly inclined to do when it came to Buddhist sutras.

When I did my dissertation, it was on Mahāyāna sutras, and it didn't occur to me to apply this principle to the Pāli Canon at first. I thought surely that must be a fairly consistent, unchanged kind of body of texts. But as I've been studying it more and more, there's no reason to think that's the case. The Pāli Canon is quite fluid. It might very well be the coincidence of when it was written down in a form that survived down to the present, or when it was selected by someone to be put into the Middle Length Discourses. And then this famous teacher Buddhaghosa^[4] wrote his commentary about that text. Once he wrote the commentary about the Middle Length Discourses, then it wasn't going to change anymore, so it's relatively stable.

But there have been some changes since then. I'll give you an example of how these Buddhist texts can change over the years, even in the modern era. In 1954, there was the Sixth Council of Buddhist monks to talk about the Suttas and the Canon. The Theravādin monks came from all kinds of Theravādin countries, and they didn't want to come to Burma for this meeting until the Burmese had someone who could recite from memory the entire Canon. There was one monk who took that task on and learned to memorize it so he could go to that council and recite the whole thing from memory, and then later he started a school in Burma teaching this to other people.

They met and reviewed all the Suttas, the different versions they had, to standardize them, I suppose. At some point during that conference, they knew that in the Long Discourses (Dīgha Nikāya) there is the Greater Discourse on the Foundations of Mindfulness, and then there's the ordinary Discourse on the Foundations of Mindfulness in the Middle Length Discourses. The greater one has a long explanation about the Four Noble Truths that is many pages long, and that's absent in the version in the Middle Length Discourses. At that council, they decided that was kind of a mistake. It must have dropped out some place. So they took the long commentary about the Four Noble Truths from the long version and stuck it into the short version. Now the Burmese version of that text is just the same length as the one in the Long Discourses. This is an example of how people decided to change a Sutta.

What I'm trying to say is Suttas change and they're fluid. If I was going to venture a guess, at least 90%, if not 99%, of the different versions of Suttas that existed in India down through the centuries did not survive. Sometimes we have only one version that survives, and that's in the Pāli Canon. Sometimes we have different versions that survive in Chinese, some in Gāndhārī. Even the ones that survive are probably just a small percentage of what actually existed at some point.

It's phenomenal what we have, but to really understand what's going on there in some historically accurate way takes textual archaeology. Some of that textual archaeology is no different than an archaeologist taking a brush and slowly brushing away the dirt, and maybe finding one little bead or one little piece of evidence from which they can construct the story of a civilization. It's a little bit of a thankless task to dive down into these Suttas, but to get some kind of historical understanding of them takes a lot of careful work. I don't say that my study of this text here was as careful as it could have been, but for some of you, it was probably more careful than you care for.

Sakka's Questions and the Shorter Discourse on the Destruction of Craving

So what I want to start with is the text that we're looking at, called the Shorter Discourse on the Destruction of Craving. It has this famous line: "Nothing whatsoever is worth clinging to, being attached to." It has a precursor, a prequel, in the Long Discourses called Sakka's Questions (Sakka-pañha Sutta, Dīgha Nikāya 21). Both of these texts involve the god Sakka going to talk to the Buddha.

In the Long Discourses, the Buddha is sitting in Sakka's cave. Apparently, Sakka had a cave. He's sitting there meditating, and Sakka doesn't really want to wake the Buddha up out of his meditation. He wants to be very careful and respectful. So he asks a gandhabba^[5], a heavenly musician, to go and sing a song to kind of wake the Buddha up so that Sakka can go and ask the Buddha a question. You get the sense from at least some of the English translations that the song this heavenly musician sings is kind of erotic. It describes the beautiful body parts of the heavenly musician lady that he's in love with and hoping to marry. He talks about his love for this woman to be as devoted as an arahant is devoted to the Dharma. It's kind of a wild thing. It's like going up to the Pope to get his attention and playing The Doors' "Light My Fire." [Laughter] It's a little unusual. It's a fun, strange kind of text to have this erotic song sung to the Buddha. The Buddha comes out of his meditation, is very polite, and says, "That was a nice song you sang."

Then the heavenly musician says, "Sakka wants to talk to you." The Buddha says, "Sure." Sakka asks all these questions. The last question he asks gets a reply that kind of begs a next question, but Sakka doesn't ask the next question.

Now I'll show you the PowerPoint slide: "How to Construct a Sutta to Evoke Wonder and Amazement." Maybe that's the purpose of some of these texts. Just keep that in mind.

Here is one of the earliest pieces of Buddhist art, from Bodh Gaya, where the Buddha was enlightened. There are these friezes, these rock engravings that survive. Here is the cave. It's relatively small. It looks like it has a seat inside of it. This is Sakka's cave, the Indasāla Guhā^[6]. The person you see there on the side is Sakka or that heavenly musician holding a lute. Here's the Buddha. During that time, the first century BCE, the Buddha was not depicted in these kinds of artwork, so it's an empty chair. But this is the little cave he was meditating in when the musician sang his song and Sakka came and questioned the Buddha. The story of the Long Discourses was important enough in the Buddhist milieu at that point that they made carvings of it.

Here we see it again from Bharhut, one of the great stupas that survive from ancient India. There were lots of carved images and sculptures on the gates and the walls. Here we have Sakka's cave again. It was an important story at the time. Here we have the second century CE in Mathurā, another place where depictions of the actual Buddha appeared. Here we have the Buddha again in the cave. To the right is Sakka, and to the left is the heavenly musician singing erotic songs, holding his lute.

In Dīgha 21, Sakka asks to talk to the Buddha. The Buddha thought to himself, "For a long time now this spirit, Sakka, has led a pure life. Any question he asks me will be beneficial, not unbeneficial, and he will quickly understand any answer I give to his question." So the Buddha addressed Sakka in verse: "Ask me your question, Vāsava. Whatever you want, I'll solve each and every question you have."

Here's Sakka's first question to the Buddha: "Good fellow, what fetters bind the gods, humans, titans, dragons, centaurs, and any other diverse creatures so that, though they wish to be free of enmity, violence, hostility, and hate, they still have enmity, violence, hostility, and hate?" These kinds of questions make the Suttas timeless because some of these issues are current in our society today. What keeps people bound and attached so that they're caught up in enmity, violence, hostility, and hate?

The Buddha answered him this way: "Lord of gods, the fetters of jealousy and stinginess bind the gods, humans, titans, dragons, centaurs, and any other diverse creatures..." Jealousy and stinginess are here identified as an underlying condition for these painful states that people have.

There's about 14 questions and answers that go on in the text between Sakka and the Buddha. Sakka's last question is this: "Good fellow, have all ascetics and brahmins reached the ultimate end, the ultimate sanctuary from the yoke, the ultimate spiritual life, the ultimate goal?" And the Buddha answers: "No. Only those bhikkhus who are liberated in the destruction of craving are the ones who have reached the ultimate end, the ultimate security from bondage, the ultimate holy life, the ultimate goal."

It seems like the obvious question is, "Well, how do you do that? How are you liberated by the destruction of craving? How do you reach the ultimate end?" That question is not asked in the Long Discourses, but Sakka does ask it in Majjhima 37. "How in brief is a bhikkhu liberated in the destruction of craving? One who has reached the ultimate end, the ultimate security from bondage, the ultimate holy life, the ultimate goal, one who is foremost among gods and humans." That last phrase is not in Long Discourse 21, but the rest of it is pretty comparable.

In this Shorter Discourse on the Destruction of Craving (Majjhima 37), this is where Sakka finally gets a chance to ask the Buddha this question. What's interesting about these texts is that in Dīgha 21, the Buddha praised Sakka for living a pure life. He asks a question he'll understand quickly to great benefit. Eventually, in Long Discourse 21, Sakka becomes a stream-enterer. He's a good practitioner, a wonderful student. We don't get that picture of Sakka in Majjhima 37. In Majjhima 37, he seems totally caught up in his sensual pleasures. He asks this important question, and then he shows no interest or it has no effect on him seemingly. It's very strange that Sakka is portrayed this way in this text. It's almost like a satire. It's very different than Sakka is usually depicted in the Suttas, which is much more respectful. Why has Sakka changed so dramatically between these two Suttas? Sometimes I look at these texts and wonder if Majjhima 37 is trying to make a parody of Dīgha 21. It certainly seems like it's humorous and strange. What's the purpose for this?

Precursors in the Suttas: The Moggallāna and Dozing Discourses

Before we go further into this text, I want to introduce you to these texts that were mentioned as maybe precursors to Majjhima 37. There's one text in the Connected Discourses of the Buddha, Chapter 51, Sutta 14. The title is Moggallāna.

"At one time the Blessed One was dwelling at Sāvatthī in the mansion of Migāra's mother." That's the same place where the Buddha is living in Majjhima 37. "Now on that occasion, a number of bhikkhus who dwelt on the ground floor of the mansion were restless, puffed up, personally vain, rough-tongued, rambling in their talk, muddle-minded, without clear comprehension, unconcentrated, scatterbrained, loose in their faculties."

Wow. I mean, this is serious misbehavior. They could have just said there's a bunch of monks being restless down there, but they really go into it. It's quite a story to tell.

Then the Blessed One addressed the Venerable Mahāmoggallāna: "Thus, Moggallāna, your brothers in the holy life dwelling on the ground floor of Migāra's mother's palace are restless and so forth... Oh, Moggallāna, stir up a sense of urgency in these bhikkhus." The sense of urgency is a word that probably some of you know: saṃvega^[7]. "Yes, Venerable Sir," the Venerable Mahāmoggallāna replied. Then he performed a feat of spiritual power such that he made the mansion of Migāra's mother shake, quake, and tremble with his big toe.

Then those bhikkhus, shocked and terrified, stood to one side and said, "It is wonderful indeed. It is amazing indeed, sir. There is no wind in this mansion of Migāra's mother, which has a deep base and is securely planted, immobile, unshaking. Yet it shook, quaked, and trembled." Then the Blessed One approached those bhikkhus and said to them, "Why are you bhikkhus standing to one side shocked and terrified?" They explained what had happened. "Bhikkhu Moggallāna, desiring to stir up a sense of urgency in you, made the mansion shake, quake, and tremble with his toe. What do you think? By having developed and cultivated what things has the bhikkhu Moggallāna become powerful and mighty?"

So he has got the monks' attention. They're ready to get teaching. And what does he teach them? How Moggallāna was so powerful and mighty that he could shake the palace—his psychic powers. He didn't offer them liberation teaching. The rest of the text is all about what it took to develop these powers that allow you to use your toe to shake a palace.

This story, including the mansion of Migāra's mother, is very close to the second act of Majjhima 37, where Moggallāna recognizes that Sakka doesn't have enough spiritual urgency and decides to wake him up. So he touches his toe and shakes the palace and gets his attention so that he'll remember the Buddha's teachings. It's almost the same story, except the characters are changed. Sakka is the same as the restless monks. It's relatively easy to see this story as the precursor for the second act in Majjhima 37.

And then we have in the Numerical Discourses of the Buddha, Book 7, Discourse 61. The title in Bhikkhu Bodhi's^[8] translation is Dozing. On one occasion, the Blessed One was dwelling among the Bhaggas. Now on that occasion, Mahāmoggallāna was sitting and dozing. With the divine eye, the Blessed One saw Venerable Mahāmoggallāna sitting and dozing. Just as a strong man might extend his drawn-in arm or draw in his extended arm, the Blessed One disappeared from the Deer Park and reappeared before Venerable Mahāmoggallāna. The Blessed One sat down on the seat prepared for him and said, "Are you dozing?" And Moggallāna says, "Yes, sir."

"Therefore, Moggallāna, you should not attend to or cultivate the object that you were attending to when you became drowsy." Then he goes through all kinds of advice of what to do. After he tries all these things, then he teaches Mahāmoggallāna different teachings. "You should train yourself thus: We will not approach families for alms with a head swollen with pride... We will not engage in contentious talk." Then the Buddha says, "Moggallāna, I do not praise bonding with everyone whatsoever, nor do I praise bonding with no one at all. I do not praise bonding with householders and monastics, but I do praise bonding with quiet and noiseless lodgings far from the flurry of people, remote from human habitation, and suitable for seclusion."

Maybe Mahāmoggallāna was getting a little bit tired of being preached at about all the things you can do to overcome drowsiness. He said to the Blessed One briefly, "Bhante, how is a bhikkhu liberated in the extinction of craving, one who has reached the ultimate conclusion, the ultimate security from bondage, lived the ultimate spiritual life and gained the ultimate consummation?" It's a different translation, but it's the same wording that we've seen where Sakka asks the Buddha the same question. The Buddha answers like he answers Sakka in Majjhima 37, where the Buddha gives the seven steps for becoming fully awakened.

Here we have a story that's very similar to Act One of Majjhima 37. Asking the very question that was not asked in Long Discourse 21. This suggests that this text here in the Numerical Discourses is the precursor story that was used to compose Act One in Majjhima 37. The fact that using the same words and the same ideas is more than just a coincidence. I think it's fair to seriously consider that these two Suttas were the material from which Majjhima 37 was put together.

So the Buddha gives his final answer to Sakka's 14 questions in the Questions of Sakka, and when he gives that final answer, this is what Sakka says: "Delighted, Sakka approved and agreed with what the Buddha said, saying, 'That's so true, Blessed One. That's so true, Holy One. Hearing the Buddha's answer, I've gone beyond doubt and got rid of indecision.'" Going beyond doubt and getting rid of indecision is a description of stream-entry.

Then he says, "Turbulence, sir, is a disease, a boil, a dart. Turbulence drags a person to be regenerated in one state of existence or another." I bolded this word 'turbulence'. Turbulence is almost a synonym for shake and quake. Sakka said, "I am the Buddha's disciple, a stream-enterer, not liable to be reborn in the underworld, destined for awakening. Once upon a time, sir, a battle was fought between the gods and the titans. In that battle, the gods won and the titans lost. It occurred to me as the victor, now the gods shall enjoy both the nectar of the gods and the nectar of the titans." We have ojā^[9] and ejā^[10]. Ojā is the nectar of the gods.

But then Sakka says this: "But sir, that joy and happiness of that nectar belongs to the sphere of sticks and swords. It does not lead to disillusionment, dispassion, cessation, peace, insight, awakening, and extinguishment through nibbāna^[11]. But the joy and happiness I feel listening to the Buddha's teachings is not in the sphere of the sticks and the sword. It does lead to disillusionment, dispassion, cessation, peace, insight, awakening, and extinguishment."

Here Sakka has really understood well. He's not interested in celestial pleasures anymore. This is very different than the Sakka in Majjhima 37, where he also talked about this battle. "Once upon a time, a battle was fought between the gods and the titans. In that battle, the gods won and the titans lost. When I returned from the battle as a victor, I created the Palace of Victory. The Palace of Victory has a hundred towers." He goes on and on to talk about all the wonderful towers he has.

You see a very strong contrast between these two Pāli Suttas. In Dīgha 21, the text presents Sakka as meeting the Buddha for the first time, and that's all it takes to become a stream-enterer. In Majjhima 37, you get a very different Sakka. He gets this wonderful liberation teaching but he doesn't appreciate it, doesn't claim he has some kind of attainment from it. Instead, he goes back right away to enjoy the palace he built and the maidens he has.

In Majjhima 37, when Moggallāna realizes that Sakka needs some sense of urgency, Moggallāna thought, "The spirit lives much too negligently. Why don't I stir up a sense of urgency in him?" Then Moggallāna used his psychic power to make the Palace of Victory shake and quake and tremble with his big toe. In Pāli, 'shake' is kampeti. When I teach about anukampā^[12], compassion, it uses the same root word 'kamp', which means to shake. Anukampā is the heart shaking or trembling in the presence of the suffering of other people.

In Long Discourse 21, "turbulence is a disease... turbulence drags a person to be regenerated in one state of existence or another." This idea of shaking and turbulence as agitation is emphasized in both texts.

Q&A and Reflections

Cody: I noticed some interesting connections in Stephen Batchelor's recent book where he talks about the intersection between the Greeks and the Buddhists of India. He gives a little explanation as to why they started depicting the Buddha in statues. I found it interesting that you mentioned that this particular storytelling modality was something that was inherited from other cultures as well. I wonder if this later addition was a result of that same cultural exchange that resulted in the Buddha starting to be depicted differently.

Gil: That's an interesting question. I assumed that it wasn't borrowed from somewhere else, but rather it spontaneously arises in different cultures because it's so pervasive all over the world. But it is found in Homer, which is very important for the Greeks. Is it a technique that was borrowed? The Greeks were making their way to the edges of India; they were in what's now Pakistan for a long time. It's very hard to understand the origins of where these texts were composed, but there is some suggestion that it was probably composed in northwestern India, not too far away from where the Greeks were.

Mike: Is it okay to ask a question that kind of skips ahead a bit? Your essay mentions that symmetric structure. We hear the Buddha's answer twice in the audio recording and in the text of the translation. When I was listening to it and reading the text, I was surprised that when Moggallāna returns to the Buddha, we don't get it a third time in the translation.

Gil: Oh, that's strange. They're reading Bhikkhu Sujato's translation. Maybe Sujato chose not to include that because it seemed too redundant. There's a patience issue among Western audiences. Why do I bother, I got the point. But if you're chanting and performing these songs, the refrain is as important as the other lyrics. I suspect that Sujato just didn't include it. It's in Bhikkhu Bodhi's translation. It's also in the Pāli. So it does appear the third time there.

Michelle: Thank you, Gil. I love Majjhima 37. I find the Sakka of the Majjhima very relatable, much more so than in the Dīgha Nikāya because he has what I've heard called 'palace-induced amnesia'. I can very much relate to having profound experiences of hearing these transformative teachings and being like, "Wow, I really get it," and then I come back home and it's so easy to forget. The other thing that I think is very interesting is this chiasmus^[13] structure. You pointed out that when Moggallāna shook Sakka's palace with his toe, that was the dramatic climax. The first time I read this, one of the first things that popped out at me was how the fourth tetrad of the Ānāpānasati Sutta is mentioned here. The liberation sequence: anicca^[14], virāga^[15], nirodha^[16], paṭinissagga^[17]—impermanence, dispassion, cessation, and relinquishment. As a practitioner, that first part of that liberation sequence, anicca or impermanence, I think is maybe what Moggallāna was trying to trigger. I also am curious about why you translated upādāna^[18] as 'clinging' instead of 'adhering' as Bhikkhu Bodhi did, whether there was a conscious decision on your part about that.

Gil: There's definitely a literary play here between the middle of the seven steps to liberation where anicca is at the heart of it with the shaking of the palace. I think this is a literary way to give emphasis to the importance of anicca, doing it on a celestial level. The worldly audience listening to this would have gotten a sense of urgency to know about this tremendous power that Moggallāna has.

Why did I translate the word as 'clinging' or 'attached to'? I decided that 'clinging' isn't so good because the word 'clinging' appears later in a different way in step number five, and I didn't want to translate two different Pāli words the same way. 'Adhering' didn't quite work for me because in English it's too easy to read like adhering to some kind of belief system or doctrine. I translated it as 'attachment'. In popular English we often use the word attachment, but this poor word has been unused by most translators of Pāli texts. I thought finally we can give this poor English word a Buddhist role.

Regarding the fourth tetrad, it's a standard sequence of description of the process to awakening. I think it certainly deserves more consideration. The Ānāpānasati Sutta sounds like a later Sutta that was composed a long time after the Buddha because it's a composite unifying all these different teachings.

Meg: All the monastics that I know have a really exquisite sīla^[19], and they would never say anything that was remotely deceptive. I find it strange that Moggallāna was depicted in the second act as using deception when he asked Sakka to relate the teachings so that he could hear them too. He already heard them.

Gil: My understanding is that Moggallāna just wanted to know if Sakka understood. Did Sakka remember? How important was this? In the ancient world, there were no books, so they regularly asked each other to repeat the teachings they already knew so they could hear it again. It was just a common practice.

Scott: I became curious, do you have a similar view of Majjhima 119, Mindfulness of the Body, as an amalgam of earlier teachings?

Gil: Yes, I think so. What we seem to have in the three sati suttas in the Majjhima—the Four Foundations of Mindfulness, the Mindfulness of Breathing Sutta, and the Mindfulness of the Body Sutta—is bringing together different lists and harmonizing them. It seems to be a strong tendency to want to show how things work together. In later Buddhism, there became a heavy divide between mindfulness and concentration (jhāna^[20]) practice. In 119, we see mindfulness combined with jhāna practice. I think it's a part of that unification effort.

Mike: This seven-step process starts with hearing that 'nothing is worth being attached to.' And when I read that, I thought, 'It's not that easy.' Is there something about Buddhist culture or translations that I'm missing?

Gil: You should probably go and spend three months doing a retreat at IMS. Then on the 10 days before the end, have someone read you this statement: 'Nothing's worth clinging to.' Your mind will be so fertile, so ready to understand how this can apply to every moment of your life. Your life has become so simplified in that retreat context that it's really easy to see the moment-to-moment flow of attachment and freedom from it. You have to prepare yourself for it. You don't just go watch Netflix and then open the book and say, "How does this work?" [Laughter]

Ash: The kernel in there in the middle, the earth-shaking toe, is the 'Oh, we just sit and observe what arises and passes as sensation coming in through the six sense doors as pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral.' The humbling thing about this Sutta is that even the great Indra^[21] can be made to look like a fool as a consumer of craving of these palaces.

Gil: Yes. What I appreciate very much was pointing out how human it is to forget. Even Sakka, who was a stream-enterer, can lose track of all this. So let's be really careful. Let's not spend too much time in palaces. [Laughter] Palace-induced amnesia.

Bonnie: I was so struck by the instructions that were given to Sakka about not being attached to anything, and then ironically Sakka was not even attached to the teachings—he just let everything go. But that was not the point. It brought up the whole question of how does one hold the teachings?

Gil: Yes. In the Numerical Discourse 7.61, the Buddha said to Moggallāna: "I do not praise bonding with everyone whatsoever, nor do I praise bonding with no one at all. I do not praise bonding with householders or monastics, but I do praise bonding with quiet and noiseless lodgings far from the flurry of people..." Maybe there's a healthy bonding to the teaching that is not exactly the same as clinging. That's not what Sakka is doing; he just says "Great" and hangs out with his maidens.

Trying to understand the historical layering of these texts is a fool's errand because it's so hard to do well. But one of the things we see is that there's a wide range of time in which it was possible to have been composed in its current form because these texts were changing so much in ancient India. Some texts have so many surviving versions. The Angulimāla Sutta has 17 different versions. The Pāli version is one of those texts that's constructed as a chiasmus. It's very tightly and carefully constructed. I like to think that when you have this storyteller's technique used so beautifully, it's probably many centuries after the Buddha. The purpose of some of these Suttas was to inspire people with wonder and awe. Issues of psychic power were prominent and interesting for a popular audience. We see the craftsmanship of the people who put this together.

The primary takeaway for me is that we should be careful not to assume too easily that any Sutta you're reading contains the teachings of the historical Buddha. We have to be willing to look at these texts for how they support our practice and our way of seeing in liberating ways, and be careful that we don't get too fundamentalist.