Channa Sutta: Impermanance and Attachment to Self

This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video The Five Aggregates and Attachment to Self. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.

The following talk was given by Gil Fronsdal at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on July 02, 2023. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Channa Sutta: Impermanance and Attachment to Self

Morning everyone, and welcome, both to everyone here and those who might be watching on YouTube. Hello, and I've been away for a month or so. It's nice to be back here with all of you.

I was away doing a month-long retreat, really on my own in a cabin up in the Sierras. But I had one discourse with the Buddha that went through my mind, that I reviewed and was kind of an inspiration for it, and so I'd like to share that with you today.

There's a core teaching of the Buddha that's given in this discourse. It's not spoken directly by the Buddha—he gave it, but then a disciple repeats it in the context of the story. The story is interesting. The teaching itself is particularly powerful, and it's said to be the teaching from the Buddha that was the genesis of Zen, of Mahayana Buddhism, of this famous philosopher Nagarjuna. So it's a very, very significant teaching, but the fact that it's in this wider context of the story is nice.

The story has to do with a monk named Channa^[1]. Channa had been a monk for maybe 45 years, and he was distraught for a number of reasons. For one, after 45 years of being a monk in the time of the Buddha, he still wasn't enlightened. He still didn't have his awakening. He knew the teachings, but he had not seen the teachings. Just learning the teaching is one thing, but to see it for yourself in your direct experience, that's a whole other thing. But not only had he not discovered and experienced the teaching for himself, he apparently was a bit of a troubled man.

Many of you have heard of him without his name, if you've heard the story of how the Buddha left the palace as a prince and went with his charioteer out into the streets. He was given a kind of protected life, but somehow he was able to leave the palace compound, and his charioteer took him out into the streets. There he encountered what's called the Four Heavenly Messengers^[2]. He saw someone who was sick, someone who was old, someone who had died, and then he saw a monastic renunciant. He had never seen those before. It's kind of unusual in the world to not see sickness, old age, and death, though many people in the modern United States don't see it very brightly, especially death. Things are put away. Coincidentally, the first time I ever saw a dead body in my life was when I was 11 years old in Nepal, which is where the Buddha went out. I was out in the streets, and there was this young child wrapped in a blanket being carried to the river to be burned.

So the Buddha was 29, supposedly, and the charioteer's name was Channa. This is the man who became a monk. The story is that he was born around the same time as the Buddha, born of a servant, maybe a servant in the palace. So probably Channa and the Buddha grew up together; probably they were friends, they'd known each other for a long time.

To make this connection between the Buddha and Channa more powerful, when the Buddha eventually escaped the palace and went to renounce his royalty and go off from the Himalayan foothills down into the plains where he did his spiritual seeking as a renunciant, Channa took him on the first leg of that journey. He took him out to the edges of the kingdom, and then the Buddha said, "Okay, you can leave me here." He took off his royal garments, his jewels, and handed them to Channa, saying, "I don't need this anymore, they're yours." And then Channa was supposed to go back with them all.

So that was a momentous role for Channa, and it is said it was very meritorious to be the one who supported the Buddha to do his renunciation. After the Buddha was enlightened, he came back to his hometown, and Channa then ordained as a monk.

But it seemed like he had some problems. Maybe he was a troubled person. For one thing, he kept breaking the root monastic rules, and he would deny that he broke them. At some point, it was bad enough that the Buddha said, "Okay, you have to go live by yourself for a while. You can't live together with other monastics." So what he did was he just went and found another Buddhist community to live in, in another town. That was breaking the rule, so the Buddha called him back and they worked something out. But he was known to be obstinate and stubborn.

He also had an arrogance, a conceit, because of this special connection he had to the Buddha. This conceit maybe interfered with his engaging in the practice. Apparently, his behavior as a monastic became bad enough that one of the last declarations the Buddha made before he died—one of the last significant things he had to say—was something like, "By the way, the monk Channa, he is going to have the Brahma-danda^[3]," the Brahma punishment. This is considered to be one of the highest punishments you can get as a monastic, and that is that no monastic in the order is supposed to talk to him anymore. He wasn't disrobed, it's just like, "No one should talk to him," and that's pretty bad. It makes you isolated. So he must have done something pretty bad, but not bad enough to be disrobed. That was one of the last significant things the Buddha had to say.

So the Buddha died, and then Ananda^[4], the Buddha's attendant—who was also from the same town and they had known each other for a long time—it was his job to go tell Channa about this order, this thing that had happened. That seemed to have upset Channa quite a bit. It seemed to have been a wake-up call for him, and he decided, "Well, I better get serious here about my practice. I better do something here." Maybe that's what the Buddha knew. The Buddha knew that Channa needed some real poking to really get him to get serious after 45 years of being a monk and not really doing the practice.

And in fact, that's what he did. He got serious. The sutta^[5] called the Channa Sutta begins with Channa going around to the elder monks of the time early in the morning, maybe waking them up, and he says to them, "May the elders instruct me. May the elders teach me. May the elders provide me with a Dharma^[6] talk so I can see the Dhamma." So he really is ready, he wants to see it; he doesn't just want to know it. However, there's this rule, the Brahma-danda, that he's not supposed to be talked to. So the elder monks kind of dismiss him, but they do give him a little teaching. They give him the most rote, formulaic teaching of the Buddha, the core Buddhist teaching of the time.

It's almost like you feel like they're just yelling at him. They are giving the teachings of the five aggregates^[7]. Usually, it's called form, feeling, perception, mental formations, and consciousness. I prefer to translate it as appearances, feelings, recognitions, mental constructs, and cognitions. The elders say to Channa, "Appearances are impermanent, inconstant. Feelings are inconstant. Recognitions are inconstant. Mental constructs are inconstant, and cognitions we have are inconstant." And then they close the door. Sometimes they say, "And all those things are not-self. Appearances are not-self, feelings are not-self, recognitions are not-self, mental constructs are not-self, and cognitions are not-self." And they close the door.

And so Channa says, "Wait a minute." He's distraught. He speaks to himself, "I know all this. I know all this, but my mind is not leaping in inspiration by this teaching. My mind has not become confident, settled, resolved about the quieting of all my mental constructs, all the shenanigans in my mind, my chatter. I'm not confident about the value of doing that, of quieting the mind and constructs, of giving up all my attachments, of ending my craving, of Nibbana^[8]—freedom, liberation."

So not only hasn't he seen it for himself, but it doesn't inspire him. He doesn't understand it well enough to see that this is a great thing. It is hard to understand how this teaching on the five aggregates is a wonderful teaching, but maybe I'll try a little bit to give you a feeling, because it will prepare you for what's going to come.

They say that appearances are inconstant and impermanent. What this means is anything that appears at any of the five sense doors. Sights appear. Sounds appear and we hear them. Smells appear and we smell them. Tastes appear and we taste them, and tactile experiences appear. These are called appearances, and these are inconstant. They're constantly shifting and changing and flowing and becoming different things. You go through the day and there's a whole series of different physical sensations you'll experience throughout the day.

It's a little after 10:00 and I'm already hot. Probably we should turn the air conditioner on, and then we'll have different sensations in our body. But this morning it was kind of cool and nice. It's all shifting and changing. What has appeared for us, for some of us, is it's warm. But we know that it's not going to stay warm. It's going to be warm for a few hours, but sooner or later it'll get cool and things will shift and change. We know this is inconstant. For some things, we say, "Okay, we'll put up with this for now. We'll work with this now. I'm not going to get attached to it having to be this way, or attached to it needing to be different, because it's all shifting and changing." The sense of shifting and changing can loosen up the grip we have on how things are at any given moment.

This becomes more important when it has to do with our feelings. Feelings here in the Buddhist context means the experience of pleasantness and unpleasantness. That also is shifting and changing throughout the day, and the hour, and the minute, depending on what the mind lands on. Now unfortunately, I brought up the fact that it's warm in here, so maybe some of you have been reminded of how unpleasant that is, or maybe some of you find it very pleasant and very satisfying. But if I hadn't said it, you probably would have been so gripped by my teaching that you wouldn't have noticed it. [Laughter] So you can be reminded of things, or I can tell some tantalizing story—more tantalizing than Channa's story—and you'll be on the edge of your seat and you won't notice that your body's uncomfortable or you won't notice how pleasant certain things are. All these things appear, they come and go, they change and shift.

There's something very significant about tuning in to how the stream of sensations comes and goes and shifts and changes all the time, that somehow is quite freeing if we see it and live in it. We partly don't live in it because we live in our constructs. We often live in the stories we tell ourselves and the interpretations, or the recognitions, the third of these five aggregates.

Recognitions have to do with how we identify or see something. That is innocent enough: you see a door and you recognize it as a door. It seems no problem. But we recognize things that are often a problem. Racism is a recognition; you recognize people in a certain way. Or internalized racism; you recognize yourself in a certain way, or all kinds of other ways in which we recognize other people or recognize ourselves. When we see other people on the street, what are we seeing? What are we reacting to? What are we identifying? What are we taking as being the important thing to notice? If someone looks big and threatening and dangerous, that's the recognition: danger. If someone is really attractive, then the recognition is, "Ah, this is interesting, maybe I shouldn't look."

We recognize things, but when we can see that the recognitions we have are contingent, that they are partly a product of our own mind and they also come and go, we can see them come. "Oh, there's one." I've gone down the street and recognized someone as a dangerous person. And then I say, "Oh, I could watch my mind have that thought." Because I can see it being born, is that really so? I didn't have that thought before. That thought came out of my mind, it's a mind creation, a construct. It might not be true. But if I don't have the mindfulness to see the birth of the thought, then the person and the danger are not distinct. I kind of meld those together, and my projection of danger on that person is who the person is in my eyes.

So to be able to see the arising and then the disappearing of these recognitions we have is very freeing and very wise. Then you can give that person on the street a second look: "Is this really the case? Oh no, the person just looks like my third-grade bully, and that's all. Actually, the person looks quite sweet." And so the recognition bubble pops. Or perhaps the person is dangerous. I used to live in a dangerous neighborhood. All my roommates got robbed at gunpoint or knifepoint except for me. I'd see people and think, "I think I'll cross the street," and then they'd follow me, and then I went into a store to be safe. So there are dangers out there, but to be able to see the recognition and ask, "Are we really seeing accurately?"

And then the stories, the constructs we make, are kind of related. To see how they come and go, see how they're born, gives us a sense that they're not solid, they're not fixed. "Oh, I made a story up." And then cognitions are all kind of in the same regard. The difference between cognition and recognition is not that great in the teachings, but cognitions are more basic than recognitions. Recognition is a recognition of something you already know from before.

But to say this in a simplistic way over and over again, as the elder monks did, makes the mind numb. That's probably what happened to Channa. They told him, "These are all impermanent, all these are not-self. These are just things that are occurring; don't make a self out of them." So again, the heat that's happening here: who are you? Are you the sensations of heat at the moment? Are you the heat? Are you the unpleasantness of the heat? If you make yourself like, "I am that unpleasantness," then who are you when it gets cool? Do you shift and change your identity based on what you're feeling all the time? Is your identity fixated by what you recognize, or something deeper? Many of the recognitions we have about ourselves are contingent, are tentative, are not so accurate even, but we can live glued onto them and have a lot of suffering. To see these five different areas as being impermanent and not-self, to see it directly, is one of the things that the early Buddhist tradition said was freeing.

So Channa had enough of this from these guys. He was distraught and he said, "I'm not inspired by any of this." Instead, he says, "My mind doesn't leap in inspiration. Rather, what grows is my anxiety and my clinging." He's just an anxious guy. The more he looks at this and feels, the more anxious he gets, the more he clings and holds on. Poor guy. He says, "My mind is spinning." And then his companions in the spiritual life, his fellow monks, are not really talking to him anymore. So what is he going to do?

He thinks to himself, "For someone who sees the teachings, it does not occur to ask, 'Who then is the self? What is the self?'" Someone who sees doesn't ask that question, which is a common question. It's considered one of the great spiritual or existential questions: "Who am I?" But for the Buddhists, there's something about if you really see this life directly in a clear way, you wouldn't ask that question.

So he asks, "So that I can see the teaching, who is it who can point the teachings out to me? Who can make it clear?" And then he remembers Ananda. He says, "Ananda was praised by the Buddha and esteemed by his wise companions in the holy life. Venerable Ananda can point out the Dhamma so I can see the teaching. I have a lot of love for Venerable Ananda, why don't I visit him?" It's very touching. This guy is so troubled, and he says, "I have a lot of love for this man." So he goes to see Ananda.

He goes to Ananda and he tells him the story of what happened with the elder monks and the whole story that led up to why he came. And then he says, "May Venerable Ananda instruct me. May Venerable Ananda teach me. May Venerable Ananda provide me with a Dhamma talk so I can see the teaching."

In reply, Ananda said, "On this matter, I am certainly delighted with Venerable Channa, that you have opened up and cut through your obstinacy." You know, he apparently wasn't available for the teachings for 45 years and he was obstinate. That's quite something to come to the teaching, partly because he was around it and around it but wouldn't really open himself up to really listen and take it in. But now, finally, after all this, he was willing to. So Ananda says, "I'm delighted that you've opened up and cut through your obstinacy. Listen, venerable, give ear. Channa, you can understand the Dhamma. You can understand the teachings."

Then Channa thought to himself, very excitedly, "Oh! It seems I am capable of understanding the Dhamma. If Ananda says so, it must be true!" And so a great rapture and delight sprung up in Venerable Channa.

Here's something very significant: to have someone else believe in you. To have someone else think you can do this, you can understand. Some people grow up without having anyone who believes in them in that way. There's a real barrier to learn, to open up, to even go out into the world if you haven't been believed in and supported and shown that you're capable and loved and cared for. Maybe Channa, you know, he was the son of a servant, and maybe there's something about that life of poverty and servitude that didn't really support him to have that kind of confidence. Or maybe it was a difficult life and maybe something shut down, or he was discouraged. Who knows what happened to him, who knows why he was so difficult for all his life. But for someone like Ananda to say, "You can," that really went deep. He had rapture and delight.

So then Ananda starts giving him the teaching. He says, "I heard this in the very presence of the Buddha." This is a teaching the Buddha gave to a different monk named Kaccanagotta^[9]. Kaccanagotta asked the Buddha, "What is Right View?" Right View is the right way of seeing or the right understanding to have to engage in the Dhamma. Generally, more technically, Right View in Buddhism is the way we see the world when we have the first glimpse of enlightenment. It's not just what you learn from a book, but when your Dharma eye, your enlightened eye, opens, now you see in a new way. So when this monk asks, "What is Right View?", he's asking more than just for some piece of teaching. He's asking, "What is the vision that we have of the world when we're enlightened?"

The Buddha says—as Ananda is repeating to Channa—"This world relies on the dyad of existence and non-existence, that things exist or they don't exist. But when one sees with right wisdom the arising of the world as it comes to be, the thought of non-existence doesn't occur. When one sees with right wisdom the cessation of the world, it doesn't occur that something exists."

So the idea that things exist—a particular thing that exists—that's a big problem. Of course you exist, but in the Buddhist worldview, you don't exist as a fixed thing. There's no essential, fixed, solid core thing that you are. And also you don't not exist. This is an enigmatic quandary people struggle with. "How does this mean I don't exist and I don't not exist? I mean, these Buddhists are crazy, giving these kinds of statements."

But the Buddha says that if you can see that a thought arises—maybe I'm paraphrasing—a thought arises in your mind, "That person is dangerous." You see that it was just born in that moment. It didn't have an existence before, it's temporary, it's just there. It doesn't exist in some permanent, solid way; it's there as a visitor. But it's there, you can't say it doesn't exist. But because you see it pass away, after a while you no longer have that thought, then you see that the person just looks like your third-grade bully. And so immediately you feel okay, you see, "Oh, the person's sweet actually." Then you see it go, you say, "Well, now I see it went away." And so because it went away, it didn't solidly exist as something. So you don't say it exists, you don't say it doesn't exist. What you say is that it's in process, it's inconstant. It comes and goes, it's part of the flowing and shifting and changing stream of living experience that we live in.

The idea in Buddhism is to learn how to float, swim in the stream of the constantly shifting and changing world that we live in, as opposed to—if I'm allowed to stretch this metaphor—getting stuck in the river in the wintertime when it gets frozen over and you're frozen in it and you can't get out. So often we get frozen around our ideas, frozen around our concepts and feelings and emotions, holding on to them and clinging to them and getting fixated. To see their comings and goings—"Oh, they are just appearing now for a while, it was born, it just came into being, and now it's gone"—there's something about seeing that and knowing that where we begin to relax our grip. Something begins to thaw and melt that has been frozen for a long time or fixated for a long time. When the Buddha says "the arising of the world," he means the world of our experience. It's very clear in the teachings it doesn't mean the external world, it's the world of our experience that comes and goes.

The next teaching is what was very significant for me in my month-long retreat, that supported me as I went through. I'm going to paraphrase it to make it real simple and maybe understandable. This world is mostly attached. Most people are attached. But in relationship to these attachments, if one does not cling to the attachments, if one does not cling to them with the idea, "This is who I am," that is freeing. It's one thing to be attached, it's another thing to put on top of that a second attachment where I'm identifying myself, "I am that attachment."

I might really like ice cream. Hot day, it seems nice. Attached to ice cream, that's ordinary enough. But then I get attached to, "I am the ice cream eater. I am the ice cream liker, and I better let everyone else know that this is who I am. I'm going to prove that I'm a really good ice cream liker by buying sophisticated ice cream flavors, and show that I'm a special ice cream eater, not just an ordinary ice cream eater. I'm going to get a little label on my shirt that says 'Champion Ice Cream Eater'." And then it becomes important not just to go to the ordinary ice cream shop, but you have to go to the artisan ice cream shop to get the most sophisticated ice cream, because that says something about who you are as a sophisticated person.

It's one thing to really like ice cream and want it and maybe even crave it, but the layer of selfing that can go on top of it can be quite strong. That's a silly example; I'm hoping that you can apply it and see that maybe something like this plays itself out in your life also. One identification and clinging, especially among Buddhists, is because in Buddhism we're trying not to cling. We see that we're clinging, and now we say, "I'm a bad Buddhist." Now we've added a second layer of clinging, clinging to a kind of self we've identified: "I am a bad Buddhist." It's bad enough to cling to ice cream, but to then be a bad Buddhist because you do it, that's adding these layers.

The teaching goes: the world gets attached, but someone with right view does not cling to the idea, "This is who I am." Then one will have no doubt that that very dukkha^[10], that suffering of the attachment, is just the arising of suffering. One will have no doubt that when it disappears, it's just a disappearing of it.

There's something about the attachment to self that we have, the clinging to self and applying it to all different things, that obscures the nature of the first layer of attachment. There's something about "me," "myself," and "mine" that we overlay on top of it that freezes it, fixates it, obscures it. But if we don't identify with our clinging, don't identify with our attachments—we don't say, "I'm attached," we say, "There is attachment here"—then there's a better chance to see that all it is, is suffering. Suffering is occurring.

If you get really—maybe some of you now too, I'm sorry if I caused this for you—mostly what you're thinking about now is ice cream, and you're like, "As soon as this is over, Gil needs to stop talking because I need to get out to this ice cream store quickly." You're attached to your ice cream. But if you're not distracted by, "I need to go to ice cream, I'm the great ice cream eater and I need to prove it," and you're staying close to the primary attachment, then there's an opportunity to see that that's suffering, that hurts. Ouch, there's a clinging, a contraction or hurt, distress. Any attachment we have involves stress. Anytime we clamp down, it clings, it's stressful. To see the stress, what the Buddhists call dukkha, as just arriving, to have the ability to be mindful—"There it is, it just appeared"—gives you the opportunity to stay in the stream and not freeze. "Oh, it's just suffering, that's what it is."

The Buddha goes on and says, if you see this clearly, then you will become independent in the teaching. You won't depend on anybody else or any book or anything, because it's not learning the teaching, now you see it. Which is the goal that Channa had: he wanted to see. And Ananda is pointing, saying, "You see it by seeing how you get attached to self around the experiences you have." Sometimes it's a negative attachment, sometimes it's a positive attachment, sometimes it's just a confused attachment. But the selfing thing is a big source of suffering, and the attachment to self is considered the primary core suffering, because it obscures all the other clingings. We can't see it as part of the stream and the flow and the shifting and changing, so we can float along without freezing around it.

That's all it takes. You don't have to get a PhD in Buddhist studies to understand the Dharma. This is how you see it: see how things, when they appear, when you're right there, mindful right there, "Oh, there it is, it appears. Oh, and there it went." It makes the mind, the heart, more fluid, more at ease, more open, more willing to be carried along in the stream of life as it flows and goes through us.

The Buddha goes on and says, as quoted by Ananda: "Everything exists is one extreme. Everything does not exist is the second extreme. Avoiding the two extremes, the Tathagata teaches the Dharma through the middle." And the middle is that things arise and they pass. That's the alternative, that's the way you find your way into the middle of the stream where it's not frozen, where everything flows.

I sat in my retreat and was reminded of these teachings regularly. Right there, awareness arising right there. Don't make this a self. Don't make this into "me, myself, and mine." Let it be. Let it just flow, let it come and go. Feel the suffering of it. When we see and feel how the arisings and passings are suffering, it makes it a lot easier and simpler to want to let go of it. We are sophisticated people sometimes, so if we have sophisticated clingings like the ice cream, it's hard to give it up. But if we just see, "Oh, that's clinging to ice cream, that's suffering, that's stress," it makes it a lot simpler and easier to let go.

The sutta ends with Channa telling Ananda, "Reverend Ananda, this is how it is to have care, to be cared for." Isn't that nice? For all these decades maybe he was not open, not available to feel how people cared for him. "This is how it is to have care, well-wishing, instruction, and teaching by the venerables who are our companions in the holy life. Having heard this Dhamma, this teaching, the teaching now has been fully settled."

I thought there's a huge humanity to this story about this man who was troubled, and what it took to somehow be open to hear the teachings, and then as he heard these teachings to feel cared for and loved, and then to understand. Now it's settled, now he knows. Whether you understand that core teaching that is said to be the origin of much of Mahayana Buddhism, at least you were struck by the humanity of care and love and believing in each other. And maybe that's the way to be open, to be available to hear these teachings. Then maybe someday you do have the teaching settled.

So thank you very much, and may you all be well.

Q&A

Gil Fronsdal: Sometimes during these last months we've been meeting out in the parking lot afterwards for questions and discussion. It's kind of hot out there probably, so I suggest we turn the air conditioner on and I'll just stay here for a while. Some of you who want to stay, we can have a little discussion.

Any questions anyone wants to ask? Maybe we can use the handheld mic so that people can hear them. We'll take maybe 10 minutes for this.

Questioner 1: Gil, I was just wondering which sutta that is about Channa?

Gil Fronsdal: It's called the Channa Sutta, and it's known by its number. It's 22.90 in the Connected Discourses. So the 22nd chapter, it's the 90th sutta in that chapter. I also posted my translation on IMC's website under "What's New," under "Reflections from Gil." So you can find it there if you want to read it again.

Questioner 2: Thank you very much for that talk, Gil. I'm really struck by the transition of awareness, emptiness, and then metta^[11]. For Channa, it's almost as if he had the talks but he wasn't aware. And then this sense of not belonging somehow cut through that sense of maybe ignorance, delusion. And then with the teachings on emptiness, it allowed the metta and the karuna^[12] to just flow freely. It was told beautifully, and part of the direction that flowed was into him.

Gil Fronsdal: Beautiful. Okay.

Questioner 3: I just wanted to state an interesting quote I read the other day from Alan Arkin, the actor who recently died. He said, "Acting is not who I am; acting is what I do." That really drove home that point of the self, of how we identify with the things that we are—professions and beliefs and all that stuff.

Gil Fronsdal: Very nice. Thank you. "Acting is not who I am, it's what I do." Including being a Buddhist. Instead of just following the path, maybe no one should be a Buddhist, we just do Buddhism.

Questioner 4: Thank you. I just want to say the believing in me piece is really inspiring and resonating. Sometimes, due to circumstances, the people you are close with may not believe in you or your pursuits. I just want to express the gratitude of the Sangha^[13], in the way that we find belief and care.

Gil Fronsdal: Fantastic. And it's fantastic that you resonated with that. That's really meaningful that you took that in. Thank you. [Applause]

Questioner 5: I was curious how the Buddha missed that? He missed that, didn't he, with Channa for 40 years?

Gil Fronsdal: You know, you can't expect everyone to get it right all the time. It's a pretty big order; we expect the Buddha to be perfect, but he was human too. That's why we need a Sangha community, so that we all have different kinds of capacities or connections. Channa needed Ananda. And on that point, maybe Channa wasn't ready when the Buddha was. He wasn't ready; he was so closed and obstinate. The medicine was that the Buddha finally at the end of his life said, "No one is supposed to talk to you anymore, you're not part of this community." That's powerful medicine. I hope that the Buddha did that out of all his wisdom, he knew what was needed, and that seemed to have worked. That moment led to what eventually happened. Sometimes very strong language, strong actions are needed.

Questioner 6: Gil, good to have you back. I wonder if you feel like sharing more about how you worked with that teaching during your retreat. More like specific things you noticed?

Gil Fronsdal: Simple things like if I was doing walking meditation and I had this thought that, "Oh, I'm not getting concentrated enough." So I said, "Oh, that's a stressful thought that just arose. It was just a thought that arose. I don't have to believe it, I don't have to identify with it or make myself into a bad walking meditator. Oh, look at that, it was just the arising of that." And then it would just kind of dissolve. I think there are a lot of little things like that throughout the day.

Questioner 7: I was also struck by the fact that Ananda, despite the Buddha's instructions not to speak to Channa, that Ananda not only spoke to Channa, he really engaged with him fully. I think that's profound to me, and I don't know if you have any thoughts about that as well.

Gil Fronsdal: Ananda has this reputation of being a really friendly monk, and he was much more friendly than some people thought he should be. For example, he was a big supporter of the nuns, and sometimes some people thought he was too friendly to nuns. So he had a very friendly disposition, that's what he was known for, the nice guy. And then in terms of this rule that the Buddha set against Channa, Channa soon thereafter became fully enlightened, and when you're fully enlightened all those rules get dissolved, they go away. So then he was in good standing.

Questioner 8: One thing when I was hearing this story was that if I were to know Channa, I would feel very frustrated at his closed-offness. I'm wondering if there's anything else around how the rest of the Sangha felt, maybe if they did feel that frustration or how they dealt with it?

Gil Fronsdal: Probably that's why the elders just dismissed him with these simple teachings—"It's all impermanent, go away." It might have been not just the rule that the Buddha established that no one should talk to him, but it might be they'd had decades of seeing how difficult he'd been, how he wouldn't listen or hear. It was pointless to try, maybe people had tried for years to get through to him, and so their frustration was there. It might have been a very difficult person for others. Why he was difficult, we don't know. Maybe we shouldn't even say he was difficult, maybe he was—nowadays we have the expression neurodivergent. Maybe he had some kind of different brain than other people and he behaved differently. I've known people who I was a little bit cautious around until I found out that they had some kind of neurodivergence that was completely normal for some people to have, and I thought, "Oh, that's why they are the way they are." Okay, and then I was completely happy with them. So who knows what the story was, so hard to reconstruct back there.

But it's such a common human phenomenon for people to be closed down to each other, shut down, not be available, and be judgmental. And then somehow for love, care, and respect to dissolve that and open things up. I think that's one of the powerful lessons of practice. Ananda represents someone who understands the value and power of love and care and friendliness, even for difficult people.

Questioner 9: I just wanted to get some explanation on this issue of attachment. In terms of the degree of attachment, is it strong, is it mild, is it non-existent, and how it obscures the power of observation and awareness as you described? Is there a way that you could act normally in regards to these things? For example, obviously if you completely identify with who you are as a professional—doctor, engineer—is it just a matter of the security that is required to live? Is that an attachment, and does it obscure your power of observation?

Gil Fronsdal: If I understand what you're saying, I can reply this way: I think it's important not to think that attachment is a crime. Just because Buddhism is about the ending of attachment doesn't mean that it's necessarily wrong to be attached. It is stressful, it does hurt in some way, but sometimes attachment is better than the alternative. For example, security and safety. Being attached to a job, because if you don't have a job, how can you take care of your family or your old age? You could give up the attachment, but the attachment to the job keeps you motivated to do it well. If you don't attach, you might be lackadaisical and get fired, not show up for work, and then the repercussions are worse. If the alternative to attachment is worse, maybe it's good to keep the attachment for the time being, but don't reify it. Don't make it into a belief or religion that you're supposed to be attached. Recognize, "Oh, this is attachment, this is probably the wisest way I can do things right now. I don't have to get rid of all my attachments right away just because I'm attached. Let me keep practicing."

When the time is right, the practice is quite powerful. It's almost like the practice has its own wisdom. If you keep doing mindfulness practice, when the time is ready to address an attachment, you'll know. The fact that you know you're attached doesn't mean you have to fix it right away. So when it's the best alternative, keep it. I know Buddhist teachers say even being attached to Buddhism is sometimes better than the alternative. Keep it as long as it's beneficial. At some point the benefits will not be there, and then you'll know, it's self-correcting. If you become obsessed with it, that gets edgy, because then your family is not going to be happy. [Laughter]

Questioner 10: Thank you so much for the story, Gil. I've been replaying that story in my head again and again. I really liked the story, and I've been noticing recently how unconditional love is the answer to so many questions, and I really loved how Ananda was there just giving Channa unconditional love irrespective of all the rules and everything.

Gil Fronsdal: Beautiful. Thank you, nice to hear. So we should stop. Thank you all, very nice to sit here with you and be here.