Good evening.
Welcome back to our study of the Dhammapada.
Today we continue on with verse number 78, which reads as follows.
na bhaje papake mite na bhaje purisadame bhajeta kalyane mite bhajeta purisutame
Which means, one should not associate with an evil friend.
One should not associate with a low person.
One should associate with a beautiful friend.
One should associate with the highest person.
This verse, we're told, was taught in regards to Channa.
Channa is one of the more famous figures in the Buddha story.
Every story that tells, every story that you hear about how our great and glorious and wonderful and awesome leader became a Buddha includes Channa.
Have you ever seen the little Buddha with Keanu Reeves?
It has jhana.
Jhana.
Why are those men, why is that man lying there?
What is wrong with those people?
They are sick, my Lord.
Jhana was there with him from childhood.
Jhana was there when he saw the four sights, the four great sights.
He saw an old person, a sick person, a dead person, and then he saw a reckless.
Who is that man?
He is a reckless.
He has gone forth from the home life in order to find freedom from suffering, freedom from death.
That is what I must do.
Have you ever watched Little Buddha?
Or what's another story?
Well, they've all got this story.
And then Chana went with him when he left.
But then he told Chana to turn back.
And Chana turned back.
and brought his, he said to Channa, you must take Khandaka, his horse, and my jewels.
So all of his royal jewels and earrings and whatever he, crown, whatever he was wearing, probably not a crown, but whatever jewels he was wearing, bring these back, my royal accoutrements, because they have to go back to my family, don't want them to get lost.
And so Channa went,
a little way.
I hope I'm not mixing this up with somebody else's story.
Yeah, no.
Channa went back, but Kantaka died of a broken heart.
His horse, his horse who had been born with him, the horse was born on the same day as the Bodhisatta.
I think Channa was as well, actually.
There are five things, this is part of one of the exams we have to take, the first Dhamma exams.
There are like five things that were born on the same day as the Buddha, the Bodhisatta.
The tree,
The Bodhi tree was planted on the same day as the Bodhisatta was born.
I think Yasodhara, his wife-to-be, maybe Ananda.
And Kantaka, the horse, and I don't know, maybe Channa.
I'm grasping.
I don't quite remember.
But I know the horse and the Bodhi tree for sure.
And the horse died of a broken heart because it thought that it would never see its master again.
And it was reborn.
Kantaka was reborn as an angel, I believe.
And there's some story about him that I can't remember either.
But Channa went away and he thought, I can't bring these jewels back.
If I go back without the Bodhisatta, without the prince, they're going to think I did something to him.
They're going to accuse me.
And so he hung the jewels up on a tree and went and became an ascetic himself, lived in the forest.
I think that's the story.
It's easy to get these mixed up.
I don't pay too much attention, but I think that's Channa's story.
How he came to become a monk, I can't remember that.
Eventually he came around to become a bhikkhu, so he ordained under the Buddha.
And I imagine by that time Sariputta and Moggallana were already the two chief disciples, and Channa
Again, we have one of these stories of being close to perfection and having no part in it.
So he was so close to the Buddha, the perfect and perfectly enlightened Buddha.
And what did he do?
He went around mocking the two chief disciples and saying, I was there with him from the very beginning and I never, ever lost track of the Buddha.
I was there when he left home.
I was there when he saw the four sights.
But these two, these two go around saying, I'm the chief disciple.
It actually says that.
It's like he mocks them.
I'm the chief disciple.
Can you imagine, right?
To say that about Sariputta and Moggallana.
And he would say this out loud to people.
They go around thinking they're all that.
And word got back to the Buddha, of course.
And the Buddha called Chana up and asked him if this was true.
And Chana kind of
got shamed, and quieted down for a while, stopped saying such terrible things.
But then he started up again, and he started up again, and the Buddha called him back, and he started up again, and the Buddha called him back the third time, and the third time the Buddha said, Look, Channa, Sariputta and Moggallana could be your best friends.
They could help you so much.
They could do such great things for you if you'd be their friends, because they are the
But they are among the highest of beings.
They are true Kalyanamitta, true good friends.
You should not disparage them.
You should not think little of them, belittle them, mock them.
This is all to your detriment.
And he didn't listen.
But the Buddha said, so before, when he's giving him this lecture, this is when he said the verse, Don't associate with those bad friends of yours.
Don't associate with low people.
Associate with good friends like Sariputta.
Associate with the highest people like Moggallana and Sariputta.
But he didn't listen.
And the story goes on.
the Buddha said to Ananda, said to the monks, he's not going to, during the time I'm alive, as long as I'm alive, he's never going to be, he will never be humbled.
But once I pass away, he will be humbled.
And so Ananda asked him, this is a prelude to the Parinibbana Sutta, Mahaparinibbana Sutta, where Ananda actually asks the Buddha,
What are we supposed to do with Channa?
It's like he remembered this part of the story.
He remembered that the Buddha had once said that after he passed away, Channa would be humbled.
So he said, what do we do to humble him?
And the Buddha said, give him the highest, the ultimate punishment, the Brahmadanda.
Danda means stick, literally, but it's used to mean punishment.
And Brahma means, of course, highest, the God.
Punishment of God, sort of.
But it means the punishment of the highest, or the highest punishment.
The ultimate punishment.
What do you think the ultimate punishment is?
So they asked him, well, what is that ultimate punishment?
What is the Brahmadanda?
And Buddha said, let him say what he wants.
But no one should consort with him, talk to him, teach him, admonish him, get involved with him in any way.
Let no one teach him.
Let no one help him.
Let no one try and make him a better person.
That right there, it's like killing him.
It's like
The Buddha mentioned this kind of thing to a prince once.
I think it was Prince Ambaya, I can't remember.
Diganaka, maybe?
And he said, if I teach people, if I teach my disciples, if I give them a good teaching, tell them this is good, do this, and they don't listen, then I give them a hard teaching.
I say, don't do this, that's bad.
And if they still don't listen, then I kill them.
And he said, what do you mean you killed them?
None of us.
I don't teach them.
I don't help them.
And all of my disciples also cease helping and teaching them.
The prince said, indeed, that's as though killing them.
So this is the ultimate punishment.
And after the Buddha passed away, indeed Ananda went with a bunch of monks.
He told Mahakasipa that this is what the Buddha had said at the first council.
He told Mahakasipa.
And Mahakasipa said, well then you go and bestow this, bestow the Brahmadanda on Channa.
They went to Channa and Channa was shaken by it and eventually humbled.
So that's our story.
How does this relate to our practice?
Well, it's got this very simple teaching, but if we look at the story, we can find a couple of other points.
First is the point of pride.
pride in stature.
I've met people in Buddhist teachers, actually, who are very proud of their seniority and think it's very important to point out how senior they are.
I was practicing since this time and this time.
I'm a senior student of this person and that person.
Like, as though it really matters, right?
As though that says something.
It's funny that Channa would be like that, being so close to the Buddha and still didn't understand.
There's something to be said about seniority.
The Buddha said that's the easiest way to set up a system.
If you have a monastic system, seniority makes things a lot easier.
But that only really applies to an institution, right?
In an institution, seniority makes sense because how are you going to judge merit, right?
And if merit leads to institutional rank,
You can see where the problem lies.
People pretending to have merit or people getting greedy about cultivating their practice simply to gain stature and that kind of thing.
So in that case, going by seniority makes sense.
But to say that somehow you're better than someone or to hold yourself up because of seniority is really ridiculous.
Functionally, it makes sense.
It stops a lot of the ego
But it was funny, I talked to, I was staying with a monk once, and he wasn't the greatest of monks.
And we got in a feud, and at one point he was saying, oh, this monk is so much junior to me.
Or I'm not sure if that was.
Anyway, there was something, and I went to see one of the big monks, and I was saying, you know, this is the
This is what he's saying, and he said, there's many kinds of seniority.
One kind of seniority is seniority of ability.
But the problem there is, how do you decide who has the ability?
Still, it makes a lot more sense.
You have to take both into account.
And in fact, you should never, right?
If Moggallana and Sariputta were in that position, they would have never thought, who is this chana guy who the Buddha holds up so highly?
One should never hold oneself above others, right?
So this idea of pride is really important.
We should never think of ourselves as advanced meditators.
Oh, I've been practicing for so many years.
It's usually what we say when we meet other people.
I've been practicing for so many years.
It's really kind of unwholesome, you know, because it's kind of boasting in the sense, like you say it because you want people to be impressed, which is really a bad thing.
It doesn't really work very well, right?
Because who wants to hear that?
Ooh, wow, you're better than me, right?
It's a good way to create animosity, in fact, jealousy.
That's a good test for us, on the other hand, to be humble.
at least to recognize our jealousy, to recognize our ego.
Another thing we don't want to do is be falsely humble, to pretend to be humble or to say, to disparage ourselves in order to appear humble or in order to cultivate humility.
It's not really something you cultivate.
It's funny, you know, wholesome qualities for the most part aren't something you should cultivate.
There's something that should come when your mind is purified.
It's like you purify the soil and everything grows, all the good things grow naturally.
So humility isn't something you can cultivate.
Really the only thing we should be cultivating is mindfulness.
The Buddha put it in a special category.
It's the only one that's always useful.
It's the only one that you should always be focused on.
Because through the practice of mindfulness, you'll see your ego.
You'll see your jealousy.
You'll see these qualities.
If Chana had just been mindful, he would have seen that this wasn't helping him.
It wasn't making him happier.
But that's really the only way to do it.
What else?
Well, there's not too much here, but the big one is in regards to association with good people.
All of us would kill, not kill, would, in this expression, we would give a lot to have the opportunity to be that close to the Buddha, that close to the two disciples, two chief disciples, let alone the Buddha.
Do you imagine having the access to a teacher like Sariputta or Moggallana
And here he is going around disparaging them, saying bad things about them.
Who do they think they are, these newcomers?
The monks were like that as well.
They wondered why Kondanya wasn't made the chief disciple.
The Buddha said it's because of a difference of determination.
Determination is the wish you make.
Atitana means what you fix on, what your goal is, basically.
So Kondanya's goal was to become the first one to realize the Buddhist teaching, and there's a story about him that I think we'll get to if we haven't already.
and Sariputta and Moggallana made the determination it was their long standing wish they weren't newcomers they have been born and died with the Buddha so many lifetimes if you read the Jatakas the number of Jatakas that included Sariputta more than Moggallana I think but also Moggallana they were with him from long long ago
Because when you associate with unpleasant people, how hard is it to be mindful, right?
How easy it is to get caught up in unwholesomeness, to acquire the qualities of these unwholesome people.
Whereas in a way, all you have to do if you're open and you appreciate wise people, all you have to do is be around them.
And through your openness and your appreciation for them, you will only stand to gain.
You will only stand to benefit, to progress, to better yourself, to emulate them, and to follow their example.
So, simple teaching, simple story.
That's the Dhammapada for today.
Thank you all for tuning in.
And keep practicing, and be well.