Attachment: a Tale from Great Ormond Street Hospital

Several years ago a friend told me about a certain documentary he’d seen that had featured the famous Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital In London. I can’t remember what it was called, and I’m not sure I ever knew what the whole thing was about, but part of it focussed on the relationship between the doctors and the nurses on the one hand and the children on the other. What it revealed about the effects of this relationship upon the welfare of the children was both fascinating and troubling. 

As you might have expected, the doctors and nurses naturally grew to become very fond of the children under their care. How could they not? Imagine being surrounded by dozens of toddlers with leukemia, brain tumours and meningitis – to name but a few of the illnesses with which they would have been contending. It must have been heartbreaking. And so the adults devoted their lives to helping these children. They weren’t just doctors and nurses, but friends and surrogate aunties, uncles, and parents, too. In many cases they loved these children as if they were their own.

But when the time came for some of those children to move on – perhaps to another ward, another hospital, or even to their homes – the doctors and nurses couldn’t let them go. They kept hold of them, even though to do so wasn’t in the best interests of the children. A child needed the new treatment; it needed the latest medical equipment only available in the next hospital; it needed to go home. But the doctors and nurses had, unwittingly, become emotionally dependent upon those children. They had become attached.

The love that those adults unquestionably felt for their charges had become tainted. It was no longer simply about the well-being of the children, but about the wants, feelings and desires of the doctors and nurses. Thus, when it came to say good bye, the feelings of the latter took precedence and the children were held back. By behaving in this way, not only had they hindered the children’s progress, they may even have caused them harm.

Did they realise what was happening? Could they see that their attachment was hindering their ability to judge what was best for the children? Were they aware that the children might be harmed? I can’t be sure, but it’s very likely that they didn’t realise. This is the nature of attachment: it blinds us.

This is why we emphasise the point that metta – loving-kindness – is free of attachment. Some people struggle with this. I remember speaking to my cousin about this very subject when he came to visit me in the monastery for the first time about ten years after I had arrived. He was sympathetic to Buddhist teaching and expressed interest in the monastic lifestyle and in particular meditation. But when I mentioned the problems caused by attachment, and that according to Buddhist teaching real love is free of it, he simply couldn’t understand. I don’t remember his exact words but he more or less equated love with attachment. Love is attachment.

But, as we can see from the story above, it isn’t. Attachment is about me. It’s about what I want, how I feel, what I think you should do. Loving-kindness is the very opposite. It’s free of me. That’s why we tack -kindness on the end. I know some scholars translate metta otherwise – goodwill being an example – but that word kindness is, I think, crucial. It reminds us that love is about giving and letting go.

Caramel Surprise!

Well, it wasn’t actually a Caramel Surprise –  the famous Caramel Surprise, from Sainsbury’s, which good old Rose used to bring to the monastery on a Thursday morning – but it looked mighty similar. A light coffee-brown sludge with a topping of whipped cream was visible through the side of the plastic pot. Yes – it was the spitting image. As for the most important question: did it taste the same? I don’t know, because I didn’t have one.

There were only two, you see. Not enough to go around. Nevertheless, there they were, perched next to each other on a tray, ready to be presented to Luangpor as part of the meal offering. They weren’t the only desserts: there were two chocolate versions sitting right beside them as well. But who wants chocolate when there’s caramel? Anyway, two caramel desserts there were, and the tray upon which they rested was placed into Luangpor’s hands.

He took one – naturally – and slid the tray along the floor to me, where I was confronted with one caramel dessert and the two chocolate ones. Desire for the caramel arose. I like caramel. I had eyes only for the caramel. But, exerting my will and bringing to mind the wisdom of sages past, I held back the twitching fingers of one hand and pushed along the tray with the other. Yes – I had resisted my desire for caramel so that some other fortunate being might partake of the heavenly nectar.

However, for some inexplicable reason, the person next in the line didn’t take it. I repeat: he didn’t take it. I’m not even sure he took a chocolate one. What on earth is this? I thought; and I looked on, perplexed, as it disappeared out into the kitchen, no doubt to be pounced upon by an ecstatic guest. ‘You’ve done well, Manapo,’ I reassured myself – not without a twinge of regret.

Twenty-four hours later and I’m sitting in the small shrine room – the room in which we eat – but this time I am at the head of the line. Luangpor is unwell and will be eating in his kuti. I will therefore be receiving the offerings, and putting food into his bowl as well as my own. Before the process begins, I cast my eyes across the dozen trays of food – from the white rice and baked potatoes at the front, to the soy milk and collection of condiments at the back – and what do I see in the middle, alone among the chocolate digestives? The caramel dessert.

It’s impossible, I thought. Why did no one take it? And then I paused, looked to my left, and, remembering that I was at the head of the line, realised that my time had come. I had, after all, forfeited my opportunity yesterday. Why should I not be rewarded today? The rice came and went. The baked potatoes passed. And all the while it moved nearer, until, there it was before me, in all it’s High-Density Polyethylene and tin foil-topped glory.

I put it in Luangpor’s bowl.

‘But he’ll never know!’ part of me protested. ‘And even if he did, he wouldn’t mind. He’d be happy for you!’ That’s not the point’, I replied. ‘It’ll be two seconds of pleasure followed by two days of wishing I’d given it to Luangpor. I’m giving it to him.’ There was no argument, and once the blessing had been given, Luangpor’s bowl was delivered to him in his kuti, complete with… you know what.

But, and let me be serious now, when I think back to that occasion – when I remember fighting my own greed for the sake of someone else – I feel pleased. I am glad that I did it. The few minutes of disappointment that I may have felt at being denied that little pleasure simply pale in comparison to the bright, uplifting memory that I can recall at any time.

If, on the other hand, I had followed my cravings and taken the caramel for myself, I would, as I told myself on that day, have experienced a few fleeting moments of pleasure before succumbing to remorse. Of course, we’re only talking about a pudding here, for goodness sake. It’s not as if I wanted to kill someone. But still, to have given into my greed, to have not taken that opportunity to have shared, especially when the recipient would have been unaware of the sacrifice I’d made (which is the best kind of giving), would have left me feeling weak and disappointed.

It’s kamma-vipāka – actions and their results. The law of kamma and its workings is, in many ways, exceedingly complex – so much so that the Buddha cautioned us against attempting to fully comprehend it as doing so could well send us mad. However, it does follow certain principles, and these principles we must understand.

To put it simply, when a particular action is rooted in greed, aversion and delusion, the fruit of that action will correspond to the defiled nature of that intention: in other words, it will be experienced as unpleasant. Bitter seed = bitter fruit. Conversely, if an action is rooted in the opposites, that is of non-greed, non-aversion and non-delusion (or generosity, loving-kindness and wisdom) then the result will be experienced as pleasant. Sweet seed = Sweet fruit.

Of course, our lives are an intricate web of good and bad actions and their results, and so in some instances it can be difficult – perhaps impossible – to link up one with the other (and that’s not even taking into account actions that may have been performed in previous lives). Thus we can appreciate the Buddha’s warning. But, nevertheless, it’s not difficult to look back at our lives and see how certain actions have affected us.

Which brings us to memory. Because how we feel when we remember an action is a portion of its fruit. How do I feel when I remember giving away that caramel dessert? Good. How do I feel when I remember an occasion over twenty years ago when I refused to allow my little brother to have a go on my new surfboard, purely out of spite? Not so good. It some respects, it really is this simple.

And so, the next time you’re sitting down to eat with two friends and there are only two caramel desserts, you know what to do.

The Young Monk and His Sleeping Bag

The other evening a student at Warwick University asked me a now familiar question: Were your early days at the monastery difficult? Yes, I answered, they certainly were. And I admitted that during those unforgettable first few weeks, in that particularly chilly September, I plotted my escape several times. My home was within walking distance; I could have been shovelling down one of my mother’s speciality hot-pots within three hours. But the desire to not give up (and to not be seen giving up) kept my freshly shaven head and flip-flop toting feet within the monastery hedges. It was a close call, but I survived.

A few months later all had changed. And I looked back at those first weeks of manic wobbliness and scratched my head. Had that really happened? Had I really been such a baby? It was embarrassing to think of it. I know that to other people living at the monastery at the time I had borne no small resemblance to a petrified rabbit caught in the raging headlights of a tank.

But still, though teething problems had passed, life as a young and inexperienced monk continued to be challenging and at times downright uncomfortable. Of course, it is precisely this element of difficulty that is the rich and fertile soil in which the full spectrum of virtues – from patience to insight to letting go and peace – will flourish (or so they told me). To a nineteen year old young man, however, the promise of those supreme mental states is taken on trust (with the odd glimmer here and there), and the hard graft of getting through each day is the reality. Up early, sit cross-legged for one hour, cuppa, sweep, go for a walk, sit cross-legged again, one meal of the day, work, sit cross-legged again, cuppa, sit cross-legged one final time. And bed.

Ohhh, my bed. My sweet, sweet bed. And my sleeping bag. My puffy, silky, slidy blue and orange Arctic-weather-give-me-all-you-got sleeping bag. Ohhh, to be warm. To be without crossed legs. To be as secure and untroubled as a little worm curled up a mile down inside Mother Earth. The day was done; the night was ready to swallow me up. And there I was, lucky enough to be blissfully suspended between the two. Ahead of me lay nothing but six whole hours of oblivion, and I hovered in that awareness with divine relief. It was truly sublime. But it was soon over. And I woke up feeling crap.

You see, going to bed, for many of us, is not just about recharging our bones and brain cells for the following day’s adventures; it’s about escape. It’s about throwing ourselves under the covers and waiting for sleep to draw its black velvet curtains between us and this exhausting business of life. That’s certainly how it was for me, and that’s why I looked forward to it so much. But the mental state that was behind it all, the overwhelming force that twiddled and tugged at my strings as I raced through bedtime preparations (barely getting undressed sometimes), was destructive. Destructive, because it was, as the Buddha termed it, craving-not-to-be. And that’s what I craved: not to be. To be or not to be, it was an easy question. I had had enough. I wanted nothingness. I wanted not to be, not to be, if you get my drift.

But it was no good. Where there is craving there is suffering; and the suffering from the craving-not-to-be is intense. If I ended the day under its influence I would invariably wake up with the same two words on my lips: ‘Oh God!‘ The craving-not-to-be hadn’t disappeared in the night; it was the morose face staring down at me when I woke up. Although the problem and the cause seem so obvious now, it took me a very long time to actually do anything about it. Each day the prospect of said day’s ending dangled in front of me like a fat juicy carrot and I couldn’t help but drool in anticipation. I’d slog it out with the day, crave the night, drown in sleep, and wake up feeling terrible. And then I’d do it again. It was a viscous cycle from which it was difficult to extricate myself.

Thankfully, however, I did eventually learn the lesson. And it is this: sleep is a journey, and its destination is waking up. And most importantly, as with any journey, it is all about the preparation; if you don’t get that right, you’re done for. If you don’t pack enough oxygen before you scale Everest, you’re done for. If you don’t load up enough food on your round-the-world boat trip, you’re done for. And if don’t pull your suffocating mind out of the craving-not-to-be before you go to bed, you’re done for.

To prepare well, then, is what is called for. So what should we do before we hit the sack? Well, ideally we drop the craving, the regret, the depression, and lift up the kindness, the calmness, the letting go. We drive out the dark; we bring in the light. We might do that by meditating with the breath for a few minutes, or by focussing on loving-kindness, or by reflecting on an inspiring text, or by chanting a few words from the Suttas.

Or we might spend a few minutes casting our minds back through the day and recalling the meritorious deeds, words and thoughts that we performed.

It is precisely this last contemplation that I have used since I recognised the need to prepare well before sleep. It is easy to do, it doesn’t have to take long, and, most importantly, it works a treat. It is the simple and deliberate recalling of our own actions that were good, wholesome, and helpful, and then rejoicing in their goodness. Sound strange? Well, let me ask you this: in a world that is collapsing under the strain of all the hate, harm and rampant selfishness, don’t your little moments of good deserve some praise? Of course they do, and it’s you that’s going to do the praising.

Over here in the West (it’s a bit different in parts of Asia) we are not used to praising ourselves. Modesty and ‘thinking of others’ are the order of the day; and these are not, of course, without their merits. But the flip side is that we often fail to generate a good and helpful relationship with ourselves. We freely praise our best friend and love them to bits, but perish the thought that we might ever utter as much as an ‘it was ok…’ to ourself. It’s no wonder we want to grab the big red switch that says ‘AWAKE’ and flick it off as soon as we get the chance. Spending 16 hours a day with a person who’s always critical and judgemental is bloody hard work. Praising our own genuinely praiseworthy deeds is foreign, it’s unnatural, and it’s something that we absolutely must, must do. Especially before we go to bed.

As I mentioned, it doesn’t have to take long. I suggest that you set aside five minutes before you flop onto the feathers. It helps if you’ve done everything that needs to be done before you do retire: say goodnight to your dog, brush your teeth, don pyjamas, nighty, Bat Man suit, etc. Then sit quietly, close your eyes, SMILE (very important – it will send signals to your brain saying, ‘Be happy!’) and try to recall at least five of your actions that were wholesome. These are the things that you said, or did, or thought that were rooted in kindness, in compassion, in wisdom, in restraint, in patience, or in any of the wonderful qualities with which you are endowed.

So, maybe you removed a snail from the busy footpath; or you passed over the bigger slice of Victoria Sponge; or you donated some of your hard-earned pennies to a charity. Or perhaps you steered a conversation with friends away from harmful back-biting; or you diligently kept the precepts for yet another day; or you considered the angry colleague who barked at you, and you realised that he was suffering, and that it wasn’t about you, and that he deserved your sympathy and compassion.

Now good actions bring good results, and with this contemplation we are intentionally drawing a little of the sweet nectar that we deserve. So we recollect, and we praise, and we say ‘Well Done!’ and ‘You’re doing well!’ and ‘That was great!’ And we feel good and we feel happy and then we go to bed.

And then we wake up. And, if we’re well practised, the morose face of craving-not-to-be is nowhere to be seen. He’s gone. But where? Well, how could he be present when he didn’t even go to bed with us?

There is one other wonderful and unexpected habit that you might observe forming in your mind if you persist with this practice. You might just start looking forward to the end of the day. But, hold on! I don’t mean when you melt into the memory foam and say ‘Enough!’, as you did once upon a time; I mean precisely those concluding moments when you will rejoice in your merit. And if you look forward to that, you will concentrate on picking up even more vulnerable snails, and on being even more dedicated to the precepts, as anticipation for the joyful reflection that awaits hovers at the edge of your mind.

And at last it arrives: the time to say ‘Well Done’. Then, with a glowing heart and a smile to meet your closing eyes, you push gently away from the shores of wakefulness and into the healing depths of a Good Night’s Sleep.

 

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