It seems ours, but it is not ours

During his lifetime the Buddha taught in great detail the contemplation of non-self and of non-ownership, that is, “Nothing is me, nothing is mine.” This teaching seems simple, yet over several thousand years very few people have been able to apply it to their own inner life. But whoever can practise it has begun to step into the stream of the saints; though not a supreme saint, such a person already carries the quality of a saint in this world.

The strange thing is that when we live calmly in the world, seeing nothing as me or mine, the whole universe becomes ours. That is why the venerable elders often say: “Let go of everything and you will gain everything.” Having tested it in their own lives of practice, they see very clearly that when we cling to nothing, heaven and earth give us everything we need, the Buddhas will give to us, the universe will give to us, and all beings share with us as one; while if we hold on tightly, we lose everything and are left with nothing. That is the principle of heaven and earth, and also of the law of cause and effect.

That is the principle, but in reality it is very idealistic. For that reason, however much we hear it, we still cannot carry it out. For example, the car, the house and the property we paid money for, whose ownership the law and society recognise, we see as ours and no one else's. We find it hard to accept the phrase “nothing is mine.” But if we do not accept it and cannot live that way, the result is that we have nothing. That is, when we die we also let go helplessly, unable to take anything with us, taking only our narrowness, our pettiness and our wrongdoing.

Even if we have taken refuge and are disciples of the Buddha, if we still cling to everything as ours, we are still standing outside the gate and have not yet entered the house of the Tathagata. Even if we prostrate to the Buddha a thousand times and recite the Buddha's name a million times, we have still not gained immeasurable merit. When do we have enough merit? When we no longer see anything as ours; only then is the merit truly boundless. Reciting the Buddha's name and paying homage to the Buddha are very necessary, but from that foundation we must go further into the core, into the summit of non-self in Buddhism.

Whoever hears this teaching and feels joy in their heart and vows to practise it should know that this person has opened up great merit for their life and for their mind.