Right use brings merit; misuse brings wrongdoing

If we agree that nothing is ours, then how will we live and practise?

We will understand that in the end we are only people who have the opportunity to look after everything on behalf of heaven and earth. Someone may ask, “So my wife too — I am looking after her for heaven and earth?” Yes. That is, since the conditions have brought us together as husband and wife, we have the duty to care for and love the other person, and to guide them in practising together, having faith in and respect for the Three Jewels, and diligently creating merit. That is all; do not think that because a wife is ours we may treat her however we like. Ordinarily, though, human attachment is a very fierce form of clinging, and it brings with it jealousy, selfishness and the wish to possess.

Some people spend their whole lives without a wife, without children, without a home to shelter in. The cause is that in a previous life they rejected and cruelly beat their wife and children, and so they must bear the karmic result of loneliness for dozens of lifetimes.

Likewise, the abbot of a temple must understand that nothing is ours; heaven and earth have simply given us the opportunity to take over, look after and build the Three Jewels' temple so that people can come and practise.

Or take the house we live in. We should make it a house where there is practice: the Buddha is enshrined in the home, someone bows to the Buddha and sits in meditation, there is the sound of verses and sutras... And whenever distant relatives come, they should be received warmly and not feel abandoned and lost. That is right use. When the neighbourhood group needs it, the house can become a place where everyone meets to talk, and refreshments are served warmly. When war breaks out, the house can become a shelter for soldiers on a long march... That too is right use. But if we leave the house cold, with no sutra chanting or verses, no one practising and no one visiting, then we are clinging, being selfish and using it wrongly, and one day we will lose the house. Why do some people have tall, spacious houses? Because in a previous life they donated land to a temple, gave up land for a road, or for building a school or a clinic, or always received visitors very warmly... These are all the right causes that lead to the karmic result of a tall, spacious house.

Even though nothing is ours, we need to remember that when we take over and look after things on behalf of heaven and earth, we must be very careful. If we use things rightly, merit is added to merit; if we use them wrongly, wrongdoing is formed, and then heaven and earth will take everything back.

Whoever we betray, we will lose that person in the next life. A person who is unfilial will in a later life bear the lot of an orphan, abandoned from the moment of birth; one who looks down on friends will suffer the karmic result of loneliness without companions, and so on... So when heaven and earth entrust to us the people around us, here is a wife, there a child, there a brother or relative, a father, a mother... we must not betray anyone, but always love and respect them and treat each one with the utmost kindness. “Nothing is ours” does not mean that we may live carelessly; we must use everything rightly, and if we use it wrongly we will bear the wrongdoing and lose everything.

Take, for example, how we use money. When we have money, we should not look for ways to indulge ourselves or spend it on things that are not worthwhile. Every coin we spend is carefully considered: this one feeds the family, that one pays tax, another helps the poor, another goes into further investment in our business, another is for offerings... No wasting, no taking it lightly. For every coin we use, we weigh it carefully.

So should we be generous and give freely? Giving with a generous heart is right, but be careful: if it is the wrong person or the wrong cause, we lose all the money and lose all the merit as well. What is giving to the right person? It is helping someone through a time of hardship, in extreme desperation, when if we do not help in time they might lose their life. In such a case, if we do not help, we bear very serious wrongdoing. Or helping someone in a very dangerous illness. Sometimes we know for certain that they cannot recover, but we still must not abandon them. We help to some extent so that they see they are still receiving help, kindness and love from someone in this world, and still have a little happiness as they depart. If, fortunately, they are saved through our help, our merit is very great. Or we help others to study, to find work, or help people doing great works of righteousness… all of this is very good. But above all, helping people receive the true teachings, lighting the flame of their aspiration for the Way, is the greatest merit, surpassing every ordinary kind of help.

What is using money wrongly? It is giving to the wrong person or for the wrong purpose. The person who receives it uses the money for something pointless and unworthy, or for base pleasures. When we give in such cases, our merit is not great; we may even create further wrongdoing, giving away one coin and carrying back a mountain of faults. So even though nothing is ours, and we are only people with the opportunity to be entrusted by heaven and earth with looking after things, we must use them rightly so as not to create wrongdoing.

Let us provisionally divide the world into two kinds, the noble and the ordinary. For ordinary people, whatever is not theirs is of no concern, as if they had no responsibility for it, because they think only of themselves. The noble ones, knowing that it is not theirs, are even less inclined to enjoy it for themselves and even more inclined to look after it for the common good.

For example, an ordinary person says, “That field is not mine, so if it goes to ruin, never mind; that road is not mine, so if anyone throws rubbish on it, never mind.” But the noble ones do not think that way. Precisely because it is not theirs, they feel more responsible. Seeing a piece of wasteland with no owner, a noble one will invite everyone to clear it and farm it to add food for the world, or will plant lotuses to beautify life. And because the road is not theirs, a noble one looks after it: whenever they see rubbish they bend down and pick it up, not waiting for the sweeper to come and collect it, because while waiting the road has already become dirty, and everyone shares the same unhygienic state and spoiled look of the street.

Or, because they understand that this body is not theirs, that skin, flesh, blood and bone are borrowed from the four elements, from air, earth, water and wind, from the labour of their parents... the noble ones become even more conscious of using this body to benefit everyone, to serve, to love, to help, to practise, and no longer live for themselves alone. We learn this noble ethics from them so that we have a measure for our thinking and conduct in this life.

Once a monk went with his disciples into a lawyer's office to deal with some business. As they came out, they saw scraps of paper (used to wipe hands after everyone had given their fingerprints) strewn across the floor. The master and disciples stopped and quietly picked up each scrap before going out. An employee, embarrassed, said that someone was already responsible for this work. The monk just smiled and picked up all of them, because he did not know when the person in charge would come to tidy up, and as long as even a little remained uncollected the office would stay dirty. The office is common property, not ours, so we want it to be beautiful all the more, beautiful for everyone.

And everything else in this world is the same: the more something is not ours, the more it is common property, the more responsibility we must take. That is what we learn from the minds of the noble ones.