How poor we are.

One day a father of a very wealthy family took his son on a trip to the country with the firm purpose of showing his son how poor people live.

They spent a couple of days and nights on the farm of what would be considered a very poor family.

On their return from their trip, the father asked his son,
"How was the trip?"
" It was great, Dad."
"Did you see how poor people live?" the father asked.
"Oh yeah," said the son.
"So, tell me, what did you learn from the trip?" asked the father.

The son answered: "I saw that we have one dog and they had four. We have a pool that reaches to the middle of our garden and they have a creek that has no end. We have imported lanterns in our garden and they have the stars at night. Our patio reaches to the front yard and they have the whole horizon. We have a small piece of land to live on and they have fields that go beyond our sight. We have servants who serve us, but they serve others. We buy our food, but they grow theirs. We have walls around our property to protect us, they have friends to protect them."

The boy's father was speechless.
Then his son added, "Thanks, Dad, for showing me how poor we are."

"Whatever you are doing, give it everything you've got."

A young man from Sydney told me that he had once met Ajahn Chah, in Thailand, and received the best advice of his life.

Many young westerners interested in Buddhism had heard of Ajahn Chah by the early 1980s. This young man decide to make the long journey to Thailand, for the sole reason of meeting the great monk and asking some questions.

It is a long journey. Having arrived in Bangkok, eight hours from Sydney, he took the overnight train, ten hours to Ubon. There he negotiated a taxi to take him to Wat Nong Pah Pong, Ajahn Chah's monastery. Tired but excited, he finally reached Ajahn Chah's hut.

The famous teacher was sitting under his hut, as usual, surrounded by a large crowd of monks and generals, poor farmers and rich merchants, village women in rags and decorated ladies from Bangkok, all sitting side by side. There was no discrimination under Ajahn Chah's hut.

The Australian sat down on the edge of the large crowd. Two hours passed and Ajahn Chah hadn't even noticed him. There were too many others ahead of him. Despondent, he got up and walked away.

On the way through the monastery to the main gate, he saw some monks sweeping leaves by the bell tower. It was another hour before his taxi was due to meet him at the gate, so he too picked up a broom, thinking to make some good karma.

Some thirty minutes later, while busy sweeping, he felt some one putting their hand on his shoulder. He turned around to see, shocked and delighted, that the hand belonged to Ajahn Chah, who stood smiling before him. Ajahn Chah had seen the westerner, but had no chance to address him. The great monk was now on his way out of the monastery to another appointment, so he had paused in front of the young man from Sydney to give him a gift. Ajahn Chah said something quickly in Thai, then walked off to his appointment.

A translator monk told him," Ajahn Chah says that if you are going to sweep, give it everything you've got." then the translator left to join Ajahn Chah.

The young man thought about the brief teaching on the long journey back to Australia. He realized, of course, that Ajahn Chah was teaching him much more than how to sweep leaves. The meaning became clear to him.

"Whatever you are doing, give it everything you've got."

He told me back in Australia several years later that this "advice for life" was worth hundred such journeys to distant parts. It was now his creed, and it had brought him happiness and success. When he was working, he'd give it everything he'd got. When he was resting, he'd give it everything he'd got. When he was socializing, he'd give it everything he'd got. It was a formula for success.

Oh, and when he was doing nothing, he'd give nothing everything he'd got.

Ajahn Brahm

Source here

Man Lives On Little Island He Built Out Of 150,000 Plastic Bottles

Richard Sowa knows a thing or two about recycling. Sowa built himself a self-sustaining island out of 150,000 plastic bottles. The island is off the coast of Cancun, Mexico and is totally buoyant.

Sowa built the island, which he calls Joyxee Island, over a period of six years. The island accommodates a three story home that is equipped with a working toilet, solar panels for electricity, an Internet connection, a hot tub and three showers.

Although he built two similar floating abodes in the past, both were wrecked by hurricanes. Sowa also now has someone to share his island paradise with as he recently found a romantic partner in a former model named Jodi Bowlin.

The island can float and move around as Sowa sees fit. Technically, Sowa never has to leave the island, but he still does on occasion. He said,

My plan is to become self-sufficient. I am a vegetarian and have many plants growing on the Island which I eat, but for more variety I go by bicycle to the nearby local shop.

It seems like this guy is really living the dream, and he’s doing it in a very green way.

Watch his video here

 

Media Drum World

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The Last Message of the Buddha

Shanka Herath

Source here

'When I am gone, my Teaching shall be your Master and Guide.' 

   

Three months before His passing away the Buddha addressed His disciples and said: 'I have delivered sermons to you during these forty-five years. You must learn them well and treasure them. You must practise them and teach them to others. This will be of great use for the welfare of the living and for the welfare of those who come after you'.

'My years are now full ripe; the life span left is short. I will soon have to leave you. You must be earnest. O monks, be mindful and of pure virtue! Whoever untiringly pursues the Teaching, will go beyond the cycle of birth and death and will man an end of Suffering.'

When Ananda asked the Buddha what would become of the Order after He pass away, the Buddha replied, 'What does the Order expect of me, Ananda? I have preached the Truth without any distinction; for in regard to the Truth, there is noclenched hand in the Teachings of the Buddha皞. It may be, Ananda, that to some among you, the thought will come 'The Master's words will soon end; soon we will no longer have a master.' But do not think like this, Ananda. When I am gone, my Teaching and the disciplinary code shall be your Master.'

The Buddha further explained: 'If there is anyone who thinks, 'It is I who will lead the brotherhood', or 'The Order is dependent on me, it is I who should give instructions', the Buddha does not think that He should lead the order or that the Order is dependent on Him. I have reached the end of my days. Just as a worn-out cart can only be made to move with much additional care, so my body can be kept going only with much additional care. Therefore, Ananda, be a lamp and refuge unto yourselves. Look for no other refuge. Let the Truth be your lamp and your refuge. Seek no refuge elsewhere.'

At the age of eighty, on His birthday, He passed away without showing any worldly supernatural powers. He showed the realnature of component things even in His own life.

When the Buddha passed away into Nibbana, one of Hisdisciples remarked, 'All must depart---all beings that have life must shed their compounded forms. Yes, even a Master such as He, a peerless being, powerful in Wisdom and Enlightenment, even He must pass away.'

The parting words of the Buddha:

'Appamadena Sampadetha Vaya Dhamma Sankhara'.

'Work diligently. Component things are impermanent.' 

Source : www.ic.sunysb.edu

The Man Who Spit In Buddha’s Face

(Shanka Herath)

Source here

The Buddha was sitting under a tree talking to his disciples when a man came and spat in his face. 

He wiped it off, and he asked the man, “What next? What do you want to say next?” The man was a little puzzled because he himself never expected that when you spit on somebody’s face, he will ask, “What next?” He had no such experience in his past. He had insulted people and they had become angry and they had reacted. Or if they werecowards and weaklings, they had smiled, trying to bribe the man. But Buddha was like neither, he was not angry nor in any way offended, nor in any way cowardly. But just matter-of-factly he said, “What next?” There was no reaction on his part.

But Buddha’s disciples became angry, and they reacted. His closest disciple, Ananda, said, “This is too much. We cannot tolerate it. He has to be punished for it, otherwise everybody will start doing things like this!”

Buddha said, “You keep silent. He has not offended me, but you are offending me. He is new, a stranger. He must have heard from people something about me, that this man is an atheist, a dangerous man who is throwing people off their track, a revolutionary, a corrupter. And he may have formed some idea, a notion of me. He has not spit on me, he has spit on his notion. He has spit on his idea of me because he does not know me at all, so how can he spit on me?

“If you think on it deeply,” Buddha said, “he has spit on his own mind. I am not part of it, and I can see that this poor man must have something else to say because this is a way of saying something. Spitting is a way of saying something. There are moments when you feel that language is impotent: in deep love, in intense anger, in hate, in prayer. There are intense moments when language is impotent. Then you have to do something. When you are angry, intensely angry, you hit the person, you spit on him, you are saying something. I can understand him. He must have something more to say, that’s why I’m asking, “What next?”

The man was even more puzzled! And Buddha said to hisdisciples, “I am more offended by you because you know me, and you have lived for years with me, and still you react.”

Puzzled, confused, the man returned home. He could not sleep the whole night. When you see a Buddha, it is difficult, impossible to sleep anymore the way you used to sleep before. Again and again he was haunted by the experience. He could not explain it to himself, what had happened. He was trembling all over, sweating and soaking the sheets. He had never come across such a man; the Buddha had shattered his whole mind and his whole pattern, his whole past.

The next morning he went back. He threw himself at Buddha’s feet. Buddha asked him again, “What next? This, too, is a way of saying something that cannot be said in language. When you come and touch my feet, you are saying something that cannot be said ordinarily, for which all words are too narrow; it cannot be contained in them.” Buddha said, “Look, Ananda, this man is again here, he is saying something. This man is a man of deep emotions.”

The man looked at Buddha and said, “Forgive me for what I did yesterday.”

Buddha said, “Forgive? But I am not the same man to whom you did it. The Ganges goes on flowing, it is never the same Ganges again. Every man is a river. The man you spit upon is no longer here. I look just like him, but I am not the same, much has happened in these twenty-four hours! The river has flowed so much. So I cannot forgive you because I have no grudge against you.

“And you also are new. I can see you are not the same man who came yesterday because that man was angry and he spit, whereas you are bowing at my feet, touching my feet. How can you be the same man? You are not the same man, so let us forget about it. Those two people, the man who spit and the man on whom he spit, both are no more. Come closer. Let us talk of something else.”

Credit: wisdompills.com

The Man Who Lives Without Money - Buddhist Things

The Man Who Lives Without Money - Buddhist Things

Think you couldn’t live without money? Irishman Mark Boyle challenged this notion and here’s how he finds life with no financial income, bank balance, and no spending.

“If someone told me seven years ago, in my final year of a business and economics degree, that I’d now be living without money, I’d have probably choked on my microwaved ready meal.” According to Boyle, the plan back then was to ‘get a good job’, make as much money as possible, and buy the stuff that would show society he was successful.

Like most individuals raised in a consumer-driven society, he never second guessed those goals. For a while he had a fantastic job managing a big organic food company and even had a yacht in the harbor. If it hadn’t have been for the chance purchase of a video called Gandhi, he’d still be pursuing the same life. “I’d still be doing it today. Instead, for the last fifteen months, I haven’t spent or received a single penny. Zilch”.

The change in life path came one evening on the yacht while philosophizing with a friend over a glass of Merlot. “Whilst I had been significantly influenced by Mahatma’s quote “be the change you want to see in the world”, I had no idea what that change was up until then.”

The two friends began talking about all the major issues in the world – environmental destruction, resource wars, factory farms, sweatshop labor – and wondered which of the issues they could best devote their time to. Mark didn’t feel he could really make any difference, however “being two small drops in a highly polluted ocean”.

That evening, though, a revelation came through: “These issues weren’t as unrelated as I had previously thought – they had a common root cause. I believe the fact that we no longer see the direct repercussions our purchases have on the people, environment, and animals they affect is the factor that unites these problems.”

Boyle believes that the degrees of separation between the consumer and the consumed have increased so much that it now means most people are completely unaware of the levels of destruction and suffering embodied in the ‘stuff’ they buy.

It can be agreed that few people actually want to cause suffering to others; most just don’t have any idea that they directly are. The tool that has enabled this separation is money, especially in its globalized format.

“If we grew our own food, we wouldn’t waste a third of it today” is one of Mark’s examples as to why it’s important a reconnection with natural/source living is established. “If we made our own tables and chairs, we wouldn’t throw them out the moment we changed the interior décor. If we had to clean our own water, we probably wouldn’t shit in it”.

The above arguments all honestly assess the undervalue most objects now have. With convenience at our fingertips, most don’t consider where their trash product or unwanted items go.

Deciding to be the change, this then spurred Mark to fully dive into his new viewpoint and give up money, which he only planned on doing for a year. “I made a list of the basics I’d need to survive. I adore food, so it was at the top. There are four legs to the food-for-free table: foraging wild food, growing your own, bartering and using waste grub, of which there are far more”.

On his first day, he fed 150 people a three-course meal with waste and foraged food. For himself, however, he ate his own crops and waste only made up about 5% of his diet. “I cooked outside – rain or shine – on a rocket stove”.

The next concern was shelter. He found himself a caravan from Freecycle, parked it on an organic farm he volunteered with, and renovated it out to be off the electricity grid. I’d use wood I either coppiced or scavenged to heat my humble abode in a wood burner made from an old gas bottle, and I had a compost loo to make ‘humanure’ for my veggies”. Up front and to the point, Boyle clearly understood the necessity of using every available resource to be most sustainable.

“I bathed in a river, and for toothpaste I used washed up cuttlefish bone with wild fennel seeds, an oddity for a vegan. For loo I’d relieve the local newsagent of its papers (Once I wiped my arse with a story about myself); it wasn’t double quilted but it quickly became normal”. For transportation, Mark used his bike and trailer, using the 55 km commute to the city as an alternative solution for the gym. Beeswax candles served as his lighting.

Humorously inspiring to some, deluded and anti-capitalist to others, Mark had this to say about his radical lifestyle: “Many people label me as anti-capitalist. Whilst I do believe capitalism is fundamentally flawed, requiring infinite growth on a finite planet, I am not anti anything.” More than anything, Boyle claims to be pro-nature, pro-community, and pro-happiness. How often is that a city dweller’s life philosophy?

“And that’s the thing I don’t get – if all this consumerism and environmental destruction brought happiness, it would make some sense. But all the key indicators of unhappiness – depression, crime, mental illness, obesity, suicide and so on are on the increase.” More money, it seems, does not equate to more happiness. (See Documentary: Happy)

Another positive effect of Mark’s unique lifestyle is the joy he has created for himself. “Ironically, I have found this year to be the happiest of my life. I’ve more friends in my community than ever, I haven’t been ill since I began, and I’ve never been fitter. I’ve found that friendship, not money, is real security. That most western poverty is spiritual, and that independence is really interdependent.”

Mark’s example certainly stands as inspiration for those seeking freedom from the fast-paced modern age; most alternative media sources would agree that the more one reconnects to nature, the better their mental, physical, and spiritual health is. However, could everyone live like this? According to Mark, no.

“It would be a catastrophe, we are too addicted to both it and cheap energy, and have managed to build an entire global infrastructure around the abundance of both.”

The prospect of gradually transitioning to re-localized, small communities is a possibility, though. With greener energy sources and healthier communities being implemented at a growing rate, natural living is already a reality, but may be made much more mainstream in the future to come.

“For over 90 percent of our time on the planet, a period when we lived much more ecologically, we lived without money. Now we are the only species to use it, probably because we are the species most out of touch with nature.”

Asked what was missing from his old world of lucre and business, Mark replied “Stress. Traffic-jams. Bank statements. Utility bills. Oh yeah, and the odd pint of organic ale with my mates down at the local”.

It just goes to show, if you are passionate about anything, you can be that change you’d like to see in the world.

The song of the child

 There is a tribe in Africa called the Himba tribe, where the birth date of a child is counted not from when they were born, nor from when they are conceived but from the day that the child was a thought in its mother’s mind. And when a woman decides that she will have a child, she goes off and sits under a tree, by herself, and she listens until she can hear the song of the child that wants to come. And after she’s heard the song of this child, she comes back to the man who will be the child’s father, and teaches it to him. And then, when they make love to physically conceive the child, some of that time they sing the song of the child, as a way to invite it.

And then, when the mother is pregnant, the mother teaches that child’s song to the midwives and the old women of the village, so that when the child is born, the old women and the people around her sing the child’s song to welcome it. And then, as the child grows up, the other villagers are taught the child’s song. If the child falls, or hurts its knee, someone picks it up and sings its song to it. Or perhaps the child does something wonderful, or goes through the rites of puberty, then as a way of honoring this person, the people of the village sing his or her song.

In the African tribe there is one other occasion upon which the villagers sing to the child. If at any time during his or her life, the person commits a crime or aberrant social act, the individual is called to the center of the village and the people in the community form a circle around them. Then they sing their song to them.

The tribe recognizes that the correction for antisocial behavior is not punishment; it is love and the remembrance of identity. When you recognize your own song, you have no desire or need to do anything that would hurt another.

And it goes this way through their life. In marriage, the songs are sung, together. And finally, when this child is lying in bed, ready to die, all the villagers know his or her song, and they sing—for the last time—the song to that person.

You may not have grown up in an African tribe that sings your song to you at crucial life transitions, but life is always reminding you when you are in tune with yourself and when you are not. When you feel good, what you are doing matches your song, and when you feel awful, it doesn’t. In the end, we shall all recognize our song and sing it well. You may feel a little warbly at the moment, but so have all the great singers. Just keep singing and you’ll find your way home.

The Mind Unleashed

www.themindunleashed.org

Student Was Asked About “Hell” On An Exam. You Have To Read His Priceless Answer!

Since Hell receives no more souls, when you die, you must go to Heaven. No other choice. I am sorry!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Read here

If you just take one minute to read this, It will change the way you think…

Two men, both seriously ill, occupied the same hospital room. One man was allowed to sit up in his bed for an hour each afternoon to help drain the fluid from his lungs. His bed was next to the room’s only window. The other man had to spend all his time flat on his back.

The men talked for hours on end. They spoke of their wives and families, their homes, their jobs, their involvement in the military service, where they had been on vacation.. Hospital window.

Every afternoon, when the man in the bed by the window could sit up, he would pass the time by describing to his roommate all the things he could see outside the window. The man in the other bed began to live for those one hour periods where his world would be broadened and enlivened by all the activity and colour of the world outside.

The window overlooked a park with a lovely lake. Ducks and swans played on the water while children sailed their model boats. Young lovers walked arm in arm amidst flowers of every colour and a fine view of the city skyline could be seen in the distance.

As the man by the window described all this in exquisite details, the man on the other side of the room would close his eyes and imagine this picturesque scene. One warm afternoon, the man by the window described a parade passing by.

Although the other man could not hear the band – he could see it in his mind’s eye as the gentleman by the window portrayed it with descriptive words. Days, weeks and months passed. One morning, the day nurse arrived to bring water for their baths only to find the lifeless body of the man by the window, who had died peacefully in his sleep. She was saddened and called the hospital attendants to take the body away.

As soon as it seemed appropriate, the other man asked if he could be moved next to the window. The nurse was happy to make the switch, and after making sure he was comfortable, she left him alone. Slowly, painfully, he propped himself up on one elbow to take his first look at the real world outside. He strained to slowly turn to look out the window besides the bed.

It faced a blank wall.

The man asked the nurse what could have compelled his deceased roommate who had described such wonderful things outside this window.

The nurse responded that the man was blind and could not even see the wall.

She said, ‘Perhaps he just wanted to encourage you.’

Epilogue:

There is tremendous happiness in making others happy, despite our own situations. Shared grief is half the sorrow, but happiness when shared, is doubled. If you want to feel rich, just count all the things you have that money can’t buy.

 Source: http://www.trulybuddha.com/if-you-take-just-1-miniute-to-read-this-it-will-change-the-way-you-think/

Listen with your own wisdom

Meditation is learning how to listen with your own wisdom, so that you can see. I think why meditation is amazingly important, is that somehow our unconscious world is much bigger. It is huge, universal, and we don't understand that one. Meditation allows this world to be light and knowable, understandable. That is why it is important. 

Normally we are totally robbed by the egotistic, conventional mind, not allowing the fundamental mind to be functioning. That is why one should have confidence, truly... through experience, one has confidence in one's spiritual journey.

~ Lama Thubten Yeshe ~

If Buddhism is so good why are some Buddhist countries poor?

If by poor you mean economically poor, then it is true that some Buddhist countries are poor. But if by poor you mean a poor quality of life, then perhaps some Buddhist countries are quite rich. America, for example, is an economically rich and powerful country but the crime rate is one of the highest in the world, millions of old people are neglected by their children and die of loneliness in old people’s homes, domestic violence and child abuse are major problems. One in three marriages end in divorce, pornography is easily available. Rich in terms of money but perhaps poor in terms of the quality of life. Now if you look at some traditional Buddhist countries you find a very different situation. Parents are honoured and respected by their children, the crime rates are relatively low, divorce and suicide are rare and traditional values like gentleness, generosity, hospitality to strangers, tolerance and respect for others are still strong. Economically backward, but perhaps a higher quality of life than a country like America. But even if we judge Buddhist countries in terms of economics alone, one of the wealthiest and most economically dynamic countries in the world today is Japan where 93% of the population call themselves Buddhist.

Good Questions and Good Answers

With Ven.S. Dhammika

"Why am I so poor?"

A poor man asked the Buddha,

“Why am I so poor?”

The Buddha said, “you do not learn to give.”

So the poor man said, “If I’m not having anything?”

Buddha said: “You have a few things,

The Face, which can give a smile;

Mouth: you can praise or comfort others;

The Heart: it can open up to others;

Eyes: who can look the other with the eyes of goodness;

Body: which can be used to help others.”

So, actually we are not poor at all, poverty of spirit is the real poverty.

(From Internet)

The Lost Watch

A farmer had lost his watch in the barn and he was doing with all effort to look for it but it seemed that every of his attempt is not well deserved. The watch isn't a valuable one to him, yet it carries a lot of his good memories.

After a hopeless time looking for the watch, the farmer had made up his mind to ask all the kids from neighborhood to help him seek for it with a promise of a reward for the one who would be able to bring it back to him. However, despite all the effort, the kids were not able to find it and they gradually gave it up. Then another boy came up suggesting to help him out.

''Why not?''-thought the man. ''Anyway, he looks sincere with his suggestion'' Then the farmer took the little boy into the barn and the seek began. After a while, the boy ran to him with the watch in his hand. The ecstasy appeared on the man's face and he asked how the boy could find it.

The boy answered: ''I did nothing but sitting still in silence to listen. There, I realized the ticking sound of the watch's arms and then I got it''.

The silence in your soul could be better than a continuously working mind. Just keep your mind in relaxation and mindfulness and see how effective it works.

 (From Internet)

I AM GOOD!

An African tribe does the most beautiful thing.

When someone does something hurtful and wrong, they take the person to the center of town, and the entire tribe comes and surrounds him.

For two days they'll tell the man every good thing he has ever done.

The tribe believes that every human being comes into the world as Good, each of us desiring safety, love, peace, happiness.

But sometimes in the pursuit of those things people make mistakes. The community sees misdeeds as a cry for help.

They band together for the sake of their fellow man to hold him up, to reconnect him with his true Nature, to remind him who 

he really is, until he fully remembers the truth from which he'd temporarily been disconnected:

“I AM GOOD.”

(From Internet)

There is no-self

“Nope, never said that, either.”—The Buddha

Thanissaro Bhikkhu

The Buddha was careful to classify questions according to how they should be answered, based on how helpful they were to gaining awakening. Some questions deserved a categorical answer, that is, one that holds true across the board. Some he answered analytically, redefining or refining the terms before answering. Some required counter-questioning, to clarify the issue in the questioner’s mind. But if the question was an obstacle on the path, the Buddha put it aside.

When Vacchagotta the wanderer asked him point-blank whether or not there is a self, the Buddha remained silent, which means that the question has no helpful answer. As he later explained to Ananda, to respond either yes or no to this question would be to side with opposite extremes of wrong view (Samyutta Nikaya 44.10). Some have argued that the Buddha didn’t answer with “no” because Vacchagotta wouldn’t have understood the answer. But there’s another passage where the Buddha advises all the monks to avoid getting involved in questions such as “What am I?” “Do I exist?” “Do I not exist?” because they lead to answers like “I have a self” and “I have no self,” both of which are a “thicket of views, a writhing of views, a contortion of views” that get in the way of awakening (Majjhima Nikaya 2).

So how did we get the idea that the Buddha said that there is no self? The main culprit seems to be the debate culture of ancient India. Religious teachers often held public debates on the hot questions of the day, both to draw adherents and to angle for royal patronage. The Buddha warned his followers not to enter into these debates (Sutta Nipata 4.8), partly because once the sponsor of a debate had set a question, the debaters couldn’t follow the Buddha’s policy of putting useless questions aside.

Later generations of monks forgot the warning and soon found themselves in debates where they had to devise a Buddhist answer to the question of whether there is or isn’t a self. TheKathavatthu, an Abhidhamma text attributed to the time of King Ashoka, contains the earliest extant version of the answer “no.” Two popular literary works, the Buddhacharitaand Milinda Panha, both from around the first century CE, place this “no” at the center of the Buddha’s message. Later texts, like the Abhidharmakosha Bhashya, provide analytical answers to the question of whether there is a self, saying that there’s no personal self but that each person has a “dharma-self” composed of five aggregates: material form, feelings, perceptions, mental fabrications, and consciousness. At present we have our own analytical answers to the question, such as the teaching that although we have no separate self, we do have a cosmic self—a teaching, by the way, that the Buddha singled out for special ridicule (MN 22).

“There is no self” is the granddaddy of fake Buddhist quotes. It has survived so long because of its superficial resemblance to the teaching on anatta, or not-self, which was one of the Buddha’s tools for putting an end to clinging. Even though he neither affirmed nor denied the existence of a self, he did talk of the process by which the mind creates many senses of self—what he called “I-making” and “my-making”—as it pursues its desires.

In other words, he focused on the karma of selfing. Because clinging lies at the heart of suffering, and because there’s clinging in each sense of self, he advised using the perception of not-self as a strategy to dismantle that clinging. Whenever you see yourself identifying with anything stressful and inconstant, you remind yourself that it’s not-self: not worth clinging to, not worth calling your self (SN 22.59). This helps you let go of it. When you do this thoroughly enough, it can lead to awakening. In this way, the not-self teaching is an answer—not to the question of whether there’s a self, but to the question that the Buddha said lies at the heart of discernment: “What, when I do it, will lead to my long-term welfare and happiness?” (MN 135). You find true happiness by letting go.

Some ways of selfing, the Buddha and his disciples found, are useful along the path, as when you develop a sense of self that’s heedful and responsible, confident that you can manage the practice (Anguttara Nikaya 4.159). While you’re on the path, you apply the perception of not-self to anything that would pull you astray. Only at the end do you apply that perception to the path itself. As for the goal, it’s possible to develop a sense of clinging around the experience of the deathless, so the Buddha advises that you regard even the deathless as not-self (AN 9.36). But when there’s no more clinging, you have no need for perceptions either of self or not-self. You see no point in answering the question of whether there is or isn’t a self because you’ve found the ultimate happiness.

The belief that there is no self can actually get in the way of awakening. As the Buddha noted, the contemplation of not-self can lead to an experience of nothingness (MN 106). If your purpose in practicing is to disprove the self—perhaps from wanting to escape the responsibilities of having a self—you can easily interpret the experience of nothingness as the proof you’re looking for: a sign you’ve reached the end of the path. Yet the Buddha warned that subtle clinging can persist in that experience. If you think you’ve reached awakening, you won’t look for the clinging. But if you learn to keep looking for clinging, even in the experience of nothingness, you’ll have a chance of finding it. Only when you find it can you then let it go.

So it’s important to remember which questions the not-self teaching was meant to answer and which ones it wasn’t. Getting clear on this point can mean the difference between a false awakening and the real thing. 

Thanissaro Bhikkhu is the abbot of Metta Forest Monastery and the author and translator of numerous meditation guides. His latest book is Meditations 6.

Source of the article.