The "Nonself" in Myself

In life, it is easy to say that each person and thing is separate. I am separate from my father and my father is separate from me. According to The Heart of Buddha’s Teaching by Thich Nhat Hanh, Nothing in the universe has its own separate existence or what one would call a “separate self”.” Everything must inter-be with everything else (Hanh 84)”. This means that my father and I are related. A way to see this relationship is to base it upon happiness. My father is happy because I am happy and I am happy because my father is happy. “The meaning of nonself is that everyone is made of elements that which are not you (Hanh 85)”. Like the example used to relate my father to me, happiness came from things that are not me. My happiness came from my father’s happiness. My happiness can come from love, accomplishment or sacrifice. Happiness is an element, which is comprised of something other than me, which means it is nonself.

Its seems to me that every time I am upset it is due to something going on around me not with me in itself.  

The last time I remember feeling upset was during this Thanksgiving break. As I can recall, I was put in a crappy mood because I was talking to my friend who was in a crappy mood to begin with. This follows the lines of nonself because it is the elements that surround me that are causing this feeling of distress. The influence of the things around one another can amaze even the simplest of things. A sunset can bring joy, a gloomy day can bring sorrow, and the innocence of a baby animal can even bring a smile to crying face. As Hanh writes, “We all have the capacity of living with nondiscriminating wisdom, but we have to train ourselves to see in that way (84).” We must be taught to see ourselves in the sunset, see ourselves in the gloom of the day, and see the innocence of ourselves in each and every baby animal.

When Hanh writes about living with nondiscriminating wisdom, I cannot help but think about Abraham Lincoln and his fight to end slavery. Lincoln trained is mind to think without discrimination in order to see himself in a slave, to see himself as a human, and finally to see a slave as a human being. By thinking this way, he was able to believe and prove that it does not matter what color skin you have that everyone is the same and nothing in the universe is separate. By changing his thinking, Lincoln made freed slaves happy; their happiness now affected those around them which in return made the world a happier place. This can be related to Hanh’s quote about cookies, “’Get out of my way. I want to be in the middle.’ ‘I am brown and beautiful, and you are ugly!’ ‘Can't you please spread a little in that direction?’ We have the tendency to behave this way also, and it causes a lot of suffering. If we know how to touch our nondiscriminating mind, our happiness and the happiness of others will increase manifold (84).” As Hanh explains, without discriminating, whether it’s the shape, color, texture, or taste of a “cookie” they are still a “cookie” all mixed with the same ingredients.

Sometimes we as humans act like the cookies in Hanh’s story. We judge people on their size, color, appearance, and smell. If the people of the world could train themselves to see the world with a nondiscriminating mind, the happiness would increase beyond belief. It would be like a never ending domino effect in which my happiness would affect her happiness, her happiness would affect his happiness and his happiness would affect my happiness.  So just think, the next time you are about to call someone ugly remember that their suffering will affect you because nothing is self-separate and their suffering will cause you to suffer.

Nhá̂t, Hạnh. "The Three Doors of Liberation." The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching: 

     Transforming Suffering into Peace, Joy & Liberation : The Four Noble Truths, the Noble 
    Eightfold Path, and Other Basic Buddhist Teachings. New York: Broadway, 1999. 146- 55. Print.