How to Practice Selflessness?
Dharma Teaching by Singha Rinpoche on 28th March 2009
There are two main points that sets Buddhism apart from all other religions – they are selflessness and emptiness.
On a relative level, they are two different points but ultimately, selflessness and emptiness are the same. All religions promote compassion and love. Compassion and love are what all sentient beings are looking for. According to Buddha’s teachings, all sentient beings have the right to experience happiness and they have the right to look for love because happiness usually develops from this feeling of being loved. Because you feel loved and needed so you feel more special and happy. When you are happy then you can give or share with others love and develop compassion. This type of love is impure love, as it is stained with the three poisonous attitudes of greed, anger and ignorance.
As according to Buddhist principles, the basis of this type of selfish love is limiting. Only when someone falls into your category or certain standards that you set that you can love them. For instance, most people when searching for a life partner will be thinking that, “I want my man to be tall, slim, strong, handsome etc.” or “the girl must have long hair, fair and pleasant looking, etc.” Everybody has a particular expectation of how things should be before they can generate this feeling of love. This sort of selfish love is corrupted and polluted by the three poisonous attitudes. In Buddhism, we learn to develop equanimity for all sentient beings and loving compassion for all. How do we do that? How do we practice selflessness?
If you want to become a Bodhisattva, how would you be able to cultivate to become one? Now that most of us have some dharma knowledge, you must remind yourself, not to intellectualize. Stop thinking but start feeling and doing. We all say we want to become Buddha for the sake of liberating all sentient beings but if you do not generate the feeling behind your prayers and what you wish for, it is just like farting. My guru used to tell me about praying with feeling, living a life with feeling and going about all your activities with feeling. This feeling we are talking about is not a selfish feeling but a selfless one. How does one develop this selflessness? We must let go of our ego and pride that things need to be a certain way as according to my liking then I will help or love them.
Let us think of what is the main purpose of the Buddha coming back to tame us? What do you think was the Buddha’s motivation for coming back to this world to teach us? The Buddha came back for us because he did not forget us. He did not forsake us. This is selflessness - an unconditional and universal love for all sentient beings alike. We need to develop this feeling. When we talk about selflessness, we are talking about remembering and not forgetting about others.
There is a group of very underprivileged people in Singapore who are usually forgotten. The old people in our community are normally forgotten. Slowly, we will become a ‘grey’ society, where the baby-boomers will grow old. Most old people feel old and useless as they age and have low self-esteem. If you do not forget other beings, you remember them, then they will appreciate. If you remember them and they appreciate your help, then when the temple needs help, they will come to offer their services. We need to reach out to both youths and the old folks. We must also take care of our own well-being as we age. It is not good enough to be alive. If you are alive, walking around and able to do a meaningful job then there is some benefit. His Holiness said something which left a very deep imprint in my mind. He said that it is very good to take long life initiation and pray for long life. But if you are that kind of person that do more harm than good, it is better to live a shorter life. It is true but many people cannot accept the truth. When we talk about selflessness, we are talking about remembering and appreciating others.
We must train on developing selflessness. The method to do this is to start to think about returning the past to where they come from. Imagine all the years of food we have consumed. Think of all the nutrition we have received from plants, flesh, blood and bones of other beings. Think about something meaningful such as returning the last meal we had and returning the rice to where it came from. Learn to break things up and do this practice slowly. To develop feelings for all sentient beings, you need to develop the feeling of appreciation then naturally you can develop selfless compassion for all sentient beings.
Here are some examples to help you develop the feeling of appreciation for things around you. Think about your clothes. Where did these come from? The process and amount of effort by others in turning the simple cotton plant into something that you can wear. Also, think about the eggs you have consumed. The hens have to go through labour every day to provide us with a constant supply of eggs. Human women give birth not more than ten times in their life time in our society but the hen needs to suffer the pain of labour every day so that we can enjoy our half-boiled eggs or sunny side-ups for breakfast. How do you feel? You understand?
To be a good practitioner, you have to start to learn. You do not need to learn how to feel because everyone one of us knows how to feel. You just need to get in touch with the feeling that is inside. You need, you should and you must, do it. It is very good if we can appreciate value. Every single aspect of whatever that has contributed to our well-being. That includes the medicine and rice we eat. Rice does not grow in supermarkets. To plant the rice, many farmers had to suffer painstakingly bending down for hours in the paddy fields. Then the rice needs to be harvested, have the husks removed, the grains to be polished and finally packed. Can you imagine how many beings, insects etc. would have died in this process. You should try to meditate and try to ascertain and understand such things. In this way, you will grow and your heart/mind will evolve.