Thus did I hear. One time, the Buddha was staying in Jeta Grove in Sravasti, residing with 1,250 great monks.
Commentary:
‘I’ is a very critical word in Buddhism because when one can see one’s ‘I’ as it is, one can see everything as it is since one can see everything only through oneself. This is why seeing one’s ‘I’ as it is, or realising one’s ‘I’ means enlightenment.
Then, what is your ‘I’? What do you mean by ‘I’ when you say, “I want to be happy”?
Let’s suppose that you say, “My car is five years old.” ‘My car’ here doesn’t mean that you are identical to your car, or you are your car but that you own a car, or a car belongs to you. In other words, it means that you are not your car. In the same way, if you say, “My body is older than yours”, you mean that you are not your body by ‘my body’.
Then, what are you if your body is not you?
In fact, this question originated from the historical Buddha’s words ‘One who tries to see me through my voice and shape cannot see me’ in part 26 of this Sutra.
What is the boundary of your being when your body is not you? It is limitless or boundless. What is it like when it is limitless and boundless? It is formless and includes all without any exceptions. What is it like when it is boundless and formless and includes all? Firstly, there is nothing but it, or there is nothing that is not your being, which the words ‘In the whole universe only I exist’ that are said to have been spoken by the historical Buddha on his birth symbolise. Secondly, it has no beginning and no end.
When it has no beginning and no end, it has neither birth nor death. This is not only what the essence of our beings known as the true-Self, the Buddha, Emptiness, or Oneness is like but also the way it is.
Q: “What does ‘I’ mean here?”
A: “It means ‘non-I’ because ‘I’ implies that there is nothing but ‘I’, which means that ‘I’ is actually not ‘I’, since there is nothing to distinguish from ‘I’.”
Q: “What is the true-Self?”
A: “You are already wrong when you ask me.”
Q: “Why?”
A: “Because you break the true-Self by dividing it into two; you and I.”
©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway
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