The Self Never Did Exist Says The Dalai Lama

This quote teaches us that the self never did exist says the Dalai Lama. He is saying that we need to identify something that is nonexistent as nonexistent.

Selflessness is not a case of something that existed in the past becoming nonexistent: rather, this sort of “self” is something that never did exist. What is needed is to identify as nonexistent something that always was nonexistent.
– The Dalai Lama

 

The 14th Dalai Lama -Tenzin Gyatzo

I think Westerners have a lot of difficulty with the statement. We are so into an intependend self. The attachment we experience to our individual selves keeps us from recognizing our interbeing, our interconnectedness with all beings and non-beings.

We spend our time trying to satisfy one desire after another. If we find that what we want is desirable, useful, fun, and relatively fast to access, we are happy. But that happiness doesn’t last, probably not even to the next day. We are greedy for experiences like this and we continue to crave for more. We want sense pleasures that go on and on. We never recognize when we fall into our habit patterns, sometimes until it is too later.

We also think, plan, and contemplate what it would be like to be somebody. We want fame, fortune, sex, power, and happiness. We become trapped in the desire to become

When we encounter something the we don’t like, our feelings of aversion arise in us. Don’t make me do that ever again. Don’t show me this suffering of others every again. Don’t talk to me about global warming or eliminating our reliance of fossil fuels. Everything is going to be all right for me and my family, so why bother me with these issues?

But there is another way. This is the way of recognizing the we do not  have a separate existence. We depend on others for all kinds of thing like the food on our tables, gas in our cars, heat in our homes, electricity for our computers, and many others.

What are you thoughts about selflessness and the nonexistence of it?