One can inquire towards selflessness and impermanence either by observing the entire space of the surrounding environment, or the function and condition of the physical body, or the breath.
There are constant ceaseless changes.
The surrounding environment, or the physical body, or the breath, is different from moment to moment.
There are no consecutive moments that will be the same.
The sights, the lights, the sounds, the smells, the atmosphere, the weather, the seasons, the objects, the plants, the habitats, the living creatures, the sky, the clouds, the air/gas formation, the rivers and streams, the mountains, the land, the ocean, the plateau, the fields, the physical condition, the mental state, the thinking, the sensations, the feelings, the emotions, as well as every breath that comes and goes, is never the same one.
Even after the physical body stops functioning, or dies, the lifeless physical body will still be undergoing selfless impermanent changes of decomposing/disintegrating.
There is not a single permanent unchanging ‘existence’ or ‘state’ in any kind of name and form, except the limitless, substanceless, attributeless, nameless, formless, birthless, deathless, beginningless, endless, selfless space that hosts all and everything that are selfless and impermanent.
One can capture one particular photo of a particular moment with the best camera that is available and still functional, but the photo printout (the quality of a particular image) itself is selfless and impermanent, constantly changing, aging/fading, and decaying. The camera, is selfless and impermanent. The one who captures a photo with the camera, is selfless and impermanent. Even the digital copy of a particular captured image that is stored in a memory storage somewhere, is also selfless and impermanent, that is limited and conditional, which can be modified, or manipulated, or corrupted, or disrupted, or deleted/destroyed, at particular cause and pace, either intentionally or unintentionally. Not to say, the ceaseless selfless impermanent changes in all kinds of living creatures. All and everything are existing, changing, and ceased existing, or to be what they are, under the selfless support of many different selfless elements and energy.
The space never increase nor decrease, where it is not being determined, affected, or contaminated by all kinds of selfless impermanent names and forms being what they are, as they are, ceaselessly arising, changing, and passing away in the space.
The space doesn’t belong to any particular name and form.
All kinds of names and forms don’t belong to the space.
All kinds of names and forms don’t belong to one another.
Out of ignorance and egoism, the passionate egoistic impure ignorant thinking minds claim possession, ownership, and authority towards certain ‘space’, ‘nature’, ‘habitat’, ‘land’, ‘ocean’, ‘water’, ‘living creatures’, ‘other minds’, ‘objects’, and etc, while ceaselessly generate unnecessary damages and destructions towards all and everything as much as possible, consciously and unconsciously, intentionally and randomly, under the influence of all kinds of mental corruption/defilement/impurity of the sense of belonging, the sense of separateness, the sense of pride, possessiveness, greed, desires, ambitions, craving towards wealth and possession accumulation, abundant pleasurable enjoyments, and comfortable conveniences, selfishness, fear, protectiveness, restlessness, dissatisfaction, anger, hatred, discrimination, offensiveness, defensiveness, and so on, on top of the basic survival instinct to be maintaining selfless impermanent life existence, or to feed hunger and thirst as well as to be sheltered from injury, disease, harshness, or extreme conditions.
Survival instinct alone doesn’t cause unnecessary evitable damages and destructions unto oneself and others or the surrounding environment.
It’s the presence of ignorance and egoism.
“This is our land.”
“This is our home.”
“This is our root, origin, culture, belief, values, and practices.”
“This is our pride, identities, possessions, rights, and authorization.”
And so on.
Out of all these corrupted ignorant thinking, ideas, and statements, the minds discriminate and hurt one another, as well as hurt and destroy the surrounding living environment that doesn’t belong to anyone or anything.
The passionate egoistic impure ignorant minds think and believe and propagate that, “We need to protect what belongs to us, that is ours, and we have the duty and responsibility to protect our land, our home, our family, our children, our next generations, our community, our country, our resources, our environment, our livelihood, our planet, our space, our culture, our belief, our values, our visions, …” while actually hurting and damaging all and everything that they think and believe that needed to be protected by them from hurt and damage.
“Treat this house as if it’s your own house.” So say the ignorant wicked petty-minded protective house owners to the guests/renters, believing and expecting (threatening) that people will look after the welfare of ‘the house and the things in the house’, especially if they are being treated as ‘ours’, otherwise, the guests/renters will not look after the welfare of ‘the house and the things in the house’, but for sure, they will be deliberately causing damages to ‘the house and the things in the house’, because it doesn’t belong to ‘us’ but ‘others’.
None need to be claiming ownership/possession/identification/pride/protectiveness towards anything, in order to be looking after the over-all well-being of all and everything without the sense of belonging, separateness, and discrimination, but out of correct understanding, self-initiative, freewill, wisdom, and selfless compassion.
All minds can have the self-initiative to be looking after the over-all well-being of oneself, others, and the surrounding environment or the space that doesn’t belong to anyone, that is selflessly shared among all and everyone of all kinds of diversities, without the need of the sense of belonging, identification, pride, possessiveness, and protectiveness, if the minds are free from ignorance and egoism.
Just as the selfish protective parents want to ‘protect’ the children that they ‘love’ very much, and hence, they want to ‘influence’, ‘manipulate’, ‘threaten’, and ‘control’ the children to be and not to be in certain way, not knowing that they are actually inflicting so much unnecessary hurtful damages to the physical/mental/emotional well-being of the children that they strongly think and believe that they belonged to them, that they ‘love’ and ‘protect’ very much, where the parents repeatedly ‘punish’ and ‘hurt’ the children physically/mentally/emotionally whenever they are not being the way that the parents would like them to be.
At the same time, the parents tell themselves and the children, “We are doing this (hurting you and everything that belong to us) because we love you and everything very much. We want you and everything to be ‘good and right’ the way that we think and believe is ‘good and right’.”
Let it go, if one truly loves something or anything.
Letting go of something, it doesn’t mean that one will not be looking after the general welfare of something, or will be deliberately generating unnecessary hurtful damages unto something (that doesn’t belong to ‘I’, or ‘us’, or ‘them’, or ‘others’, or ‘anyone’).
One can truly be looking after the welfare of everything by stop hurting anything out of ‘love’ and possessiveness.
The world will be a place of more peace and less unrest, if more minds are free from ignorance and egoism, which is nothing to do with whether the minds are highly educated/literate/intelligent/knowledgeable/talented/successful/wealthy/attractive/admirable/influential/powerful, or not, as all these qualities don’t determine whether a mind is free from ignorance and egoism, or not.
Inquire the truth of everything, and be free.
My Daily Yoga Practice 