The Teaching of Non-Self

That afternoon there was a tug of war out in the yard. The child hugged a toy car tight, face flushed red, and shouted at the neighbor's kid, "This is MINE!"

Dad was watering the plants nearby. He set the hose down and came over. He did not scold. He only crouched down to the child's eye level and gently asked a strange question.

"Yours, is it? But I really want to know. That 'me' who owns it, who is that?"

The child stopped short, and the arms around the car loosened a little. "It's me, of course, Dad."

"Yes, it's you. But let me tell you something very old. A while ago, before the anger came, there was a big grin. Five minutes later came a red face and yelling. After dinner, the happy face will probably be back. So the 'me' who was laughing and the 'me' who was angry, are they one, or two?"

The child blinked and had no answer.

Dad smiled kindly. "Keep thinking about it. The child of yesterday, the child of today, the child of next year, a little taller. What is there inside that stays still forever and never changes?"

"I don't know, Dad."

"The Buddha once asked that very same question. And the answer he gave is what we call vô ngã."

"What is vô ngã, Dad?"

Dad drew the child down to sit beside him on the front step and set the toy car to one side. "Vô ngã means there is no fixed 'me' inside us that stays the same forever. In English it is often called non-self. Let's look at what we are made of. There is this body. There are feelings, happy and sad. There is the part that remembers and thinks. There are habits. And there is the part that is listening to me right now. People long ago called those five parts the Ngũ Uẩn. In English they are called the five aggregates."

"Do those five parts come together to make me, Dad?"

"That's right. Those five parts come together, and we call that you. But search through all five, and there's no lump of 'me' sitting still in one spot. The body grows a little every day. Feelings come and go. Thoughts keep running and never stop. A person is more like a river than a rock."

Dad pointed to the little stream that ran at the bottom of the garden. "Look at that water. It flows past, and past, and not one drop stays put. And still we call it the same stream. People are like that too. New, bit by bit, and still the same person."

The child looked at the water, then down at one small hand.

"Remember the oil lamp in our house?" Dad went on. "The flame we see there is really one flame following the next, again and again, so fast that our eyes gather them into one streak of light. There's no lump of fire sitting still in there. And yet it burns on without a break, and gives light to the whole family. The 'me' inside us is like that too. Moment follows moment and joins into one stream, and that stream is you."

"So I'm not real, Dad?" The child sounded a little worried.

"No, no. Of course you're real. Sitting here, breathing, loving Dad. Vô ngã does not mean that a person doesn't exist. It only says there is no stiff, unchanging self inside that stays the same for all time. A person is a stream that is flowing and living, not a thing to be shut away in a cupboard."

Dad picked up the toy car and turned it over in his hands. "Tell me something. Just now, hugging the car and shouting 'mine', did it feel good inside, or bad?"

"Bad. My heart was pounding, and my face was hot."

"There it is. When we hold on to 'me' too tightly, and hold on to 'mine' too tightly, we make ourselves suffer. The Buddha taught that the more we cling to the self, the more we suffer. Loosen the grip a little, and the heart feels so much wider."

The child let out a breath, and the small shoulders dropped.

"But here's the best part." Dad leaned in closer. "When we stop hugging the self so tight, we finally see how big we really are. Think about what we are made of. Inside there's Mom, and Dad, and Grandma and Grandpa. There's the teacher who taught you to read. There's the sun that makes the plants grow, the drops of rain, the rice at every meal, and even the Vietnamese language we're speaking together. All of those things come together, and that is you."

"I'm made of that many things, Dad?"

"So many. A Vietnamese teacher, the Zen master Thích Nhất Hạnh, gave this a beautiful name: tương tức. It means that we and all things lean on one another in order to be here. He said that if you look deeply into a flower, you will see it is made of things that are not the flower. Sunshine, clouds, rain and soil. People are the same. Understanding vô ngã is not about feeling smaller. It is about seeing that we are joined to the whole world."

Dad stood up, went into the house, and poured a glass of clear water. He brought it out and handed it to the child.

"Hold this glass of water. Where did this water come from? From the rain that fell, from the stream out there, from the clouds in the sky, from the springs deep in the earth. Sky, earth, rivers and clouds, all of them fit inside this one little glass."

The child held the glass and looked inside. The afternoon sky shimmered on the surface of the water.

Dad ruffled the child's hair. "You're just like this glass of water, made of the rain, the river, the sky, Mom's hands and Dad's words. Go on, drink up."

The child lifted the glass and drank it down in one go. The water ran down cool, clear and sweet. Then, unprompted, the child turned and held out the toy car for the neighbor's kid to borrow, and smiled.