..续本文上一页hings, that person has not yet attained to insight. In short, then, insight into impermanence, unsatisfactoriness and non-selfhood amounts to realizing that nothing is worth getting or worth being.
There is a word in Buddhism that covers this completely, the word sunnata, or emptiness, emptiness of selfhood, emptiness of any essence that we might have a right to cling to with all our might as being "mine." Observation, which leads to the insight that all things are devoid of any essence that is worth clinging to is the real core of the religion. It is the key to Buddhist practice. When we have come to know clearly that everything of every kind is devoid of selfhood we can be said to know Buddha-Dhamma in its entirety. The single phrase "empty of self" sums up the words "impermanent (anicca), unsatisfactory (dukkha) and not self (anatta)." When something is perpetually changing, devoid of any permanent unchanging element, it can also be said to be empty. When it is seen to be overflowing with the property of inducing disillusionment, it can be described as empty of any entity that we might have a right to cling to. And when we discover on examination that it possesses no stable component whatever that could be "self," that it is simply nature, changing and fluctuating in accordance with the laws of nature, which we have no right to call a self, then it can be described as empty of self. As soon as any inpidual has come to perceive the emptiness of things, there arises in him the realization that it is not worth getting or being any of those things. This feeling of not desiring to get or to be has the power to protect one from falling slave, to the defilements or to any kind of emotional involvement. Once an inpidual has attained this condition, he is thenceforth incapable of any unwholesome state of mind. He does become carried away by or involved in anything. He does not become in any way attracted or seduced by anything. His mind knows permanent liberty and independence, and is free from suffering.
The statement "Nothing is worth getting or being" is to be understood in a rather special sense. The words "get" and "be" refer here to getting and being with a deluded mind, with a mind that grasps and clings wholly and entirely. It is not suggested that one could live without having or being an thing at all. Normally there are certain things one can”t do without. One needs property, children, wife, garden, field and so on. One is to be good, one can”t help being a winner or a loser, or having some status or other. One can”t help being something or other. Why then are we taught to regard things as not worth getting or being
The answer is this: the concepts of getting and being are purely relative; they are worldly ideas based on ignorance. Speaking in terms of pure reality, or absolute truth, we cannot get or be anything at all. And why
Simply because both the person who is to do the getting and the thing that is to be got are impermanent, unsatisfactory (suffering) and nobody”s property. But an inpidual who doesn”t perceive this will naturally think "I am getting..., I have..., I am...." We automatically think in these terms, and it is this very concept of getting and being that is the source of distress and misery.
Getting and being represent a form of desire, namely the desire not to let the thing that one is in the process of getting or being disappear or slip away. Suffering arises from desire to have and desire to be, in short, from desire; and desire arises from failure to realize that all things are inherently undesirable. The false idea that things are desirable is present as an instinct right from babyhood and is the cause of desire. Consequent on the desire there come about results of one sort or another, which may or …
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