As Long as There Is No Selfishness, There Is No Debt Relationship

(Actually, what I am about to talk about is still narrow. It has no meaning; it is still narrow.)

He cannot play with you—how could he? The only thing he can play with is your self: you think he has embarrassed you, or made you uncomfortable, or that you have been embarrassed. But how could you be embarrassed? Embarrassment is something you think.

When he embarrasses you, treat it as the kind of prank children play on one another. That is all it is, a prank. As long as you do not get angry inside, one day you can play a prank on him too, embarrass him a little. Let everyone play, and everyone will…

As long as you do not get angry, your wisdom is right there. It is just a game; it is a state of mind. As long as you do not get angry, it is nothing. If you arrange for me to clean the toilets, I will clean them. Since the right to arrange it is in your hands, I will do it.

(Should I try to get it changed?)

You can also talk to him: “I really do not want to clean the toilets. Could you transfer me somewhere else?” If he says no, then I will clean them. Someone has to clean them; why not me?

(Some children may really have habitual tendencies from a past life, which is impossible to understand. … Some inexplicable things emerge in them, and we do not know where they came from. They may have been carried over from a previous life.)

Yes. Some come from past lives, some are inherited from their parents, and some are picked up from their environment.

(Some things are inherited, but even when you want him to inherit them, you do not feel that he has inherited them.)

Good—he did not inherit them.

(I read online that some children come to repay kindness, while others come to collect a debt. How can I…)

You still cannot tell which ones come to collect a debt and which ones come to repay kindness? If someone is collecting a debt, whom do you owe? They keep demanding payment, and you cannot pay it off. You still cannot tell?

(Sometimes it does not show itself completely. Sometimes I feel he is quite good, and sometimes he seems like someone who has come to collect a debt.)

Actually, for most children, before they become independent, the parents’ feelings toward them are like working as an ox or a horse to repay a debt. Because your love is selfless, you expect nothing. I do not think it can really be called collecting or repaying a debt, because at that time you are selfless. Because he is your child, you raise him, send him to school, and educate him.

As long as there is no selfishness, I think there is no debt relationship. No one can really be said to be collecting or repaying a debt. You love him—that is what you should do—and in that love you enjoy the happiness of being a mother. There is the happiness of having a child, and the child enjoys the happiness of having a mother. They give to each other; there is no need to call it anything.

Speaking of the extreme case of collecting and repaying debts: when the child grows up, the relationship between the child and the parents is especially bad. The child is annoyed just seeing the parents, or beats them, kills them, and so on. That is extreme. For most children, there is nothing particular to say about the relationship between parents and children. It is simply an affinity: the affinity between parent and child, the affinity between father and child. There is nothing more to it. It is like your affinity with anyone else. It is just that you are attached and think, “That is my child,” so you give more.

All the problems come from you. You think, “That is mine.” Why do you not care about other people’s children? In fact, perhaps your affinity with someone else’s child is even deeper from past lives. It is just that in this life you happened to form an affinity with this person, and they became your child.

As a mother, do not expect too much. Being a mother simply means that, through affinity, everyone has gathered together in this life, and this life lasts only a few decades. You have gathered through affinity; he has his destiny, and you have yours. But he is your child, so you have the duty to educate him and support him through school. When he eventually establishes a family and a career, that is his destiny. Whether it turns out well or badly, you have done what you needed to do. If you have the ability, take care of him for his whole life. If you do not, doing your utmost is enough. What are you expecting?

Besides, by giving birth to a child, you have already gained something through loving the child, through that love. Because you love the child, you gain a kind of elevation and enhancement of life—or whatever it is. And in the process of loving, you also gain happiness from the child.

All of that has already repaid the debt. What are you expecting? For the child to support you, or what? For the child to become outstanding and bring honor to the family, or what? I think this is the narrowness of parents; it is the parents’ problem.

We should not demand so much. We should not demand so much from our children, so much from our husbands, or so much from our wives. Everyone has gathered through affinity; there should be no expectations. If you have expectations, you will definitely suffer and definitely be unhappy. But you do have the duty and responsibility to educate a child, because the child does not yet understand.

(So you should not have expectations of your husband either?)

Even more so, you should not have expectations. A husband is simply a companion. You have joined one another as companions in this life; the affinity is already deep, and that is enough. You were able to marry him through affinity and travel through this life together. I think that is what a companion is.

What is a companion? It means that you travel together; in hardship and difficulty, you can ask after each other and show consideration. That is enough. What else are you expecting?

You are simply wrong. Your expectations are abnormal. Why expect so much? He should not have expectations of you, and you should not have expectations of him.

(Because you feel that you have given more to him, so he should bear the responsibility that he himself is supposed to bear…)

You do not have to give anything; it is no big deal. It is your choice. You do not have to clean the house, and you do not have to do the laundry. If he thinks that is unacceptable, tell him: “You did not do it either. Isn’t that the same?” If you are able to, and you feel you cannot live with it because it is very dirty, then go and do it—just do not complain.

Actually, it is very simple. Many things are simple; we are the ones who make them complicated. Our expectations are too high, so they become complicated; they have been made complicated. You have expectations, habitual tendencies, and desires, and then you make demands. Once you have expectations, you still make demands—that is trouble. You have expectations, then make demands, then want results, and so you will never be happy and will never have a harmonious relationship. As long as these three things are present—expectations, demands, and results—the relationship will never be harmonious.

(Isn’t that having no desire and no seeking?)

It is having no desire and no seeking. It is seeing the truth clearly: there are things you cannot get. How could you have expectations? How could you…? This is not having no desire and no seeking; it is the truth of the facts. Your demands are useless. Did you get what you demanded? Didn’t it just turn into an argument? What meaning does it have? In the end, are we not all simply living very strenuously?

You are doing things that have no meaning. You think too much about useless things and spend all day doing useless things. It is not having no desire and no seeking; it is uselessness. If something is useful, use it. If it is useless, do not spend all day making a mess of things.

(Many troubles still come from our own demands and desires.)

You think too much, and miscellaneous thoughts fly everywhere. You think about the future, think about the past, and struggle with it.

(Sometimes I want to make my mind a little purer and stop thinking about so many chaotic things, but then I find that my mind will not obey me. All day it is one matter or another. In any case, my mind never stops; it keeps turning and turning.)

This requires some cultivation and realization. At first you need some stilling of the mind, and slowly, slowly you reach the point where you no longer think about the past or the future and gradually come to a stop. Your spinning head is like a grinding wheel: it turns and turns and turns, then stops. Once it stops, you begin to pay attention to what is in front of you. In fact, there is happiness right in front of you. At this moment we are chatting and drinking tea; it is very happy. What problem is there?

Where is the problem? The problem is in your mind. Look at you—everything is fine, and the sun still rises. Deal with tomorrow’s matters tomorrow. When you clean the toilets tomorrow, face those toilets. What is the problem? Aren’t they just toilets to clean? Most importantly, I am telling you, the most important thing is that you have connected cleaning the toilets with your pride.

That is what you think. You cleaned the toilets, but no one treated you as a worm. First of all, I do not think you are a worm. If you are here and someone asks you to clean the toilets, I would say, “Hey, the great leader is personally cleaning the toilets today. Is this an inspection tour of the countryside?”

No one treated you as a worm. You are the one thinking, “I am being demoted to cleaning toilets; I am being treated as a worm.” You happily clean the toilets: “Today I will experience the hardships of the people, experience the hardships ordinary people endure when cleaning toilets.”

Can you not make fun of yourself a little? In this lifetime, you will not have a chance to clean toilets, I am telling you. Can you not look at your whole life from beginning to end? If you clean toilets a few times, what does it matter? You cleaned them; that is all.

They happened to assign it to you. Why can you not let him have a little fun? Then after you clean them, say, “Look, I cleaned the toilets. I am so happy for you! Be happy every day—I cleaned the toilets, so keep enjoying yourself.” What are you afraid of? Why be afraid? Why look at your own share of suffering? Pride and attachment. What is so special about you?

I am not saying that someone in your position should perhaps not clean toilets. I am speaking about a normal situation: today happens to be the day for duty, everyone is assigned a task, and you happen to be assigned the task of cleaning toilets. If you think you should not do it, then who should? First of all, who should clean the toilets?

The point is that today you are certainly not actually cleaning toilets; you simply feel that this task is like cleaning toilets. But the most important thing is that sometimes we cannot lower ourselves—our self, that self-conceit, cannot come down. What is so special about us? To be honest, this is because you are standing on the step of being a government civil servant. You simply have that kind of job. That is all.

If we jump out into space and look back at Earth, there are only two kinds of people in this world—two types: one is male and one is female, all looking much the same. We are nothing. So what if you are the president? From the perspective of extraterrestrial life, human beings would be classified like this: there are two kinds of people on Earth, men and women. Women are all more or less the same, and men are all more or less the same. That is how they would classify you, simply sorting you into a category.

Whether you are good-looking or not, beautiful or ugly, in their eyes you are simply being sorted into a kind or a group. What you look like, whether you have money or not—what meaning does any of it have? It is like our sorting a group of sows into a group of females and a group of males.

He is the monkey king, or whatever he is. What meaning does that have for us? But that monkey king thinks he is a monkey king, sitting in a tree and feeling important. Then he says, “I, the monkey king, cannot sit in a tree below. I must sit in the highest tree.” You know, to people those trees all look more or less the same. That is the monkey king’s self, so when he sits in the tree below, he feels very miserable.

What meaning does it have? In the long river of life, over the course of a lifetime, can you not jump out of it? What meaning does it have? If you cannot jump out of this little thing, what are you studying Buddhism for? What are you attaining the Way for? How will you ever see through the red dust of the world?

There is no problem with experiencing things. If your workplace says tomorrow, “Could you go and experience the hardships of ordinary people?” you may be very capable of experiencing them. But you cannot practice patience; you cannot endure the grievance of that moment. It is not that cleaning toilets is hard. You could clean three toilets without difficulty, and you would swish, swish, swish, finish them. What is the problem? You simply cannot bear that feeling of being wronged; you feel wronged.

It is all right to feel wronged. Why can you not bear it? Feeling wronged is all right. In this life, people have to experience grievances and learn to bear them; that is also a form of cultivation. To practice the Bodhisattva Path, the first thing is to practice patience. Patience is a very important practice. Among the six paramitas, patience is the first; patience is accomplished.

Patience means that no one understands you at all and there is no reward. Nothing you do is understood or rewarded. You cannot seek understanding or seek a reward, but you must keep doing it. And all the attacks and blows others direct at you, all their disdain, all their contempt, all their abuse—you accept them with a smile. That is what you should do. That is what you should do, you know?

(This is exactly what we lack.)

Start with this first step. Go and endure it. Endure, endure, and it is gone. There is nothing left to endure. What is there to endure?

(If I endure him, will he take advantage and keep pushing further?)

No, definitely not. Try it.

(Will he stop respecting me?)

He will not respect you either. Yes, you will have no-self. You will suddenly feel liberated, liberated from the self-conceit and the framework of vanity that come from your self. You will no longer be vain; you will become very humorous.

You can sit in the highest position or in the lowest position, and your state of mind will be exactly the same. You will no longer be trapped by power and influence. That is liberation; it is Enlightenment. Enlightenment is for the sake of liberation, so that you are no longer trapped by anything.

(…respect, yielding, negotiation.)

That is right, but sometimes this world is not equal or fair.

I believe that if you fight with him, both sides will be hurt. It is not that you are afraid of him. Patience is not fear, not being scared, and not cowardice; it is that it is not worth it.

(I will fly into a rage, and he will think I am formidable and not dare to provoke me.)

That is also possible; it is another method. Say, “I am not doing it!” and fly into a rage; he will change it. But do not keep it in your heart. Do not remember him. Do not think he is deliberately making things difficult for you. This is how patience becomes…

Once he changes it, he is still a good person in my heart. Change this view: in your heart, this person is still a good person, not a bad person. Bring it up again next time and talk to him again. If he has changed in this matter, continue to treat him well and still regard him in your heart as a good person. If you respect him and show him tolerance, if you respect him, he will slowly change his attitude toward you.

Even if he changes this matter, you may still remain resentful. Because you think it was your effort that made him change; otherwise, he must have been deliberately making things difficult for you. You have fixed all your judgments in place. You are not prepared to forgive him, so your relationship will never work. You have never forgiven him. Even today you remember: “If he dares to do that to you, you will… Anyway, I am not afraid of you.”

(I feel that when I get angry, it works; then he changes.)

You can get angry; I think that is also possible. Patience is possible, and anger is possible. But I would suggest that you practice patience once. Try practicing patience once. You may have an unexpected gain.

(When I resist, there is a result. He is really obnoxious; he is on this turf, …)

When you are formidable, he backs off.

(Sometimes I live within a larger whole, on a larger platform, and live well—quite happily. But because of some small things in this particular corner, if I cannot let them go… things in this corner will pull at me… In fact, I end up ignoring the beautiful things and focusing more on some flaws…)

This is Buddha. At the beginning, he asks you to step out and look at this self of yours. For example, do you identify this Dawei as yours? Consider The Four Elements Are Empty: this Dawei is composed of greed, anger, delusion, self-conceit, and doubt, and of the five aggregates—Form, feeling, perception, formations, and Consciousness. Your self-conceit and some of your self—these things are illusory, and what they touch is something illusory in you. It is only that you cling to a mark…

Actually, the real thing in you is only awareness. Now you say, “Just now I felt angry; just now I felt…” You are only that awareness; everything else is illusory. What he touches is something illusory in you. You are the one who acknowledged it, so he touched you. Those illusory things are not you.

So Buddhism initially asks you to bear this patience. It wants you to step out and regard that patience as something false, a false mark, endured by an illusory you. In this way, you gradually step out of this attachment to the self.

When he collides with you, it is necessarily something involving the self. As long as you have an uncomfortable sensation, your self has certainly been struck there. The most important thing in realizing Buddhahood is breaking through the self. When you are free, you are free.

On the other hand, sometimes do not think every person on the other side is so evil. That is another point. Although sometimes he may really be bad, it depends on how you see him. You think he is acting without intention, that he is simply that way, and so you do not care about him.

First, you label him: he is deliberately making things difficult for you, he is evil, he is targeting you. That makes it different again; the feeling becomes different again. That kind of definition has a very strong purpose…

(You said that in our ordinary arising and movement of thoughts, sometimes we have a good intention but do not act on it…)

But you have to do it. It is that simple. If you did not do it last time, do it next time. You have to act; doing it and not doing it are different. When you do it, you will discover the difference. Some things are only empty imaginings in your mind; their effect and the effect of doing them are two different things. Only when you act can you notice the arising and movement of thoughts, your feelings, and how they differ from not acting and merely thinking.

If you think it is a wholesome act, something good, then go and do it; do not just stand there thinking. Or if you think you missed the chance and say, “Forget it, I cannot be bothered,” do not do that. If you think it is a good thing, something good for others, then go and do it. Once you think of it, do it.

Note: This text was prepared from a teaching video by Yang Ning. If it differs from the video, the video takes precedence. Watch the video.