Question

Does Kamma belong to me? Am I not the owner of my Kamma? How can I understand this compared to the statement that "nothing belongs to me"?

Answer

Correct. That's the only thing that belongs to you! "I am the owner of my Kamma, heir to my Kamma, born of my Kamma, abide supported by my Kamma, whatever Kamma I shall do of that shall I be the heir. Thus by us should these be frequently recollected." That's according to the Buddha's words. So we are the owner of our Kamma. Understanding that everything we say think and do will have a result.

Not-self, this is where we can get confused and get into paradoxes about this me and nothing belongs to me. Everything arises due to cause and effect. We don't want to try to put ultimate reality onto relative reality. We label this process "me" until such time as we can investigate and see that we are not this, and free ourselves from the cycle of Kamma.

As far as it not belonging to an individual self, it follows certain laws of cause and effect, cause and effect, cause and effect. And in order to have the result that we wish, we have to understand the causes for it, in that way it is not really ours.

This body is not mine in the sense that it is composed of the four great elements and arises from the four great elements and depends on the four great elements for existence and returns to the four great elements. So nothing that is composed of the four great elements can be said to be belonging to me. The mind follows according to cause and effect. There's no permanent self, if we investigate, there's no solid static self residing within us, it's more like a flowing river. If you go to the side of the Mississippi River and look at the middle of the river, look at just one spot, is it the same water going by? You see it's constantly changing, not the same water, but the concept of the Mississippi River, remains the same, it remains the Mississippi River. We have to see more deeply to see that the Mississippi River is just describing a process of cause and effect.

Our apologies if there are any errors in the above text. If anything seems to be wrong or confusing in any way, please feel free to contact the teachers for further clarification.