35 | CR Book XI, Chapter 3
Other exercises counteract the process of I-making by
which we appropriate so much to ourselves. The self is
repeatedly and habitually unhinged from anything that
clings to it. Apparently personal activities, belongings,
states etc may be contemplated as "not its", and as own-
erless, impersonal events, which proceed according to the
laws of karma. They will at will be projected on ficti-
tious owners. One may account for them in terms of the
five clinging and grasping skandhas, thereby reducing
one's manhood to so many heaps, or pieces, plus a label.
One may, in modesty, refrain from "I"-propositions, as
from arrogant self-assertions. One may recall the tra-
ditional - 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12 and 42 - ways in which the
personality is said to be "void of self". Self-being
may be contemplated as never abiding in itself, incess-
antly changing, and doomed to perish. Or, on the back-
ground of, and in identification with Reality itself.
"As the Dharma in essence has no desire to possess, the
wise are ever ready to practise generosity with their
body, life and property, and they never begrudge, they
never know what an ill grace means." They know that
they merely return stolen goods. "Each thing is a
thief."