Empty of Ourselves, God Works on Us

Because we may say, 'Oh, I actively belong to You, God.' You may say that, but you may never do it actually. So then that is just a frame that we may use, is it? So it's not just in the lip service, but to say that 'I belong to You, God' and then to let go of control over ourselves. See, because what else can we do to offer ourselves to Him? We can't force ourselves on Him. You can't say, 'Here I am, take me.' You can't do it. All we can do is carry the intention and then have faith that, empty of me, I belong to Him.

I hope you're getting a sense of what I'm saying because it can be a bit subtle. So we are building on the point that empty of ourselves, He works on us. Empty of ourselves means we do not belong to ourselves anymore, but we belong to Him. But there's no way that we can force that belonging to Him; we only have to have faith that He knows, okay?

And through whichever lens we look at this, we have to conclude that something out of the ordinary happens when we surrender, when we submit, when we let go of ourselves. So whether we listen to Master Bankei saying all things are perfectly resolved in the Unborn—how? Why are they resolved? What makes that sage give us this guarantee that all things are perfectly resolved in the Unborn? It is because something out of the ordinary then has taken hold, see? If it was a sheer nihilistic limbo, then there's no question of anything being resolved. But the sage must have noticed that empty of ourselves, in the Unborn, a greater Will, a greater power takes over and nothing is a problem anymore.