No-Self, No-Form Β· Friendly Version¶
I. The Short Version¶
No-Self, No-Form means this: stop clinging to "I," and stop being trapped by all the things you label, define, and hold onto. When the heart is free of ego-attachment and form-clinging, it returns to its original openness β and that openness is the path to the Elysium World.
Xuefeng distilled the entire core of the Buddha's teaching into one line:
The core of the Buddha's teaching is: No-Self, No-Form β a heart that dwells nowhere, a heart with no attachments.
II. Why Is "Having a Self" a Problem?¶
Here's a question worth sitting with: Where do your worries come from?
Xuefeng offered a striking answer:
All worry, pain, anxiety, fear, and misfortune come from possessing a self. When the self no longer exists, all these negatives dissolve.
"Possessing a self" doesn't mean you exist. It means you order your life around protecting "mine" β my pride, my interests, my opinions, my relationships, my certainty about being right. Every argument, every conflict, every bout of anxiety is an act of defending the self.
There's a story that illustrates this beautifully. The famous poet Su Dongpo once asked the Buddhist master Foyin: "What do I look like to you?" Foyin replied: "Like a dignified Buddha." Pleased, Su asked in return: "What do you look like to me?" Su said: "Like a pile of dung." Foyin just smiled quietly. The lesson: the one who reacted with pleasure had a self. The one who was unmoved did not.
With No-Self, the road is bright. With self, thorns and spears at every step.
III. What Are "Forms" β And Why Do They Trap Us?¶
In this system, "form" (xiΔng, ηΈ) means anything that the heart latches onto β anything that fixes, limits, or imprisons your experience of reality.
The Five Categories of Form:
| Category | What it includes | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Physical forms | Everything sensed | Tastes, sounds, sights, textures |
| Mental forms | Emotional states | Joy, anger, grief, fear |
| Dharma-forms | Social structures | Laws, religions, nations, family roles |
| Non-dharma-forms | Spiritual attachments | Ideals, sacred teachings, personal goals |
| Non-non-dharma-forms | Cognitive bedrock | Good/evil, true/false, beautiful/ugly, life/death |
Why do these trap us? As long as there is any form you're clinging to, you cannot see the Tathagata (the true nature of reality) β and you cannot become a Buddha.
Here's a concrete example from Second Home life. In traditional culture, elders and younger generations are supposed to maintain formal distance β no joking, certainly no playful teasing across generations. That's a dharma-form β a social rule that the mind clings to. If the community follows that rule rigidly, the household becomes stiff and joyless. Breaking that form β seeing through it to the essence of human connection β brought more joy, more openness, more real warmth.
Breaking forms brings joy, delight, wonder, and bliss.
IV. "No-Form" Doesn't Mean Nothing Exists¶
The natural fear: If I break all forms, won't I be left with nothing? Isn't that just death?
The answer is no β and it's one of the most important teachings in this system:
The Elysium World is entirely a world of forms β a state of "possessing everything." The journey from breaking forms to entering a world full of forms is the journey from "having nothing" to "having everything."
Imagine someone living in a 3-square-meter room, completely attached to it as "home." When they let go of it β when they no longer cling to that form β they discover 3,000 square meters, then 30,000. The loss was not loss at all.
And forms themselves don't disappear:
When a person dies, the physical body is burned. But in dreams, the eyes, nose, and ears still function. After breaking forms, the forms don't vanish β they continue to exist, but the experience of them is completely different.
V. Eighteen Ways to Get Closer¶
Xuefeng gave eighteen practical directions for approaching No-Self, No-Form. Here are some of the most accessible:
Hand your life over: Your life was created and is watched over by the Greatest Creator. Stop worrying about survival, reputation, and loss. Hand the outcome to the Greatest Creator.
Live in the present: When something arises, respond. When it passes, let it go. Don't replay the past; don't anxiously plan for tomorrow. Be here now.
Let go of gain and loss: Nothing is gained for free; nothing is lost without reason. If something goes, let it go without regret.
Use the heart, not the head: Rather than analyzing every decision, ask: Does this bring ease to my spirit? If yes, it's right. If not, it's wrong.
Keep it simple: No pretense, no maneuvering, no chasing recognition. Live plainly, genuinely, freely.
These aren't a checklist β they're a direction of travel. Ordinary humans can never fully reach No-Self, No-Form, but every step toward it is real progress.
VI. The Chain That Connects Everything¶
One of the most remarkable statements in this system:
Emptiness = No-Form = No-Self = Ultimate Nirvana = Elysium World = Tao = Buddha = Celestial Immortal
This means all these are the same destination described from different angles. When the Buddha talks about nirvana, when the Taoists talk about the Tao, when this system talks about the Elysium World β these are names for the same state. And the path to all of them passes through No-Self, No-Form.
VII. A Final Word¶
No-Self, No-Form is the state of immortals and Buddhas. Ordinary people can only approach it β and that's enough.
The simplest gateway: if a person can free themselves from worry, anxiety, and fear; if they can, to the greatest degree, arrive at a heart with no attachments and nowhere to dwell; if they can, as much as possible, approach No-Self, No-Form β they have already become a Buddha, an immortal, and entered the Elysium World.
Every moment the heart isn't grabbed β every time you watch a wave of worry rise and let it go β is a small nirvana.
The greatest Self is No-Self.
Compiled by: Lingzhou Cao | Date: 2026-05-03