This poem by Shankaracharya or Adi Shankara, the mystic who reformed and unified yogic practice in India, expresses a thought very similar to the recently posted tale about King Janaka. For more about Shankaracharya, see this earlier post.

The sage
king Janaka
stands on a hill
watching his city in flames
“Endless is my wealth,”
he says
“I have nothing at all,
and thus when this city of Mithila crumbles,
red embers, white ashes
all monuments of men destroyed,
nothing of mine is burned.”

“I have nothing at all,
and endless is my wealth.”

Translation by W. S. Merwin and J. Moussaieff Mason