Is Picking Up Lost Items Considered Theft?

If you lose property on the road and are not attached to that property, having already given up ownership of it, then if someone picks it up and takes it as their own, it does not constitute theft. But if you care about and are attached to that property, and your manas is unwilling to relinquish ownership, continually searching for it, then if someone picks up the property and does not return it to the owner, it constitutes theft. When one person is happy, it is precisely when another person is unhappy; therefore bodhisattvas do not wish to pick things up on the road, do not wish for people to lose things, and do not wish for sentient beings to give rise to afflictions—just like a doctor who practices medicine to cure illness yet does not wish for there to be as many patients as possible, nor for medicines to sell as much as possible. However, if one truly encounters something someone else has lost, one must still pick it up, and after picking it up, find a way to return it to the owner, so that the owner does not feel anxious and sad; this too is charity and compassion.

If it is an item that someone else has already discarded, thrown into a garbage heap, then anyone may freely pick it up and use it; it does not constitute theft. Because the owner's manas has already abandoned the item, the item is ownerless and may be freely taken and used. In the Buddha's time, monastics would pick up discarded rags and shrouds from piles of the dead, wash them clean, mend them, and wear them as monastic robes. Those monastics were all empty of self in mind, viewing material form as empty as well, and did not disdain the worn-out clothing they picked up.

If someone gives something away and then regrets it, forcibly taking it back on the grounds that it is their own property, this constitutes theft. Because once the item has been given away, ownership has already changed hands—you are no longer the owner of that item—and if you forcibly take it back, it constitutes robbery and theft.