not-self
The problem of self
29/January/2010 06:31 PM
How do we use the concept of “self” (attā)? Broadly
speaking, in two ways. The first is conventional,
when we refer to ourselves in a normal, everyday way
— “I went shopping today …;” “I don’t like the smell
of fish.” All this is obviously empirical. The word
“I” points to my sense of personal unity, bounded by
this body. “That wasn’t me — I was at home at the
time!”
The second is when we refer to something much more mysterious — the unseen entity at the core of our being. This entity is mysterious because it is not empirical. Unlike the body I identify with, we never see it. It remains hidden beneath the various ways in which I express my personal nature. Sometimes I am happy, sometimes sad; sometimes good, sometimes bad; sometimes I like this, sometimes I don’t. While I retain a sense of personal unity throughout these changes, I cannot pinpoint the one who undergoes these changes — the one who is sometimes good, sometimes bad. This one — the “metaphysical” rather than “empirical” self — remains hidden. It’s more an inference than an experience. My empirical self refers to something reassuringly physical — the one typing (or reading) these words. But my metaphysical self is only a concept. It has no more reality than that. Read More...
The second is when we refer to something much more mysterious — the unseen entity at the core of our being. This entity is mysterious because it is not empirical. Unlike the body I identify with, we never see it. It remains hidden beneath the various ways in which I express my personal nature. Sometimes I am happy, sometimes sad; sometimes good, sometimes bad; sometimes I like this, sometimes I don’t. While I retain a sense of personal unity throughout these changes, I cannot pinpoint the one who undergoes these changes — the one who is sometimes good, sometimes bad. This one — the “metaphysical” rather than “empirical” self — remains hidden. It’s more an inference than an experience. My empirical self refers to something reassuringly physical — the one typing (or reading) these words. But my metaphysical self is only a concept. It has no more reality than that. Read More...
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Not-self & the unity of the person
21/January/2010 12:03 PM
Given the Buddha’s teaching on “not-self” (anattā),
which seems to deny my existence as an individual
person, what foundation is there for my sense of
personal unity? For I need a sense of unity in order
to function in the world. Otherwise, I’m still here,
but fragmented, broken into conflicting desires and
impulses.
In the discourse where he introduces his teaching of not-self, the Anattalakkhaṇa Sutta (Characteristics of not-self), the Buddha speaks of the practice of not-self as the recognition of any experience as: “This is not mine;” “I am not this;” “This is not myself.”
This practice is ruthless. Whatever I experience is neither mine nor me. Everywhere I look, I find absence. Wherever I look, I don’t find someone I can identify with as me. And the Buddha does nothing, in this discourse, to fill this gap. The teaching is relentlessly negative — not mine, not this, not myself. Nothing is left standing. Read More...
In the discourse where he introduces his teaching of not-self, the Anattalakkhaṇa Sutta (Characteristics of not-self), the Buddha speaks of the practice of not-self as the recognition of any experience as: “This is not mine;” “I am not this;” “This is not myself.”
This practice is ruthless. Whatever I experience is neither mine nor me. Everywhere I look, I find absence. Wherever I look, I don’t find someone I can identify with as me. And the Buddha does nothing, in this discourse, to fill this gap. The teaching is relentlessly negative — not mine, not this, not myself. Nothing is left standing. Read More...