A few translation contexts for anattā as not self

Discussion
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We’ve recently been discussing the implications of anattā and the discussion has veered into translation issues. @Brahmali and @sylvester have made some good points, and I would like to follow up with a simple proposal: get rid of the hyphen. Anattā is a perfectly natural word in Pali, why translate it with a neologism? Here are a few contexts that try this rendering.

In some cases I’m tempted to offer an even more natural reading, which I add as the subsequent translation(s).

  • AN 1.465:
    • anicce dukkhasaññaṃ bhāveti … dukkhe anattasaññaṃ bhāveti … pahānasaññaṃ bhāveti
    • (one develops) the perception of suffering in impermanence … the perception of not self in suffering … the perception of giving up
    • the perception that suffering is not self
  • AN 3.136:
    • Sabbe dhammā anattā
    • all things are not self.
    • all things are void of self
    • self is absent in all things
  • AN 4.49:
    • anattani, bhikkhave, attāti saññāvipallāso cittavipallāso diṭṭhivipallāso;
    • Taking not self as self.
  • AN 4.124:
    • So yadeva tattha hoti rūpagataṃ vedanāgataṃ saññāgataṃ saṅkhāragataṃ viññāṇagataṃ, te dhamme aniccato dukkhato rogato gaṇḍato sallato aghato ābādhato parato palokato suññato anattato samanupassati.
    • They contemplate the phenomena there—included in form, feeling, perception, choices, and consciousness—as impermanent, as suffering, as diseased, as an abscess, as a dart, as misery, as an affliction, as alien, as falling apart, as empty, as not self.
    • as empty, as void of self
  • AN 7.18:
    • Sabbesu dhammesu anattānupassī viharati
    • one meditates observing not self in all things
    • one meditates observing that all things are not self
    • one meditates observing that all things are void of self
    • one meditates observing the absence of self in all things

Following the initial post @Brahmali suggested using “soul” for attā, so let’s see how that plays out in these cases.

  • AN 1.465:
    • anicce dukkhasaññaṃ bhāveti … dukkhe anattasaññaṃ bhāveti … pahānasaññaṃ bhāveti
    • (one develops) the perception of suffering in impermanence … the perception of not soul in suffering … the perception of giving up
    • the perception that suffering is not soul
  • AN 3.136:
    • Sabbe dhammā anattā
    • all things are not soul.
    • all things are void of soul
    • all things are without soul
    • soul is absent in all things
  • AN 4.49:
    • anattani, bhikkhave, attāti saññāvipallāso cittavipallāso diṭṭhivipallāso;
    • Taking what is not soul as the soul.
  • AN 4.124:
    • So yadeva tattha hoti rūpagataṃ vedanāgataṃ saññāgataṃ saṅkhāragataṃ viññāṇagataṃ, te dhamme aniccato dukkhato rogato gaṇḍato sallato aghato ābādhato parato palokato suññato anattato samanupassati.
    • They contemplate the phenomena there—included in form, feeling, perception, choices, and consciousness—as impermanent, as suffering, as diseased, as an abscess, as a dart, as misery, as an affliction, as alien, as falling apart, as empty, as not soul.
    • as empty, as void of soul
    • as empty, as without soul
  • AN 7.18:
    • Sabbesu dhammesu anattānupassī viharati
    • one meditates observing not soul in all things
    • one meditates observing that all things are not soul
    • one meditates observing that all things are without soul
    • one meditates observing that all things are void of soul
    • one meditates observing the absence of soul in all things
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I like it. There is something about “not-self” that almost reifies it. Perhaps it’s just me, but I don’t find it very clear. Just removing the hyphen is a big improvement. Yet I still prefer “devoid of self” or “void of self.” This is about as explicit as you can get and therefore the least prone to misunderstanding.

Perhaps: “the distortion of perception, mind, and view that there is a self in what is void of self.”

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Dear Bhantes @sujato and @Brahmali

I’m generally in favour of omitting the hypen, when rendering anattā in its occurences in eg “consiousness is not Self” etc propositions. Quare : should “self” be capitalised to “Self” in these instances?

However, there might need to be the occassional hyphenation, where anattā is not being used in a predicative sense as above. That would be those occassions such as AN 7.18 above, where anattā seems not to be a concrete noun, but an abstract noun. If we translate literally to bring out the sense more clearly, we get -

Sabbesu dhammesu anattānupassī viharati
She dwells as a contemplator of anattā with reference to all things.

This abstract sense comes though quite clearly in its adjacent suttas on being an aniccānupassī and dukkhānupassī with reference to all formations (AN 7.16 and AN 7.17). Looking at the CPD’s entry of anupassin, it would appear that with the exeception of the 4 loci for satipatthana (body, feeling, mind and things), in all other occurences of “ABCānupassī viharati” , ABC would be the conceptual/abstract frame of the thing being contemplated.

In light of this, anattā in the proposition “anattānupassī viharati” probably requires hyphenation to distinguish its anattā from the more common occurrence of anattā. Rendered literally, we get “contemplator of not-Self(ness)” or idiomatically as “contemplates not-Self”.

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@sujato,
What an excellent idea! I totally agree with @Brahmali that this is much less prone to reification. I like all the translations except I’m not crazy about

I would prefer something along the lines of what @Brahmali suggested which makes it clear that it’s a distortion of perception. While your suggestion is more succinct and easier to read, unless someone is already familiar with what this means the idea of “taking not self…” may well sound confusing. Perhaps a hybird between the two, something like “perceiving (or imagining) that there is a self in what is void of self” (though I know this doesn’t follow the Pali exactly)

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The more I look at these passages with “not-self” in them, the less sense they make. I wonder if we have just been conditioned by so much Buddhism to see them as meaningful?

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Hmm, just noticed another case that might qualify for hyphenation.

Anattani = with reference to that which is anattā

In this case, anattā is functioning as an adjective of something that is the subject of the perversion. It might be awkward to render the literal translation as “with reference to that which is not Self”. Might not “with reference to that which is not-Self” be better?

Of course, in the idiomatic translation, none of the above matters. Better yet, render it as “with reference to that which is devoid of self”. No hyphen and it is just like Bhante @Brahmali 's suggestion.

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Hi Bhante

I have a heretical suggestion for your consideration. For the 3 marks of anicca, dukkha and anattā, I can only find the abstract forms aniccatā and dukkhatā, but no anattātā/ anattatā.

I don’t have a sound philological basis for this, but I wonder if it might not be possible that anattā can also have a 3rd sense (aside from not self and void of self), ie the abstract “nature of being not Self”. I’ve not had any luck locating anātmantā or anātmantva. This abstract sense might be what is carried by AN 7.18. Although we don’t have anattātā/ anattatā in the suttas, the abstract concept of nonself-ness does get picked up in the Commentaries.

:anjal:

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I would like to cast a vote for without instead of void or devoid because it is the plainest way to put it:

one meditates observing that all things are without self

But does even self and not self make that much sense? To me these translations creates a thing (the self) and then says that a bunch of stuff (the khandas) are not this thing.

Could this thingification be a Western bias?

What about translating it into something like personal and impersonal?

“Bhikkhus, form is impersonal. For if, bhikkhus, form were personal, this form would not lead to affliction, and it would be possible to have it of form: ‘Let my form be like this; let my form not be like that.’ But because form is impersonal, form leads to affliction, and it is not possible to have it of form: ‘Let my form be like this; let my form not be like that.’

personal provides a nice platform for nuance as well:

“Bhikkhus, those ascetics and brahmins who regard anything as a personal identity in various ways all regard [personal identity in] the five aggregates subject to clinging, or a certain one among them. What five?

“Here, bhikkhus, the uninstructed worldling… regards form as personal identity, or that personal identity possesses form, or that form is within personal identity, or that personal identity is within form. (SN 22.47)

Edit: I would like to submit the hypothesis that relating anatta to personal identification [with the five khandas] is a good way to distinguish the Buddha’s teaching from annihilationism to a modern materialist audience.

The modern materialist already dismisses any soul- or selfhood with a supernatural flavor; the materialist word for soul is actually personality, which depends upon the brain for existence.

E.g. we say someone has “a great personality” these days rather than “a kind soul”.

[\end of hypothesis] :sweat_smile:

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Perhaps it is time to dust off “soul” as a translation for attā. According to Wikipedia

… the soul is the incorporeal essence of a living being. … Depending on the philosophical system, a soul can either be mortal or immortal.

which is very close to how attā is understood in the suttas.

Given that the view of an attā is common to all unawakened beings, we should expect to find the concept across all human cultures. I think it is self-evident that the concept of a “soul” is derived from the same delusion of a self as is attā. In other words, the two are probably semantic equivalents.

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Hi Bhate,
It is not the Buddhism conditioned us.
it is the society.
I was conditioned by my aunt the concept of I, me and myself when I was about seven years.
I was fighting with my brother for one shirt.
Then she took us to a side and said this is yours this is his.
So thought, wow I have the self.
Self- view is an Anusaya. The society props it up.

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Are you trying to say here that all things lack an essence (trees, people, apples, chairs etc) or that all things are not-me (thoughts, perceptions, sensations etc)?
:anjal:
Note: essence is the property or set of properties that make a thing what it fundamentally is and without which it loses its identity.

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delete

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Yes to both.

We tend to skip over this, but the suttas regularly refer to some kinds of “self” view as referring to things that are both material and external. Now, we can understand how you would take, say, your body, or your brain, as “self”, but a tree, and apple, or a chair? Nevertheless, such views were, in fact, very common in folk beliefs around the world. Indeed, we still imbue material objects, for example a photo of a beloved one who has passed away, with a deep emotional sense; we feel “connected”.

So the Buddha’s argument is both that we cannot ever own such things or imbue them with a soul; and, on a deeper level, that such things, because they are impermanent and lack an abiding essence, would never be fit receptacles for a supposed “soul” anyway.

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But how does that fit into the required translation?

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I’m not quite sure what you’re asking here.

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All things are not self = all things are not me.
All things are void of self = all things are void of essence.
You said it is both but you only translate for one.

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Hi Bhante, great idea.

Just to make it not that easy, I am afraid it would not work with Thai people. They​ usually use the term viññana (วิญญาณ) to transmit the idea of soul.

Good thing is that somehow the Thai people I know who have some understanding of Dhamma theory or/and practice can make sense of the Pali anatta straight away.

Also I can say that using the Portuguese equivalent to soul - alma - would make things not easy as well. People already have a very incomplete understanding of what alma means in the Judeo-Christian context and saying that the khandas is not alma may not be very helpful.

Maybe the term essência, which is the translation of essence would work better…

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Ahh, I see your point. The intention is not to translate one meaning or the other; the phrase should cover both. So I guess we are back to trying to think which translation works best.

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I suppose that’s why we are supposed to transcend the kaamaa for a start - the cattle, the crops, the children, the house, the mortgage, the car…

Sigh, I’m still mired, seeing how I even take up a parking lot as “mine!”.

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Bhante, “Soul” is a good choice. But it has one tiny deficiency when we use it for the pronominal “himself” etc. “Soul” might be too pregnant for this context.

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