A few translation contexts for anattā as not self

[mikenz66]

Very interesting topic.

@sujato

But to be clear, in the core doctrinal passages where anattā is taught, the primary target is metaphysical doctrines of a soul. It is, in my view, not only misleading, but extremely harmful and dangerous, to teach these as if they referred to the self or personality in an empirical psychological sense.

Hi Bhante, I’m a little confused by this. SN 22.59 discusses anattā in terms of a lack of control, rather than in a metaphysical way. It seems to be, in part, about seeing through the illusion that there is something in control.

I think you said this yourself very well here:

@sujato

… And it is precisely this consistent manner in which experience operates which creates the illusion of ‘self’, of a permanent essence or core underlying the transient fluctuations of experience. To see through this illusion, the Buddha taught us to make the conditional relation itself a focus of our investigation, to see experience neither as a random meaningless chaos, nor as diverse surface manifestations of a hidden inner unity, but as a flow of transient phenomena governed by natural laws.

This “natural laws” seems to be the reason for this lack of control:

“Bhikkhus, form is nonself. For if, bhikkhus, form were self, this form would not lead to affliction, and it would be possible to have it of form: ‘Let my form be thus; let my form not be thus.’ But because form is nonself, form leads to affliction, and it is not possible to have it of form: ‘Let my form be thus; let my form not be thus.’
https://suttacentral.net/en/sn22.59/3

@sujato

A large proportion of people who undertake Buddhist meditation do so because they suffer underlying psychological fragmentation, and telling them to meditate on not self is inviting genuine catastrophe. I have seen magnificent, wonderful people whose have had “deep insights into not self” in a retreat, and who believed in the reality of those insights even though these “insights” precipitated a fall into psychosis and long term schizophrenia.

@Erika_ODonnell

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.

I think that the modern materialistic rejection of a soul doesn’t have much to do with insight into anattā. Otherwise stream entry would be very common. Materialists still think they are in control…