A few translation contexts for anattā as not self

I do not think the knowledge was lost. But it was concealed.

Oh, I don’t mean lost completely, just among the people. Perhaps it hasn’t!

I was thinking my time in Malaysisa, where the government had promoted local language education at the expense of English for several decades. They eventually realized that having a workforce skilled in English was a major bonus in international markets—who’d have thought?

Anyway, so they started promoting English education at the schools again, but it was hard to find qualified teachers. When I was there, around 1999, there was a controversy because they wanted to re-introduce Shakespeare into the school curriculum.

The problem of Sri Lanka is we are going to extremes. When I went to school my teacher said that English is a useless language. Now it appears completely turned around and most of the schools are gone back to English medium. I think the Sinhalese language should be protected. I think that is enough politics.
Back to the topic.
:slight_smile:

Well the Venerable concerned says that after listening and meditating to him for a week to 10 days (?) the disciple becomes a stream entrant. It is possible to make some one feel the aggregates are worthless (anartha) in 10 days but a lot harder to make them see they the aggregates are not self (anatta) even with more time. So there are natural ‘environmental’ reasons for the selection of this meaning.

It is said that even in the early 1900s the satipatthana pali was known among monks but no one knew how to practice it. It was the practice which died out in the Island. The Piriven educational system among the monastics continued, possibly unbroken, despite the colonial times. It would seem the transmission of sutta and commentaries in its ‘seed’ form continued through the centuries in a format proven to do the job of transmission. So the knowledge probably wants lost - it just needed some nurturing.

Very true.

with metta

I don’t think real Buddhist practice will ever be wildly popular -every spiritual friend should be highly valued and they are IMO slightly more easier to find in Sri Lanka (as are Buddhist extremists)!

with metta

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A while ago when I was (again) dealing with atman & anatta, I realized that I have no idea what the preferred translations ‘soul’ or ‘self’ are supposed to be, and apart from dictionary definitions people around me couldn’t tell me either. If it’s of any value it should be derived from a phenomenal experience. If it’s not then the ‘soul’ is merely a view, an idea, a metaphysical speculation.

In order to not fall into the anachronistic trap we need treatments of the original terms that are usually translated as ‘soul’ in their own context - something I haven’t seen yet.

In which contexts did the Greeks use psyche or the Romans anima?
Or the Jewish mystics nefesh, ruah, and neshama?
Is there a passage that says that citta is anatta? Instead we have passages like AN 10.59

Our minds will be strengthened in the perception of non-self.
anattasaññāparicitañca cittaṃ hoti

Like @sujato mentioned, we first have to know what is rejected in anatta, and for that we’d need to know what was understood as atman. Which is not simple at all, since its applications in the upanishads reach from ‘body’ to ‘essence’. I’m certain that it’s not the ‘soul’ or ‘self’ in our normal understanding. Too often we have in the upanishads an atman that is created by a more primal agent - which is incompatible with our notion of ‘soul’.

As we got used to monotheism, we got used to mono-soulism too. The fact of ancient thinking seems to be that they had multiple terms and concepts for specific aspects of what we call ‘soul’, and their intertextual connections need to be investigated more in order to come to a better understanding that would result in a proper translation.

Take for example Aristotle’s commentator Alexander of Aphrodisias who around 200 CE wrote his commentary ‘Peri Psuchēs’ - translated as ‘On the Soul’. He begins it with

My aim is to speak about the soul that belongs to a body subject to coming-to-be and perishing to say what its essence (ousia) is and what its powers are, how many powers there are, and what their difference is from one another…

We have psyche and ousia in a semantic tension that has to be understood, and in a similar way I feel we need to treat our Indic sources.

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Mano is a synonym for Citta:

Ananda:
It is said that the world is empty, the world is empty, lord. In what respect is it said that the world is empty?

The Buddha:
Insofar as it is empty of a self or of anything pertaining to a self: Thus it is said that the world is empty. And what is empty of a self or of anything pertaining to a self? The eye is empty of a self or of anything pertaining to a self. Forms… Visual consciousness… Visual contact is empty of a self or of anything pertaining to a self.

The ear…

The nose…

The tongue…

The body…

The intellect is empty of a self or of anything pertaining to a self. Ideas… Mental consciousness… Mental contact is empty of a self or of anything pertaining to a self. Thus it is said that the world is empty.

— S 35.85

I’m not enamoured of the use of ‘soul’ in these contexts. I think Richard Gombrich makes the point, in What the Buddha Thought, that the term ‘soul’ has many connotations that are not present in the Vedic ‘atma’ or ‘atta’, which is simply ‘self’. The reason it makes me uneasy, is because philosophical materialists are always very eager to assure us of the non-reality of soul - and I don’t think the Buddha was materialist (in fact, I know he was not.) In my mind, what is being objected to is the idea of there being an unchanging self, as there is nothing which doesn’t change. So, if ‘soul’ is conceived of as an unchanging essence, substance or substrate - then sure, no soul. But I don’t know if that is what the word necessarily means in the traditions in which the term ‘soul’ is used. (Difficult point, I know.)

Another point is that all of these instances are adjectival, are they not? So ‘not self’ is a descriptor or an attribute - this or that thing or skandha or experience or whatever, is ‘not self’. That actually doesn’t say anything about whether the self is real or not.

apologies - i am very late to the party (well and truly over, i think), but i find this topic interesting.

thank you for this list Bhante - it is helpful to see these various usages.

i favour the the notion of anatta as ‘devoid of intrinsic essence’. i see this is actually what a number of people have mentioned in their posts here.

i believe anatta as ‘devoid of intrinsic essence’ works as a direct translation: ‘-an’ as the privative ‘devoid of’, and ‘-atta’ as ‘essential nature’ that a soul refers to. i think this reflects the vedic roots of the atman concept that would have been prevalent in the buddha’s time, as more than just a ‘self’, but approaching a ‘soul’. while soul is tempting, i think it it a Judeo-Christian culturally-laden term, and given we’re translating into a western culture, we need to be mindful of the consequences of using such a laden term.

anatta as ‘devoid of intrinsic essence’ goes beyond soul, to the heart of what anatta is about - the lack of any permanent, lasting, true or reliable essence in any component thing.

i think using ‘self’ isn’t appropriate. it too easily lends itself to the (in my opinion, incorrect) soundbite that ‘i have no self’, which appears to be in contrast to MN2’s thicket of views.

in any case, limiting anatta to a personal ‘self’ view would appear to run into difficulty with inanimate impersonal objects:

‘Rūpaṁ, bhikkhave, anattā’ does lends itself to ‘Body, monks, is not self’, but this could alternatively be more than this: ‘Form, bhikkhus, is without intrinsic essence’. This covers both the personal (e.g., my body) and impersonal inanimate (e.g., rocks), and for me, hits to the heart of anatta: there’s no heartwood there - it’s all essence-less, empty, void of substance.

i find it helps to consider that with ‘anatta’ we are translating a concept, not a word. ‘devoid of intrinsic essence’ works for the use of anatta, but the Buddha’s use of atta seems a bit more contextually sensitive to me - sometimes in the suttas it is possessive self, and other times, it’s the greater notion of ‘essential nature’.

hope this helps anyone else reading this thread as late as i am … :nerd_face:

best wishes.

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I think Buddha invented those tilakkhana because he saw it as a perfect means to become dispassionate and get a fortaste of Nibbana. Get a taste of the peace and cool of a mind which has become not so fanatic, eager, lustful, obsessive, longing anymore.

So, i also think we must investigate in this way the meaning of anicca, dukkha and anatta. If a certain meaning of anatta does not lead to dispassion, for example because it is much to philosphical, that is probably a wrong meaning.

One can question ; if i look upon an icecream as ‘not-self’, or ‘devoid of soul’ or ‘without essence’ how must that make me dispassionate towards that icecream? I think it is very artificial This does not work.

I think words like hollow, empty are meant as in worthless, unreliable, without real worth, vain, there is not much worth in it, no hardwood, only softwood, it cannot function as a refuge, unsafe. Seeing things that way one does not long for it. One becomes dispassionate.

In anatta lakkhana Buddha also explains that atta is connected with the belief in a direct control and therefor anatta might a l s o relate to…directly seeing you do not have any direct control over something. I more and more often use this sanna, and it helps. I think this meaning of no-direct-control is very important to become dispassionate in real life. It does not mean one becomes a fatalist but at least one sees what is possible and not.

Taking the three all together, anicca (impermanent, unstable, desintegrating, cannot be maintained), dukkha (suffering, does not lead to happinnes, does not really satisfy) and anatta (unreliable, without real worth, not a ral refuge, not under direct control) is a strong mix which really helps to cool down.

Anyway, i think the criterium for a good translation of anicca, dukkha and also anatta is that it must really lead to dispassion when we apply this meaning. If the meaning becomes very technical, intellectual, complex, this does not work. Becoming dispassionate only means that we begin to see things in a more realistic way, not that naief anymore, like something would safe us, makes us happy forever,…and that kind of irrealistic expactations.

i think we must each investigate to find this meaning of anatta - we can’t read it or be told it. the buddha’s words just point in a certain direction, but the words themselves aren’t the destination.

we each need to investigate for ourselves, each to see its meaning for ourself.

contemplating the impermanence of such things allows their anatta nature to be seen. in fact, just seeing their impermanence can be enough for stream entry (see SN 25.1 to SN 25.10 from following link on subsequent pages):

https://suttacentral.net/sn25.1/en/sujato

Sometimes it works this way for me. I know an icecream is impermanent, it even melts, but that does not make it less attractive for me. The same with form of a woman. Or nice flowers.

The attractiveness of the icecream lies in the experience that the icecream taste makes me happy and removes suffering for a while (the perception of sukha and subha). But when i see this realistically, i know the taste and happinnes is only for a short while, and i know it comes with interest.

So it do not contemplate the anicca nature of the icecream, but the annica nature of the nice taste and the happiness involved.

If you start to see this, and keep contemplating this way, things loose there allure (anatta), even an icecream. You start to see things more realistically.

What does anatta mean here?

@sujato @Brahmali Isn’t jīva the equivalent of soul .?

Soul is not the exact equivalent or synonym for atta. Anatta includes not only the absence of the soul as the substance of the mind, but is broader than that.

Anatta is the absence of an independent substance. Lack of ability to arise without cause. Always conditioned. The absence of substantive meaning.

it’s more than that - if you look closely at what’s happening when you eat an ice-cream or see a beautiful form, you will see how the mind becomes agitated from a peaceful state. craving attaches to the object and picks the mind up with it and off we go. this process is actually suffering when we stop to look at it (and when it gets too much as well). but most of the time, we delude ourselves with the thought of future satisfaction.

further, that hunger is actually suffering - it’s that absence of a peaceful state that drives us to try and satisfy it. i recall someone saying that the moment you take a morsel of food and it passes the throat, we immediately look to take another. why? because that hunger - that suffering - is never assuaged by the object it desires. if that morsel of food were to come back up from the stomach, we would not swallow it again.

if we look at those objects in the moment as they truly are, we would be horrified and repulsed - a human body is entirely foul and frightening under the skin. someone made the comment that sex is putting the penis into a bag of warm excrement. that’s quite graphic, but actually true.

contemplating the impermanence of such things allows their anatta nature to be seen. What does anatta mean here?

if you look at an object for its impermanence, you will see how it is actually in change constantly. if you see how it changes, you will see how the identity / essence that we attribute to things is a falsity. a sweet juicy orange is only sweet, juicy, and orange, according to the conditions that support those attributes. under the right conditions, it can be sour, dry, and brown/black.

does that help to explain it?

Hi @IndyJ ,

Yes, one cannot expact to be free of this mental hunger and burden you describe when one is not an arahant or Buddha yet. You can try to deprive yourself of all kinds of emotional food, but then you will probably only get very tense. In other words, dispassion cannot really be forced with will-power only. It must grow from increasing wisdom.

For me, those contemplations on the foulness of the body and food and sex etc. i do not see as truths but as skilfull means. A surgeon might see beauty in the body, in the liver, heart etc. So i do not really see the foulness as a fact of life. It is a perception. Excrement is for us humans not attractive but for some animals it is. Even for some humans. I do not denie that the form of a woman, especially buttock, is for me really attractive. I do not make a big deal of it. I am just programmed as a man. I do not think it is immoral or wrong.

Your explanation of anatta makes sense. I really think it can have different meanings, like anicca and dukkha. I do not have a fixed idea about their meaning. But i feel, the meaning of anatta, anicca and dukkha must not be too complicated and philosophical

Jīva really just means “life”. In the suttas it is contrasted with the material body, the sarīra. When you die, the sarīra are your mortal remains, whereas the jīva would often carry on to a new life. The word jīva is mostly prominently encountered in the ten unanswered questions, the avyājkatā dhammā. It could be translated simply as “life” or “life principle”. Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi prefers the rendering “soul”. Jīva is not clearly defined in the suttas, just as the English term “soul” or “life principle” are quite amorphous. (Cambridge Dictionary defintion of “soul”: “the spiritual part of a person that some people believe continues to exist in some form after their body has died, or the part of a person that is not physical and experiences deep feelings and emotions.”)

This contrast with attā, which has a quite specific meaning, namely “permanent essence”. This is how it is defined, for instance in MN2, the Sabbāsava Sutta. Even the body can be regarded as an attā, which distinguishes it from the jīva.

Given the imprecise definition of “soul”, I would agree that it is not a suited rendering of attā. And given the vagueness of the term jīva, I would say translating it with an equally vague but roughly equivalent term such as “soul” is acceptable.

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I think because the above. Maybe Buddha was guiding disciples to the last form of self. In my limited understanding of Suttas it seems to treating the underlying I am as that last Self. Non-returner as one can read. Reach the last self. Which is the I amness state. Obviously the feeling of you are just are all as it is. So why teach that it’s bad that Buddha teach about self. Since non-returner will become Arahant after without returning by reaching Highest Attā.

I think that’s what sutta meant some places as is translated by Higher Mind. Buddhism replaced self by using mind. So I think all this need to be considered.

Brahma Sahampati, thus, had to ask the Buddha to teach his anatta ‘not-self’ dharma/dhamma!

I really like this Brahma’s invitation story very much, which is really meaningful!

In all of the Nikayas we won’t find “Highest Atta” or “Highest Mind.” While this is taught is some schools of the Mahayana with terms such as Buddha Mind, there is no combination of citta (heart/mind) with amata (deathless state), for example in the EBTs, at least as far as I know.

When we see all experiences and phenomena as causational processes (like chemical reactions) it can help to clarify annatā – unique characteristics, but ever-changing without a fixed or substantial essence as Ven. Brahmali wrote. Does anyone think a cloud has a soul, a persistent essence, or a higher mind?

Recently I’ve been encouraging myself to translate “Atta” as “True Self” and “Anatta” as “no True Self.” But I don’t know if that’s going to make sense to people outside of spiritual circles, where believe in an Advaita Vedanta style “True Self” is popular.