But if there is an attā, there should be no problem with attaching to it. Attachment is a problem because of impermanence. In fact, if there is an permanent essence, we should attach to it, because that would be our true refuge. In other words, if there is a stable to essence to our existence, a spiritual teacher would be remiss not to mention it.
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Thanks Gabriel. I’m happy to see you engaging on this delicate issue with such an open mind! So here goes -
For this, let’s take a look at the text that follows this. Taking just the bit about the “internally” -
“Siyā nu kho, bhante, ajjhattaṃ asati paritassanā”ti? “Siyā, bhikkhū”ti—bhagavā avoca. “Idha, bhikkhu, ekaccassa evaṃ diṭṭhi hoti: ‘so loko so attā, so pecca bhavissāmi nicco dhuvo sassato avipariṇāmadhammo, sassatisamaṃ tatheva ṭhassāmī’ti. So suṇāti tathāgatassa vā tathāgatasāvakassa vā sabbesaṃ diṭṭhiṭṭhānādhiṭṭhānapariyuṭṭhānābhinivesānusayānaṃ samugghātāya sabbasaṅkhārasamathāya sabbūpadhipaṭinissaggāya taṇhākkhayāya virāgāya nirodhāya nibbānāya dhammaṃ desentassa. Tassa evaṃ hoti: ‘ucchijjissāmi nāmassu, vinassissāmi nāmassu, nassu nāma bhavissāmī’ti. So socati kilamati paridevati urattāḷiṃ kandati sammohaṃ āpajjati. Evaṃ kho, bhikkhu, ajjhattaṃ asati paritassanā hotī”ti.
Venerable sir, can there be agitation about what is non-existent internally?”
“There can be, bhikkhu,” the Blessed One said. “Here, bhikkhu, someone has the view: ‘That which is the self is the world; after death I shall be permanent, everlasting, eternal, not subject to change; I shall endure as long as eternity.’ He hears the Tathāgata or a disciple of the Tathāgata teaching the Dhamma for the elimination of all standpoints, decisions, obsessions, adherences, and underlying tendencies, for the stilling of all formations, for the relinquishing of all attachments, for the destruction of craving, for dispassion, for cessation, for Nibbāna. He thinks thus: ‘So I shall be annihilated! So I shall perish! So I shall be no more!’ Then he sorrows, grieves, and laments, he weeps beating his breast and becomes distraught. That is how there is agitation about what is non-existent internally.”
per MLDB
As you know, asati is the locative of asanta, the present participle of natthi (does not exist). I agree with the MLDB in taking this to be a locative of reference, giving “about what is non-existent” (although my OCD self may translate it as “with reference to what does not exist”). It does not seem to be the weaker ‘not-being’, which would probably be the function of the hoti verb, instead of this atthi verb.
From this passage, we can tell that it is definitely not the “view” or “regarding” that do not exist, since the preface reads -
evaṃ diṭṭhi hoti
This asserts the presence of the view concerning Selfhood, which then leads to anxiety about what does not exist, ie the Self.
Does this clarify the intent of the passage?
Now, moving on to the other reasons offered by the Buddha in MN 22. For this, I think it’s safe to go on a short digression into Logic, so that the reference to Modus Ponens and Modus Tollens makes sense.
Modus Ponens is a form of reasoning that goes like this (minus the formal symbolic stuff) -
If A, then B.
A
Therefore, B
From this, we arrive at Modus Tollens -
If A, then B.
not-B
Therefore, not-A
And finally, we have the process of transposition which asserts that “if A, then B” is logically equivalent to “if not-B, then not-A”.
So, let’s see how the Buddha applied this in MN 22 -
Attani vā, bhikkhave, sati ‘attaniyaṃ me’ti assā”ti?
“Evaṃ, bhante”.
“Attaniye vā, bhikkhave, sati ‘attā me’ti assā”ti? “Evaṃ, bhante”.
“Attani ca, bhikkhave, attaniye ca saccato thetato anupalabbhamāne, yampi taṃ diṭṭhiṭṭhānaṃ: ‘so loko so attā, so pecca bhavissāmi nicco dhuvo sassato avipariṇāmadhammo, sassatisamaṃ tatheva ṭhassāmī’ti—nanāyaṃ, bhikkhave, kevalo paripūro bāladhammo”ti?
Bhikkhus, there being a self, would there be for me what belongs to a self?”—“Yes, venerable sir.”—“Or, there being what belongs to a self, would there be for me a self?”—“Yes, venerable sir.”—“Bhikkhus, since a self and what belongs to a self are not apprehended as true and established, then this standpoint for views, namely, ‘That which is the self is the world; after death I shall be permanent, everlasting, eternal, not subject to change; I shall > endure as long as eternity’—would it not be an utterly and completely foolish teaching?”
per MLDB
Now, let’s take “attani sati”. Attani is the locative singular of attan, while sati is the locative of santa, present participle of atthi. Taken together, they form a type of locative absolute which we discussed previously. Referring back to p.238 of Wijesekara, this means that “attani sati” is properly translated as “If the Self exists”.
Now we can see the Modus Tollens reasoning take shape -
If the Self exists, there would be for me what belongs to a Self.
What belongs to a Self is not apprehended as true and established.
Therefore the Self does not exist.
Hope this helps!
As for the MA sutra, it is MA 62, previously discussed in Not-self and no-self and possibly non-self. Totally different - #34 by Sylvester
The relevant passage reads -
於是，諸摩竭陀人而作是念：「若使色無常，覺、想、行、識無常者，誰活？誰受苦樂？」
世尊即知摩竭陀人心之所念，便告比丘：「愚癡凡夫不有所聞，見我是我而著於我，但 無我、無我所，空我、空我所。
Then the citizens of Magadha thought: If Material form is impermanent, if feeling etc is impermanent, then who lives and who who experiences suffering and happiness?
The World Honoured One, knowing the thoughts of the citizens of Magadha, told the monks: An ignorant worldling, one who is not learned, regards himself as “I am a self” and is attached to that self. However, there is no self; there is nothing that belongs to a self; [all this is empty of a self and empty of anything that belongs to a self…
p.384, The Madhyama Agama, Vol 1, BDK 2013
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Hi again
I thought I should address this as well. I’ve reached the point where I now believe that DN 1 is not supposed to be an exhaustive litany of views.
For one, the eel-wrigglers cannot fit into the scheme, since they do not wish to articulate their views. Likewise for the listing of the viewpoints of the annihiliationists. If DN 1 is supposed to be exhaustive, it appears to have missed out the version in SN 12.17, where after the annihilation of one Self, another succeeds it.
Previously canvassed here - Not-self and no-self and possibly non-self. Totally different - #22 by Sylvester
So, it would appear that the Buddha did not wish to be associated with Annihilationism, because at least one variety of it repudiated kammic continuity/accountability.
Cheers!
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Hm, I can’t see the inevitability of this, the two for me belong to different realms.
For example: Let’s take the idea of the Big Bang as the beginning of the universe-as-we-know-it and just assume that it’s not just a theory but the pure truth.
So we’d have the truth of the Big Bang (not the mathematics, formulas or concepts, but its ‘naked’ unprovable truth). Why would the attachment to it be unproblematic? Why would running around, mumbling to myself ‘Big Bang, Big Bang’ would make me less crazy than ‘They’re watching me, they’re watching me’?
To me the madness, the un-truth lies in the attachment, whether or not the Kantian principally inaccessible ‘object’ exists or not.
With the nature of our mind there is simply no way we can attach to ‘reality’. Mind just has no access to reality. We can only attach to another mind-object, which is a representation, a concept, an image, an abstraction (of what?). And there would lie the principle mistake.
The Big Bang is not something we actually experience; it is something we infer from experience. An attā, to be meaningful, must be something we can experience directly. So far as I can see, the analogy does not work.
When you say that “mind just has no access to reality,” you are in effect saying that any attā would have been beyond the Buddha’s knowledge. Anything that cannot be experienced or inferred does not exist.
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We derive different conclusions out of it, but that’s basically what I get from the suttas: whether atta exists or not is absolutely irrelevant - not for the philosopher who ‘hammers out a position’, but for the one seeking ceto vimutti. Instead (so my understanding) to be free from any conceptions about atta would be a significant part of the path.
Thanks for breaking down your understanding, as usual it’s a good challenge 
That’s probably generally right, so it would be ‘not-existing’. I also follow ‘evaṃ diṭṭhi hoti’ regarding the view of atta.
I still don’t know what to make of the asati though, it’s unusual.
Would you mind looking at the sister-sutta to this passage, i.e. MN 138. That’s the only place where I could find a very close expression, but B.Bodhi chose to translate it differenty.
MN 22: ajjhattaṃ asati paritassanā
MN 138: ajjhattaṃ asaṇṭhitaṃ anupādāya na paritasseyya
… nor stuck internally, and by not clinging he does not become agitated.and by not clinging he does not become agitated
no notion of being or existence here. asaṇṭhita is probably rightly taken as ‘not firm, not established’. Do we have a typo in one of them?
And nother question about asati. We have suttas like MN 18 that have
cakkhusmiṃ asati rūpe asati cakkhuviññāṇe asati phassapaññattiṃ paññāpessatīti…
I think it is correctly translated as “When there is no eye, no form, and no eye-consciousness,
it is impossible to point out the manifestation of contact.”
And from the context it would be too strong too translate “When eye doesn’t exist…”, because not an ontological message is meant here.
Thanks for the logical deduction! I can see that the sutta builds the argument this way.
I hope it’s not annoying when I can’t follow the opinion of the sutta/translation though. First of all I still have reasonable doubt that atta means self/soul. Only few people who believe in a self/soul would just say ‘so attā so loko’ as if it’s self-evident. Self/soul is for us either connected to ‘me-as-individual-essence’ or to ‘god-as-source-of-all-beings’. With atta we tapped into an alien concept that is still not clarified enough (for my own standards at least). But that’s just a side note…
In medieval kabbalah there is a concept that precisely doesn’t follow this assumption. There the en-soph is the most remote aspect of divinity. It is unchanging, unattached, without any contact, or even possibility of contact with anything the lower aspects of divinity created. It is in itself, by itself, an autistic self-illuminating ‘self’ because it is just itself and nothing else.
Doubtless, such a concept creates craving for unity and peace and is hence a Buddhist wrong view, but it doesn’t imply the logical derivation from the sutta. So I’m afraid it goes back to the (maybe not satisfiable) question what the logical delimitations of the atta-concept were for the Buddha and his contemporaries.
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In another thread I promised to refrain from speculating on this topic, so I will spare you my unqualified opinion 
But I feel like it could still be useful to bring up suttas that have yet to be referenced in this thread, especially if they approach the matter form a slightly different angle.
For example, AN 4.49, where “‘Self’ with regard to not-self” is one of four “perversions of perception, perversions of mind, perversions of view.” which I think is an interesting way of framing things.
And then there’s SA 139 (no Pali parallel), which seems to make the point that even views about not-self are not-self:
[The five khandas + what is seen, heard, experienced, cognized, etc. are not-self]
“If there is the view that a self exists and a world exists, and that the existence of this world and the existence of another world is permanent, lasting, and unchanging ― all that is not self, not distinct from the self [in the sense of being owned by it], does not exist [within the self, nor does a self] exist [within it]. This is called right wisdom.
“If again there is the view that this world and a self do not exist, that nothing belongs to the self in this world, that the self will not be in the future and anything belonging to the self will not be in the future ― all that is not self, not distinct from the self [in the sense of being owned by it], does not exist [within the self, nor does a self] exist [within it]. This is called right wisdom.
“Suppose a learned noble disciple examines these six standpoints for views as not self and not belonging to a self. One who contemplates in this way abandons doubt in relation to the Buddha, abandons doubt in relation to the Dharma …
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If we imagine a artificial intelligence software which was programmed to (or developed its own ability to) give rise to emotions, dreams and aspirations but was then asked whether it had a self in the way a human being does, what would you say?
We could say it is merely mimicking a being, and it is not the real thing. Now if we imagine in insight meditation we find that we are mere computer programming, or I should say experiential programming. I hope this gives a feel for this insight.
With metta
Hmm, not really that unusual. In the first 10 pages of search results on SC, asati pops up in its most most common application, ie the existential locative absolute exemplified by -
imasmiṃ asati idaṃ na hoti
You can find so many variations of different nouns substituting ayaṃ and idaṃ, and different verbs substituting the copula above.
MN 22’s asati has absolutely nothing to do with MN 138’s asaṇṭhita, which is a completely different verb. As for the typo, hee hee, I’m not going to rob Ven Analayo of the credit for the discovery, but yes, there’s a typo. Let’s wait for him to publish his essay on the typo, but as a trailer to whet your appetite, the Agama parallel to MN 138’s saṇṭhita and asaṇṭhita are reversed from MN 138’s.
You’re absolutely correct, but the problem only presents itself when we opt for an idiomatic translation that uses “when”. What if we take up Wijesekara’s suggestion to translate the existential locative absolute with the word “if” instead? “When” is a rather wretched choice, the more I look at the analytical suttas such as MN 38 and DN 15 that expound on the meaning of the shorter catechismal listings in SN 12. When you use “if”, does this sound objectionable -
If the eye does not exist, if forms do not exist and if visual consiousness does not exist, it is impossible to point out the manifestation of contact.
Have fun! 
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How can you live with the grammar-envy you are co-creating ;)? not fair!
I meant asati in this context with atta to be unusual, other than that it is of course a normal verb.
The constructions in MN 22 and 138 were so close that I thought there might have been an editorial mistake. Both versions, of MN 22 and MN 138 are unique in the sutta pitaka - which is unusual for such doctrinal topics, so I don’t know yet what to make of these statements in the context of doctrine.
In the end I can say that I wanted examples for suttas where the Buddha denies the existence of atta and MN 22 can easily be read as such, thanks again!
As you know I find it problematic to make doctrinal cases based on teachings we find only once/twice in the suttas, but MN 22 will get a good spot in my further considerations of the anatta topic.
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There is one rather nice example in the Sanskrit Mūlasarvāstivādin Vinaya. It’s found in the Sanghabhedavastu – the section of the Skandhaka dealing with schism in the saṅgha, though which in fact covers the greater part of the Buddha’s post-Awakening career as recounted in the Pali Mahāvagga:
ātmā ātmeti bhikṣavo bālo ’śrutavān pṛthagjanaḥ prajñaptim anupatito na cātrāsty ātmā nātmīyaṃ vā; duḥkham idaṃ bhikṣavaḥ utpadyamānam utpadyate; duḥkham idam niruddhyamānaṃ niruddhyate; saṃskārā utpadyamānā utpadyante; niruddhyamānā niruddhyante.
“The self, the self, bhikṣus, [thinks] the foolish uninstructed worldling who follows speech. But there is no self and what belongs to self there. Bhikṣus, this suffering, arising, arises, this suffering, ceasing, ceases. Formations, arising, arise, ceasing, cease.”
There are also a couple of parallel passages. One is from the Chinese Āgamas:
MA 62: Bimbisāra meets the Buddha
I don’t read Chinese myself, but the meaning of the Vietnamese translation (nhưng thực ra không có ngã, không có ngã sở) is exactly the same as the Sanskrit na cātrāsty ātmā nātmīyaṃ vā.
The other that I’ve heard of (though I haven’t checked it myself) is a quotation in Harivarman’s Tattvasiddhi Śāstra (T. 32, 1646, 259b1-3, 312c5-6).
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Absolutely, it’s good to collect the unusual one’s. We have so many repetitions that sometimes nice variations or different versions go unnoticed…
other than that AN 4.49 and SA 139 deal again explicitly with perception and view, i.e. ‘classic’ anatta, right?
Thanks Bhante, I think it is of much value to collect this explicit source at Sbv I 158.
MA 62 was already mentioned by @Sylvester. And we are grateful to find a translation of MA 1-71 here.
On page 384/385 we find:
there is no self; there is nothing that belongs to a self; [all this] is empty of a self and empty of anything that belongs to a self. When phenomena arise, they arise; when phenomena cease, they cease. All this is [just] a combination of causes and conditions, giving rise to suffering.
We find the explicit “There is no self” in this edition in: MA 6 (p.37), MA 62 (p.384).
MA 10 (p. 58) on the other hands lists “there is truly no self” as one of six wrong views resulting from wrong attention.
So is the ‘No-self doctrine of Buddhism’ in the end a limited MA doctrine?
Personally I took ‘no-self’ as a given. I think it was first reading Wynne - The Atman and its Negation (2010) that raised a question mark. Still I thought ‘What the heck is he writing about?? anatta is all over the place!’ But slowly I realized that the flat-out denial (like in MA 6, MA 62) is very hard to find.
Again, I understand how one could see Pali Buddhism as advocating an anatta-view. But in order to discuss it properly I would like to separate the explicit from the suggestive textual basis.
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This reminds me of MN 64 for some reason:
“Mālunkyāputta, to whom do you remember my having taught these five lower fetters in that way? Would not the wanderers of other sects confute you with the simile of the infant? For a young tender infant lying prone does not even have the notion ‘identity,’ so how could identity view arise in him? Yet the underlying tendency to identity view lies within him. […]
One way we could check our own understanding could be to ask ourselves “With the view I have, could I be refuted by the simile of the infant?”
MN64 is a very interesting sutta in its own right, highly recommended! 
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Bṛhad-āraṇyaka-upaniṣad 4.4 might help settle the “narrative” of the time.
Note that I do not particularly sympathize with this doctrine. But as a Buddhist, I would definitely keep some notions and throw some others (as I suppose, the Buddha did - if I understand him right).
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In Mahayana Buddhism, there is the concept of the Tathāgatagarbha which is sometimes seen as the same as emptiness. What do the Theravadans think of this concept, especially in the relation to anatta?
With Metta
[Sariputta:] "The statement, ‘With the remainderless stopping & fading of the six contact-media [vision, hearing, smell, taste, touch, & intellection] is it the case that there is anything else?’ objectifies non-objectification. AN4.174
I think this allows another thing to cling to ‘in nibbana’.
with metta
Sorry Mat, I don’t understand what you are trying to say?
I think it will be helpful to decide first what is meant by Tathagatagarbha. I came across this:
Michael Zimmermann, a specialist on the Tathagātagarbha Sūtra,[13] writes for instance: "the existence of an eternal, imperishable self, that is, buddhahood, is definitely the basic point of the Tathagatagarbha Sutra.[14]
Zimmermann also declares that the compilers of the Tathagātagarbha Sūtra “did not hesitate to attribute an obviously substantialist notion to the buddha-nature of living beings,”[15] and notes the total lack of evident interest in this sutra for any ideas of “emptiness” (śūnyatā): "Throughout the whole Tathagātagarbha Sūtra the term śūnyatā does not even appear once, nor does the general drift of the TGS somehow imply the notion of śūnyatā as its hidden foundation. On the contrary, the sutra uses very positive and substantialist terms to describe the nature of living beings.'[16]
Tathāgatagarbha Sūtra - Wikipedia
I replied thinking tathagatagarbha was emptiness (sunyata) as you suggested.
with metta