As others have noted, the distinction between “not-self” and “no-self” is not found in Pali. It’s a straw man argument, as no knowledgeable translators actually translate anattā as “no self”. It is always used in the sense of “something is not self” and “no self” wouldn’t work.
Having said which, Thanissaro’s writings on this subject are unreliable. When he says:
he is simply wrong. This has been pointed out many times, for example by Ven Bodhi in his footnote for this sutta, SN 44.10:
Probably this means that Vacchagotta would have interpreted the Buddha’s denial as a rejection of his empirical personality, which (on account of his inclination towards views of self) he would have been identifying as a self. We should carefully heed the two reasons the Buddha does not declare, “There is no self”: not because he recognizes a transcendent self of some kind (as some interpreters allege), or because he is concerned only with delineating “a strategy of perception” devoid of ontological implications (as others hold), but (i) because such a mode of expression was used by the annihilationists, and the Buddha wanted to avoid aligning his teaching with theirs; and (ii) because he wished to avoid causing confusion in those already attached to the idea of self. The Buddha declares that “all phenomena are nonself” (sabbe dhammā anattā), which means that if one seeks a self anywhere one will not find one. Since “all phenomena” includes both the conditioned and the unconditioned, this precludes an utterly transcendent, ineffable self.
In addition, have a look at my recent note on another sutta:
When writing that article, I debated whether I should make the connection between that sutta (MN 90) and SN 44.10, but decided against it. So your question is most timely!
Notice that the linguistic form of the statement in SN 44.10 and MN 90 are identical:
- “Kiṃ pana, bhante, atthi devā”ti?
- “Kiṃ pana, bho gotama, natthattā”ti?
(The last two words are joined, this is normal.)
In both cases, the text only really makes sense when atthi is read in a pregnant metaphysical sense: to exist eternally and absolutely. Remember that this way of looking at existence is fundamental to the Upanishadic philosophy, so it is not all surprising to find it here, especially when dealing with a non-Buddhist such as Vacchagotta.
Note that Pali has two words for “to be”. The more common, bhavati, is typically used in a subordinate sense as a copula, eg., when saying that “that car is red”. Atthi, which is used here, has a stronger sense and is used as a “full verb” in asserting the existence of something. There is quite a nice discussion of the difference here.
This reading is not a forced one: indeed, the Buddha explicitly says that he avoids saying atthatta in order to avoid siding with the “eternalists”, i.e. those who postulate an eternal existence, prominent among whom were the Upanishadic brahmins.
“Ānanda, when Vacchagotta asked me whether the self exists, if I had answered that ‘the self exists’ I would have been siding with the ascetics and brahmins who are eternalists.
Similarly, when discussing the negative form of the statement, it only really makes sense if “existence” is considered in an absolute sense:
When Vacchagotta asked me whether the self does not exist, if I had answered that ‘the self does not exist’ I would have been siding with the ascetics and brahmins who are annihilationists.
To be clear, the annihilationist view is that there is a self, but that self is destroyed (usually at the time of death). Clearly this is not what we mean when we say in English that “the self does not exist”.
Either the text is incoherent, or the notion of existence is quite different. Since we know that such notions of existence were, in fact, prevalent in ancient India, that must be the preferred reading.
In fact, in light of my more recent reflections on this, I will probably change the translation to something like:
“Ānanda, when Vacchagotta asked me whether the self exists absolutely, if I had answered that ‘the self exists absolutely’ I would have been siding with the ascetics and brahmins who are eternalists.
When Vacchagotta asked me whether the self does not exist absolutely, if I had answered that ‘the self does not exist absolutely’ I would have been siding with the ascetics and brahmins who are annihilationists.
Again, the connection between this statement and the absolute sense of existence is not inferred or imposed on the text, but is stated explicitly:
“When Vacchagotta asked me whether the self does not exist absolutely, if I had answered that ‘the self does not exist absolutely’, Vacchagotta—who is already confused—would have got even more confused, thinking: ‘It seems that the self that I once had no longer exists.’”
So the text clearly states that the meaning of “doesn’t exist”, as understood by Vacchagotta, is something that does exist, but only temporarily, so it will pass away.