On not-self, existence, and ontological strategies

Dear freedom, please feel free to ask :slight_smile: It is not about liking or disliking the questions, I simply meant that it is worth considering, realistically, what an online forum about Early Buddhist Texts can provide in terms of personal guidance. And I only mention it so that you are aware of expectations v/s reality.

metta
:anjal::dharmawheel:

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OK, noted this. Thanks, However, I do not expect anything. If no one answers my questions, then I will move on and do not complain at all.

The only problem that I see is my English is not very good, so I may express myself improperly or do not know how to say things more polite. If this is the case, then I apologize for that. However, I may not know which one is appropriate, and which one is not since I may see them OK to me! Moreover, different cultures may also have different interpretation.

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Yes, a self is defined as a “permanent essence”. Then we need to decide whether people actually have such an essence. If they do, the self is real. If they don’t, then any feeling we have that there is a self is an illusion/delusion. This is the difference between a real self and a delusion of a self.

Yes, it is possible to see that large parts of our experience is changing, but it is difficult to see this fully, to see that it includes every aspect of our experience. For instance, most people identify with being the agent in their life. You do things, you create, you go places, you achieve. A deep-seated aspect of the self illusion is that we are the permanent agent behind all this activity. The vast majority of people will take such agency to be an aspect of who they are, as something permanently and reliably there.

But the most profound sense of self comes from our identification with knowing. Here knowing just means our ability to experience anything. Even in a deep state of meditation where the mind is absolutely still you still have experience, such as a feeling of bliss. This ability to know or to be conscious will often seem like a permanent aspect to our existence, and we then take it to be our real self, our permanent essence.

It is very hard to see that such aspects of our psychology are non-self. If you truly saw this, you would not be afraid of having your will or consciousness turned off. You would understand them as natural phenomena that are always linked to suffering. You would see that their ending is happiness. If you don’t see this, it means you still identify with these things to some extent.

It is not so much a matter of belief, but more a matter of felt experience. It feels like you exist in permanent way. Of course we change and die. But if we had a permanent self, there would be an aspect to us that did not. Those people who do not believe in rebirth tend to have one of two different views of the world: (1) their self continues eternally after death, or (2) their self is annihilated when they die.

The Buddha says it’s an illusion. We feel that something is there, when in fact it does not relate to anything real.

You are getting quite confused here. I would suggest you think about this a bit before you ask any further questions.

The Buddha does not say how this delusion arises; he just acknowledges that it exists. He then points out that it is a problem and shows us how to overcome it.

The point is that the sense of a self is something we carry with us, whether we are aware of it or not. The point of study is just to make us more aware.

I hope this helps. Good luck with all of this!

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Buddha very clealy said that there is no even a changing self let alone a permananent self.
I can’t locate the sutta right now.

Dear Bhante Sujato, thank you for answering my question so fully. It certainly affirms my initial hypothesis regarding the meaning of atthi. And now, having understood the ontological implications of atthi, I can see that this sutta is structurally similar to SN 12, which states:

Kaccāna, this world mostly relies on the dual notions of existence and non-existence.

Reading the Pali, I can see that atthi is used here again. So, in both cases the Buddha names the two wrong views of absolute existence and absolute non-existence. In SN 44.10 the question is about the ontological status of the self, while in SN 12, he is talking about ontology in general. As an aside, it is SN 12 that is mentioned by Nagarjuna in the MMK.

In fact, there are many suttas of the form:

Questioner: Is metaphysical view A correct?
Buddha: I have not declared view A
Questioner: In that case [by the law of the excluded middle], not-A must be the case?
Buddha: I have not declared not-A
Questioner: What about metaphysical view B?
Buddha: Nope
Questioner: Then not-B must be the case
Buddha: Nope
[optionally] Questioner: Then what do you teach?
[optionally} Buddha: I teach [a more or less elaborate description of] dependent origination, the middle way between A and not-A.

Another example is SN 12, which is one of my favourites because the Buddha is asked whether “All is plurality” or “All is unity [i.e. not-plurality]”. I like this because, prior to reading it, I thought that the Buddha taught that “Everything is One”. I was quite shocked to find that this is not the case and it made me wonder, as the Buddha’s various questioners do, what then does he teach.

Thankfully, this questioning lead me to an appreciation of dependent origination and it’s centrality in the Dhamma and, like Chandrakirti, it makes my hair stand on end (in a good way) when I read and contemplate it.

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Hi @freedom even if all this doesn’t make sense right away it’s good to know that this is the word of the Buddha:

“Mendicants, form is not-self. For if form were self, it wouldn’t lead to affliction. And you could compel form: ‘May my form be like this! May it not be like that!’ But because form is not-self, it leads to affliction. And you can’t compel form: ‘May my form be like this! May it not be like that!’

Is form permanent or impermanent?” “Impermanent, sir.” “But if it’s impermanent, is it suffering or happiness?” “Suffering, sir.” “But if it’s impermanent, suffering, and perishable, is it fit to be regarded thus: ‘This is mine, I am this, this is my self’?” “No, sir.” “Is feeling permanent or impermanent?” … “Is perception permanent or impermanent?” … “Are choices permanent or impermanent?” … “Is consciousness permanent or impermanent?” “Impermanent, sir.” “But if it’s impermanent, is it suffering or happiness?” “Suffering, sir.” “But if it’s impermanent, suffering, and perishable, is it fit to be regarded thus: ‘This is mine, I am this, this is my self’?” “No, sir.” SuttaCentral

Please feel free to clarify and doubts on this forum. This might help- Atma- analysis of Self - #5 by Gabriel

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Thanks for your detail response, Venerable. Since my view and yours are quite different, I think it is better for me to refrain questioning you further since I realized that it is not good to question the Venerable ones unless my English is good enough to do so.

Even though I do not agree with your view, you can question my view anytime. It will be a great benefit for me if you could point out my mistakes.

Moreover, English is not my language, so, sometimes, I can unintentionally express myself improperly. If so, please forgive me. Wish you well.

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I am not sure what are you trying to show me? Please be more specific since my English is not very good.

I never say that self exists nor I say that self does not exist, so I am not sure what are you pointing to? I guess that you may point me to anatta? If so, our understanding of anatta may be different, so it is better if you could tell me how do you understand this concept. I will show you how I understand it later. (If you want to know how I understand this anatta, please split this to a new topic since it is not appropriate to do that here - Sorry, I do not know how to split. If not, you can simply ignore this).

Only sometimes this view is critiqued as well, if the middle is implied to mean “a little but of a, a little bit of non-a”. I will find the sutta in a few hours when I’m off work, if indeed I am correctly remembering.

Agree.

I don’t want to spend a lot of time debating this if you know what I mean. If you think it’s going to help I suggest starting a new thread.

It’s OK. There is no need for that.

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Just to be clear, the second wrong view is annihilation, not “absolute non-existence”. The view of annihilation might be perhaps be called “temporary absolute existence”. :slightly_smiling_face:

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I didn’t mean that middle implies “A and not-A” and I also did not mean “neither A nor not-A”. Both those are also extremes that in some suttas are mentioned explicitly and dismissed. For example, MN 72, when our good friend Vacchagotta asks about the the Tathagatha after death:


V: “Then does Master Gotama hold the view: ‘After death a Tathagata both exists & does not exist: only this is true, anything otherwise is worthless’?”
B: “…no…”
V: “Then does Master Gotama hold the view: ‘After death a Tathagata neither exists nor does not exist: only this is true, anything otherwise is worthless’?”
B: “…no…”

V: “Does Master Gotama have any position at all?”
B: ““A ‘position,’ Vaccha, is something that a Tathagata has done away with. What a Tathagata sees is this: ‘Such is form, such its origination, such its disappearance; such is feeling, such its origination… [etc]”

Vacchagotta is still confused so the Buddha uses the simile of a fire being extinguished and the pattern repeats although, in this second case, Vacchagotta finally gets it, which is probably a relief for every one concerned :slight_smile:

The Buddha often says something like this [SN12]:

Without veering towards either of these extremes, the Tathagata teaches the Dhamma by the middle: ‘With birth as condition, aging-and-death. [i.e. dependent origination]’”

It is in that sense that I mean “the middle way”. In retrospect I was mistaken to say “the middle way between extremes A and the extreme of not-A”. I should have checked the suttas first where I would have noticed that the Buddha simply says “the Dhamma by the middle” and not “the Dhamma by the middle between A and not-A”.

Thanks for the feedback :pray:. It really helps me to focus on important missed details such as this. I am beginning to understand how difficult it is to truly understand the Dhamma let alone translate it correctly, which only increases my appreciation of Sutta Central.

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Thank you Ajahn @Brahmali for the clarification :pray:. It’s important to be precise when talking about this material. It’s so easy to fall into nonsense, such as “absolute non-existence”, otherwise.

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Very interesting discussion: I’m thinking about this particular subject from quite a few new angles because of it. Thank you. But, I find it funny that no one in this discussion has brought up the Buddha’s unanswered questions: I think they’re probably relevant here.

Also, I’m probably a little late with this, and perhaps many people here already know this, but, for what it’s worth, in the Agamas, there’s 無我 and 非我: pretty much spot-on “no self” and “not self,” respectively. So, it seems “no self vs. not self” puzzled them, too. But, in the end, 無我 won out for popularity, hands down. Also, though self is probably most often rendered 我 (“I”), 真我 (“true I”), 神 (“g/God”), and 神我 (“g/God-I”) also appear. Maybe the latter three reflect their attempts at accentuating the “absolute” aspect of the self the Buddha was refuting.

Peace.

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Sorry to ask this question late.
What is the definition of the self for this discussion?
:blush:

It’s not about mistakes. It’s about suffering. Are you saying that the suttas are not helping your suffering? That is actually quite interesting because they work for many many of us. MN1 in particular helped me immensely with my struggle with identity view. It wasn’t an intellectual thing. It was much deeper as Ven. Brahmali explained. My struggle was with fear even though I did have the knowledge that that fear was a delusion. The clinging to a self runs very very deep.

How are the suttas not working for you?

I never say the suttas are not working for me. That statement is simply saying that I see criticism as a wonderful tool for me to see my hidden mistakes that I may overlook them. Many times, we think that we understood and got the “truth”, but we actually messed up. It is good to see those mistakes and correct them before it is too late. However, this does not mean that any criticism is correct (even in this case, it is also good for me to see how well I can control myself and how much conceit I may have.)

As I see, your struggle with fear is because you attached yourself with that feeling. That feeling has become you. It has become “my feeling” or “I fear”. That feeling itself is simply a feeling, it does not need you in it. It comes and goes by its condition. When the condition is removed, it will go away by itself. Therefore, you may want to keep reminding yourself that “this fear is not mine, it is not myself, it is not worth to continue with it”. The more you can detach from it, the less you fear. However, this requires a lot of practice.

You fear because you created a self (of you) in that feeling. If you remove that self from that feeling, then you are free from that fear.

However, I know that my view is not going along with the main stream or famous teachers. It’s up to you if you want to believe what I say.

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Ah. OK. I think I understand what you are saying about fear. I literally could not remove myself from that fear in the moment of fearing. It was crushing. This was the horrible surprise. It was also surprising because I had not created myself in that fear. I had created myself in a delight that I feared losing. This is a little different, perhaps, than what you have said?

I did eventually address the fear by relinquishing the delight that I feared losing. That release took a very long time. Years and years. This is what MN1 refers to. The fear was a symptom of the delight.

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