@Tranquility. My view is that the author of the article you posted has put some serious thought into their work. Any attempt to negate their line of reasoning in good faith would require that the post be responded to point by point. It would also require that the definitions for various important words (e.g. soul) be explored in depth.
What I see so far, with many of the comments, are throw away one liners or disconnected paragraphs that ridicule the post but don’t really provide a solid basis for a counterargument. Just about every person has a word that triggers them, due to the emotion they associate to the word. Once triggered, any pretense at having a well reasoned discussion goes out the window. For Buddhists soul tends to be one such trigger word.
The devil is in the detail and, in my view, it all comes down to how you use and define the word soul.
1. The soul, identity and eternalists
In just about all non-Buddhist religions, soul and self are used interchangeably. This is even the case in Advaita, which claims that the aim of practice is to realise the Self (capital S). This Self is said to be devoid of any identifying characteristic.
To me, saying that the Self is devoid of any identifying characteristic is like saying water is not wet. In other words, the very notion of a self requires the assumption of an identity; ergo, the famous saying in Advaita THAT I am.
Advaita says the THAT has no characteristics, but then goes on to objectify it and create an I or self around it. Any attempt by Advaita to use non-self is purely for the purpose of discarding the false self to find the true Self. The assertion that this Self exists as a permanent and unchanging identity is what makes someone an eternalist.
Contrast this with Buddhism. Here, the purpose of using non-self is to overcome suffering, because assuming any kind of identity is stressful. The reason that, based on Buddhism, all identities are inconstant.
So, to the extent that the soul is equated to the self, Buddhism does not support the idea of an unchanging everlasting soul because it would be the same as supporting the idea of an unchanging everlasting identity.
2. The soul as the producer and consumer
Another way to get to the same conclusion is to examine the roots of atta, which the author of the article translates as soul.
The Pali word atta is commonly translated as both self and soul and its Sanskrit equivalent is atman. The root meaning of atman is breath. There are several ways that people likely conceptualised breath:
- Breath is consumed by beings to live. (i.e. if you don’t breathe you die)
- Living beings produce the breath. (i.e. beings engage in the physical act of breathing)
This conceptualisation then naturally leads to the idea of a soul which is both a producer and consumer; and therefore is self sustaining and empowers all activity. Further developed, it leads to the idea of a Soul (capital S) that sustains itself and all things in the universe. This is the definition we see in just about every nono-Buddhist religion, including Advaita. In all cases, such a Soul is taken to exist and be a desirable thing to attain to. A person never again has to suffer from lack because they awaken to the creative principle itself and can thus can create boundless sustenance. In cases like Christianity, a person gets to go to heaven where God (the Soul) gives them access to boundless sustenance.
In Buddhism, however, boundless sustenance is not seen as a good thing because any reliance on sustenance is considered stressful. This can be seen from the various suttas that talk about the drawbacks of nutriment. To the extent that you depend on sustenance, you are bound to suffer because all sustenance is inconstant.
So the aim of Buddhist practice is not to gain access to everlasting sustenance, but to overcome the need for it altogether.
From a Buddhist perspective, it is doubtful that you could sustain the production of boundless sustenance. Further, even if you could, the production and consumption of said sustenance would come with a measure of stress.
Strictly speaking, Buddhism doesn’t deny the Soul as the ultimate producer and consumer. It simply seeks to go beyond the producer / consumer paradigm that arises from trying to search for or attain to a Soul.
3. The soul as the everlasting
This is just (2) restated in another way. The only reason to wish for the soul to be everlasting is so that you can go on consuming and taking satisfaction in the best food forever.
4. The soul as the indestructible
If we exclude (1) though (3) from the definition of the soul, the soul is neither an identity, nor a producer, nor a consumer, nor is it self sustaining. So what does that leave? Not very much. But we can try and describe what remains:
- The soul is not an object because it is not an identity.
- The soul is not stressful, because it is not an identity and neither produces nor consumes.
- The soul is not constrained, due to the same reason as the above.
- The soul is independent of all conditioned phenomena, due to the same reason as above.
- The soul is beyond time, as it is independent of all conditioned phenomena
- The soul is not self reliant as it relies on nothing, not even itself.
- The soul is neither born nor does it die, due to its independence from all conditioned phenomena.
If we explore the implications of the above, it should be clear that this newly defined soul has nothing to do with the soul described in other religions. Neither can it be described by means of the five aggregates. Since it can’t be described by means of the five aggregates, it can’t be conceived.
The suttas don’t reject this kind of soul. However, this kind of soul is so far removed from the kinds of soul that we are commonly used to conceiving, that even using the word soul seems inappropriate. Due to the difficulty in processing this idea, most people decide that it is a unicorn and doesn’t exist, or they mistakenly equate it the kinds of soul that are commonly spoken about in everyday religion.
The soul and annihilationists
When an annihilationist talks about the destruction of the atta, it must be within the context of the producer / consumer paradigm.
When a being is alive, the atta is deemed to exist because the act of production, consumption and the delighting in consumption are readily observable. When a being dies, these acts are no longer observable so the annihilationist concludes that the atta is destroyed.
The distinction between the teachings of an annihilationist and the Buddha is that:
- The Buddha affirms that the act of production, consumption and delighting in consumption continue even after the death of the body. This is why rebirth occurs.
- The Buddha ties the end of production and consumption to the ceasing of delighting in consumption, rather than the destruction of the atta. The ceasing of delighting in consumption is the final result of awakening, which is to be obtained through effort.
Some people say that an awakened being ceases exist when they die because the five aggregates go cold and they neither produce nor consume. But this is just annihilationism in disguise. Rather than the atta being destroyed after one lifetime, it is simply destroyed after many.
Other people say that there was no atta to begin with. But then what is it that sought and gained freedom? After all, the purpose of awakening is freedom from suffering.
Others, still, may say that the death of an awakened being leads to non-existence, and this very non-existence is freedom. But what is the nature of this non-existence? Is it the lack of any awareness whatsoever? A kind of permanent euthanisation? Sounds suspiciously like the post-death state that an annihilationist would describe.
Final thoughts
The author of that article has done some good work to support their points. However I fear that their arguments will generally be misconstrued due to the knee-jerk reaction against the use of the word soul. It is even possible that they misconstrue their own argument as proof that the Buddha supported the notion of the soul as commonly used and defined.
I would say for the large part, in the current environment, we have unapologetic eternalists in non-Buddhist camps and low-key annihilationists in Buddhist camps.
The idea that awakening doesn’t end in non-existence / euthanisation is not a radical one. Nothing in the suttas contradicts this idea. In some places, there is even support for it. The trouble is that the space for a correct view is as thin the razor edge of a mountain ridge. A step to the left and you fall into the eternalist camp and construct an eternal identity. A step to the right and you fall into the annihilationist camp and imagine a permanent state of euthanisation. Getting the balance is not easy.