I’ve just written an essay showing how seemingly contradictory suttas, with regard to the unconditioned and consciousness, can be reconciled. Posting a link here to provide another dimension to the conversation.
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@Tranquility the quote you provided was very interesting, however, the argument falls down in one major area. The Lord Buddha said, " Sabbe saṅkhāra aniccā, Sabbe saṅkhāra dukkhā, Sabbe DHAMMA anatta. So all conditioned phenomena are both impermanent and suffering but ALL phenomena (including the Citta) are non-self. This change from Sankhāra in the first two lines to Dhamma in the third line is no accident or slip of the tongue.
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A grammatical point of view about the possible valid meanings of the term anātman
Nairātmya (the view “there is no ātman”) is a word used by later Buddhists and they equate it to anātmatā (meaning “the state of being anātman”) which is a term (used in the Pali canon and other early texts) supposedly by the Buddha.
However there are two types of negation possible using the particle ‘na’:
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Paryudāsa-pratiṣedha (i.e. exclusion, or negation with a view to exclude) - here the particle ‘na’ when compounded with a following noun (such as in the compound ‘an-agāriyam’ for example) gives the meaning of “something else except agārīyam” or “something that is not agāriyam” (agāriyam is excluded by the compounded prefixing particle ‘na’). Another example: na+brāḥmaṇa = abrāhmaṇa (one who is not a brahmin, brahmins are excluded from the definition). Yet another example: na+āgata = anāgata (one that has not yet come; anything that is ‘āgata’ is excluded from the definition of anāgata). This negation with intent to exclude also applies to the term anātman (i.e. anything that the term anātman/anattā describes cannot be considered to be ātman/oneself/I/me/myself)
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prasajya-pratiṣedha (simple-negation) - When ‘na’ is used as an independent word (along with a verb) it gives the sense of a simple negation. So for example, ‘devaṃ na namāmi’ means “I don’t honour a deva”. But when used as the first member of a compound the meaning changes from simple negation to exclusion - a-devaṃ namāmi “I honour someone other than a deva”.
In Buddhism an-ātman therefore originally (in canonical usage) has the meaning “something else that is not oneself/me/myself i.e. something else which is not ātman” - but not a simple negation of the existence of ātman (nairātmya).
The Buddha according to the Buddhist canonical texts was not therefore a nairātmya-vādin (one who says there is no ātman) but an anātma-vādin (one who says ‘this is not the ātman’ i.e. ‘this is not your self’ or ‘this is not who you are’).
This can be empirically tested. Nowhere in Pāli/Sanskrit can ‘na’ prefixed within a compound be considered a pure negation of existence of that substantive.
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I wonder if you could post the citation for this information? The original Source. Thanks.
Mindfulness is the word. Mind is the gold one seeks.
The sense of self arises because of the awareness of being aware,
and this is cognised as the idealogical self ‘I’ in the mental abstracting faculty of mind.
Seeing from the middle, at this point, who cares what ‘it’ is? Seeing from the middle: one avoids the error of fixed views.
Soul is a concept that the christian mystics apply like buddhist use the concept of the stream.
It refers to an inner light, an inner wisdom, and inner working too, that will quit naturally lead to abandonment of all what is artificial about us, egocentric, impure. Like the sutta-Buddha says that the Path will naturally incline, stream, towards the ocean of Nibbana, as the Ganges to the sea.
This way the mystics also talk about the presence and operation of the soul.
Christian mystics describe how this light of the soul is present for even the greatest sinners. The problem is not that the light of the soul is absent but if we have a lot of self-will that light is blocked, like the sunlight blocked by clouds. We must give up our self will, the self-will the sutta-Buddha describes as asava, anusaya, tanha. These can be seen as our- own will. As in…rooted in our dispostion, part of our make up. This will is distinguished from God will. Gods will becomes visible via the soul and are not the volitional formations of drifts, reactivity, tendencies, habits, plans, intentions.
Like the sun naturally shines on everything and it does not think…let me warm this person…this still happens. Like the sun does not think…let me evaporate that water but this still happens, the soul does not think…let me make an end to impurity, defilements, belief in self, self-will, but it naturally happens when we surrender to its working. Naturally humans are transformed into nobles when the holy ghost operates and the light of the soul touches the heart. The best thing we can do is…not as much. Not seek refuge in self-will and not increase the self-will.
Detached is according Meister Eckhart how one looks most like God but if he would think about Buddha that way 
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