Spin-Off from Bhante Sujato’s Essay: Self, no self, not-self…

Yes, although a great challenge to understanding an-atta is to understand what is meant by atta.
It’s telling that although the Pali suttas seem to make this clear, and describe the benefits of understanding it at length, there is a huge amount of perplexity and debate on the matter.

From Ven. Sunyo:
“The relevant passage is the sutta’s opening line which says the following: “Bhikkhus, indeed whatever recluses or brahmans (who) regard the self in different ways, in so regarding, they all regard the five aggregates subject to clinging or a certain one of these” (see Bodhi 2017, 33).20 This passage is attempting an exhaustiveness claim; any recluse who has any view of the self will actually be mistaking the self for one or more of the aggregates”

So perhaps my point is that this seems to go beyond questions of vocabulary or translation, and is about our ability to reckon with these ideas.

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