The thorny issue of anatta

[mikenz66]

Some of Bhikkhu @Sujato’s previous observations may be helpful:

Not -self and control: the problems of translating a Chinese passage

These point to the notion of self that the people at the time were looking to. Remember, unlike the Christian system where salvation comes from outside, virtually all the Indic systems took it for granted that salvation, happiness, freedom, nibbana, whatever you want to call it, come from finding your true self. So then consider the first statement. Consider the case where, for example, the body is identified as self. If this was the case—and for some people in the time of the Buddha, it was—t…