Social Conrtrrrctionr of Self II

ignorance and suffering, and that freedom or liberation entails self-transcen-

dence-or, since there is no substantial self, transcendence of the illusion of
&c self. Many interpreters &us define Buddhism as a philosophy of "not-
self." Here we sbatl briefly consider the Buddha's forzndational teaching of W

no-self (anatta) in terms of the concepts of self/ego that are analyzed as illu-
sory constructions esscneial to our suffering and mode of being in &c realm
of samsara (the worldly cycles of birth and rebirth).
In "The Three Characteristics" ("Signs of Being," or "Signata") of all fi-
nite phenomena in the cycles of existence, the Buddha staccs: "It remains a
fact, and the fixed and necessary constitution of being, that all its elements
are lacking in an ego."l0 Representative of critiques of self/ego found in the
canonical literature on no-self (anat~d)"is tlfre following: The Buddha does
not deem it fitting to consider any of the five aggregates of attachment (i.e.,
the body, feeling, perception, the predispositions/impressions~and con-
sciousness), "which are impermanent, painiul, and subject to change," as
"this is mine, this am I, this is my ego (soul, self)."
According to the "Characteristic" of anicca, everything is "impermanent";
in the continuous becoming of lived experience, we tind no permanent, un-
changing, everlasting entity such as a seli or soul. That which we tend to call
an ego or self is merely a combination of ever-changing physical and mental
staccs. The composite construcl-cd sclf or person creates the flhsion of a pcr-
manent individual self, thus preventing us from experiencing the flow of
continuous becoming. This imaginary false belief in an independent separate
sclf is essential to rhe generation of our selfish desires, greed, craving, hatred,
and ego-attachments.
In the Buddha's teachings of the Four Noble Truths," we find that the ag-
gxgates of arrfachmcnl, which create the ilhsiun of the "irzdfvidual" or "'X,"
are drrkkha (suffering, impermanence, the human condition); that ranha
(craving, desiring), as the immediate cause of drrkkha, has at its center of at-
tachment ftlpadana) the false concept of a self; and that the overcoming of
dtrkkha, by eliminating tanha, consists in the extinction of the illusory con-
cept of an individual self. This experiential realization of reality is denoted in
Pali texts as nana-ddrsitvzn: insight, "seeing with wisdom," "seeing things as
they really are."
Also according to the Buddha's teachings, this imaginary false belief in a
selfiego, far from being a harmless episfemological error, "produces harmful
thoughts of 'me' and 'mine,' selfish desire, craving, attachment, hatred, ill-
will, conceit, pride, egoism, and other defilements, impurities and problems.
'h is the source of all the truublcs in the world from personal conflicts to
wars between nations. In sliort, to this false view can be traced all tlie evil in
the worid, "l3
Both the Hindu and the Buddhisl critiques we have considered mainlain
that our modern concepts of a separate individual self are finite, empirical,
and temporal constructions of the world of maya or samsara. Such histori-