‘How not to get confused in talking and thinking around anattā/anātman’

Peter Harvey (b.peter.harvey@gmail.com )

Public lecture given at The Buddhist Society, 58 Eccleston Square, London, Wednesday, 3rd
May, 2017.

Introduction
In the Buddhist Society’s The Middle Way 91.3, the first article, by a Tibetan Lama, has a final
section that records a question and answer session about doubt. The notes on this last session
end up being rather self-contradictory and confusing – hence potentially leading to much doubt
in some readers, ironically. They say:

doubt arises from fear, and fear comes from the self. But the self has no power. As you begin
to recognise that there is no self, it will send you a message, in the form of doubt. Fear and
doubt exist to protect the self. The self can give you the impression of existing because it sends
you fear and doubt. The self really does not exist … (pp.218–19).

This says that something that does not exist sends one doubt. How can something that does not
exist do anything? Of course the mistaken belief in a self can have certain results, but that is
not what the above says.
Also, the main section of the article (p.218) says: ‘But doubt is a messenger of Mara
[the evil tempter], and a messenger of the Self’. By writing ‘Self’, rather than ‘self’, the
impression is given that there is a real, substantial self, although it is problematic.
My raising the above with the Buddhist Society led to me being invited to give this
public lecture. There is a lot of talk, among various Buddhists of ‘no-self’, ‘no-soul’, ‘self’,
‘Self’, ‘denial of self’, ‘denial of soul’, ‘true Self’, ‘illusory self’, ‘the self is made up of the
aggregates, which are not-self’. These ways of talking can clash and cause confusion. So, how
can the subtleties around the anattā/anātman teachings be best expressed? What is this teaching
really about?

Is it right to say ‘Buddhism denies the self’.

The anattā teaching can easily be misunderstood and misdescribed; so it is important to see
what it is saying. It is often said that ‘Buddhism denies the self’. What might this mean, and is
it true? In English, ‘self’ can have a variety of meanings, and the same goes for Pali attā and
Sanskrit ātman. In the Pali suttas, or discourses of the Buddha as preserved by the Theravāda
school, the term attā is often used in the everyday sense of ‘oneself’, ‘myself’, or ‘himself’,
according to context. For example, when it is recommended that one should not act in a way that
would be displeasing if someone else acted in this way towards one, it is said, ‘self (of another)
ought to measured against self (i.e. oneself)’ (M.I.97). This kind of usage is not portrayed as
being problematic. But in the term an-attā, sometimes translated as ‘no-self’, attā clearly has
a different sense. And this latter translation clearly links to the idea that ‘Buddhism denies the
self’.
A clear problem here, is that when the Buddha was directly asked ‘does attā exist
(atthi)’ and ‘does attā not exist?’, he was silent (S.IV.400–01). He was asked this by
Vacchagotta, a wanderer who was always wanting answers to the undetermined questions, such
as on the state of an enlightened person after death, on which he was also silent. The Buddha
later explains his silence on ‘self’ to nanda:
 to have replied ‘self exists’ would have been to side with what the Buddha called
‘Eternalists’ – those who believed in an eternal Self which survives death – and would

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 not have been ‘in accordance with’ the knowledge that all dhammas – everything – is
anattā.
 to have replied ‘self does not exist’ would have been to side with what the Buddha called
‘Annihilationists’ – those who see a person as totally destroyed at death – and ‘it would
have been more bewilderment (sammohāya) for the bewildered Vacchagotta, for he
would have said, ‘It seems that the self I formerly had does not exist now’.
This surely implies that there is a sense of ‘attā/self’ in which it is inappropriate to say ‘it’
exists, and also a sense in which it is inappropriate to say ‘it’ does not exist.
Given that there is an everyday sense of attā as ‘oneself’ – which picks out a particular
stream of inter-related physical and mental processes, and that the Buddha taught rebirth, not
the complete annihilation of such a stream at death, then it would be inappropriate to simply
say ‘self does not exist’, or ‘she does not exist’ or ‘I do not exist’. But attā in the term anattā
has a different sense than the everyday sense.

The term anattā/anātman

The fundamental ‘three marks’ (ti-lakkhaṇa) of phenomena are that all conditioned ones are
impermanent (anicca), and dukkha, and everything is anattā (e.g. S.III.44–5, S.IV.46–7,
S.IV.133–5). It is mainly because things are impermanent that they are also dukkha: mentally
or physically painful, however subtly. Because they are impermanent and in some sense
painful, moreover, they are to be seen as anattā, non-Self. When something is said to be anattā,
the kind of ‘self’ it is seen not to be is clearly one that would be permanent and free from all
pain, however subtle – so as to be happy, self-secure, independent. While Pali and Sanskrit do
not have capital letters, in English it is useful to signal such a concept with a capital: Self. It is
clear, though, that people often slide from one sense of both ‘self’ and ‘attā’ to another, in an
unhelpful and confusing way. Hence, in discussions, the Buddha often asked his interlocutor
what they meant by ‘self’.
The term anattā is nearly always a noun, in the form of the word for Self, attā, prefaced
by the negative prefix an, meaning that what is anattā is nothing to do with ‘self’ in a certain
sense: it is not a permanent Self – it is not-Self –, nor what pertains or belongs to such a thing
(attaniya, S.III.33–4, S.IV.54), as ‘mine’, or what contains Self or is contained in it (M.I.300,
S.III.127–32). It is ‘empty’ (Pali suñña, Sanskrit ūnya) of Self or what pertains to Self’
(S.IV.54). While anattā is often rendered simply as ‘not-Self’, this translation captures only
part of its meaning, as it misses out the aspect of not being anything that pertains to a Self,
which ‘non-Self’ includes.
The important teaching on this was introduced by the Buddha in his second sermon, the
Anatta-lakkhaṇa Sutta (Vin.I.13–14, S.III.66–8). Here he explained, with respect to each of the
five khandhas –– the aggregates, or perhaps better ‘bundles’ of processes making up body and
mind – , that if it were truly Self, it would not ‘tend to sickness’, and it would be totally
controllable at will, which it is not. Moreover, as each khandha – material form, feeling,
perception, volitional activities and consciousness – is impermanent, dukkha, and of a nature
to change, it is inappropriate to consider it as ‘This is mine, this am I, this is my Self’.
In the Buddha’s day in India, the spiritual quest was largely seen as the search for,
identification of, and liberating a person’s true Self. Such an entity was postulated as a person’s
permanent inner nature, the source of true happiness and the autonomous ‘inner controller’
(Sanskrit antaryamin) of a person’s actions, inner elements and faculties. It would also need to
be in full control of itself. In Brahmanism (early Hinduism), this ātman was seen as a universal

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Self identical with Brahman (the impersonal source and substance of the universe and beings),
while in Jainism, for example, it was seen as the individual ‘Life principle’ (jīva). The Buddha
argued that anything subject to change, anything involved with the disharmony of mental pain,
anything not autonomous and totally controllable by its own or an ‘owner’s’ wishes, could not
be such a perfect true Self or what belonged to it. Moreover, to take anything as being such is
to lay the basis for much suffering; for whatever one fondly takes as one’s permanent, essential
Self, or its secure possession, all actually changes in undesired ways. While the pre-Buddhist
Upaniṣads recognized many things as being not-Self, they felt that a real, true Self could be
found. They held that when it was found, and known to be identical to Brahman, the basis of
everything, this would bring liberation. In the Buddhist suttas, though, literally everything is
seen as non-Self, even nirvana. When this is directly known, then liberation – nirvana – is
attained by total non-attachment. Thus both the Upaniṣads and the Buddhist suttas see many
things as not-Self, but the Suttas apply it, indeed non-Self, to everything.
The teaching on phenomena as non-Self is not only intended to undermine the
Brahmanical or Jain concepts of Self, but also much more commonly held conceptions and
deep-rooted feelings of I-ness. To feel that, however much one changes in life from childhood
onwards, some essential part remains constant and unchanged as the ‘real me’, is to have a
belief in a permanent Self. To act as if only other people die, and to ignore the inevitability of
one’s own death, is to act as if one had a permanent Self. To relate changing mental phenomena
to a substantial self which ‘owns’ them: ‘I am worried ... happy ... angry’, is to have such a
Self-concept. To build a firm identity based on one’s bodily appearance or abilities, or on one’s
sensitivities, ideas and beliefs, actions, intelligence, academic status, etc., is to take them as
part of an ‘I’, a ‘me’, taking these phenomena as ‘mine’.

‘View on personality’
The Buddha was aware of the many ways in which people have views which fix on a supposed
permanent self-essence, a Self, within the changing phenomena of body and mind. In different
ways they locate a substantial Self somewhere in the five khandhas, regarding any one of them
as being Self, or owned by Self, or within Self, or having Self within it, leading to twenty such
views in all (S.III.1–5), which all contribute to suffering. Each of the views is known as a ‘view
on the existing group’ (sakkāya-diṭṭhi), i.e. a view on the nature of the ‘existing group’ – the
five khandhas (M.I.299). Sakkāya-diṭṭhi is sometimes translated as ‘personality view’, but this
oddly makes it sound like it is wrong view to think that ‘personality’ exists in any sense. Better
is ‘view on personality’, ‘Self-identity view’ or simply ‘identity view’, as Bhikkhu Bodhi now
translates it. The non-acceptance of any of these views in the suttas means, for example, that
with regard to material form, the body, it is not truly appropriate to say that ‘I am body’, ‘the
body is mine’, ‘body is part of my Self’, ‘I am in the body’. Indeed, it is said that the body does
not ‘belong’ to anyone: it simply arises due to past karma (S.II.64–5). Its associated mental
states do not ‘own’ it.
Just as it is inappropriate to say that Buddhism denies there is such a thing as a
‘personality’, so it is wrong to say that it denies there is such a thing as an ‘individual’. We are
each individual beings with a particular history and character. One’s individual nature is of
course influenced and conditioned by other people, life experiences and genes, but because we
are not independent, and do not have a separated, isolated individuality, does not mean that we
are not individuals. People, though, do lack any essence of personhood or individuality, and
are only unique in the sense of each being a particular mix of universal types of processes.

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 Those who have transcended ‘view on personality’ are of the first level of sanctity,
being stream-enterers. So it takes a deep spiritual transformation to go beyond this kind of
deeply-ingrained view, which may be held at an unconscious as much as a conscious level.

The ‘I am’ conceit

Even when specific views regarding a substantial, permanent ‘Self’ have been transcended, a
subtle kind of ‘conceit’ (māna) still remains as a vague and non-specific feeling of I-ness with
respect to the khandhas (S.III.127–32). ‘Conceit’ is the basic attitude of ‘I am’ (asmi-māna):
deep-rooted self-centredness or self-importance, which is concerned about how ‘I’ measure up
to ‘others’ – as arrogantly or smugly ‘superior’, self-blamingly, self-pityingly or fawningly
‘inferior’, or competitively or complacently ‘equal’ (S.IV.88): another key cause of dukkha. It
is this ‘I am’ conceit which can be seen as the ‘sense of self’ or even as the ‘ego’, which leads
to people walking around as if they have an arrow pointing to ‘me’! It is a reality, but it is based
on a misperception. Only an enlightened person has completely gone beyond this, though he
or she still uses conventional expressions such as ‘I say’, or ‘they say it is mine’, this being
‘merely conforming to popular usage’, and without any ‘I am’ conceit (S.I.15).
So, anattā does not mean ‘egoless’, as it sometimes rendered. The term ‘ego’ has a
range of meanings in English. The Freudian ‘ego’ is not the same as the Indian ātman/attā or
permanent Self. In more ordinary English, ‘ego’ just means the self-centred sense of being or
having an ‘I’ – which can often feel ‘inflated’ or ‘deflated’ The existence of this sense, ego, is
not denied in Buddhism, though it is seen as based, ultimately, on a misperception of reality.

What the anattā teaching is about

While ‘all dhammas are anattā’ – ‘everything is non-Self’– clearly implies that there is no
permanent Self, the word anattā does not itself mean ‘no-Self’, i.e. does not itself mean ‘there
is no Self’. It simply means that what it is applied to is not a Self or what pertains to it.
Moreover, the non-Self teaching is not in itself a denial of the existence of a permanent self; it
is primarily a practical teaching aimed at the overcoming of attachment. A philosophical denial
of an independent, permanent ‘Self’ is just a view, a theory, which may be agreed with or not.
It does not necessarily get one to examine all the things that one actually does identify with,
consciously or unconsciously, as Self or essentially ‘mine’. This examination, in a calm,
meditative context, is what the ‘non-Self’ teaching aims at. It is not so much a conceptual idea
as something to be done – Ajahn Thanissaro calls it a ‘strategy’ – , to be applied to actual
experience, so that the meditator actually sees that ‘this…. this… everything is non-Self’. A
mere philosophical denial does not encourage this, and may actually mean that a person sees
no need for it.
While the suttas have no place for a metaphysical Self, seeing things as non-Self is
clearly regarded as playing a vital soteriological role. The concept of a permanent, independent
‘Self’, and the associated deep-rooted feeling of ‘I am’, are being utilized for a spiritual end.
The non-Self teaching can in fact be seen as a brilliant device which uses a deep-seated human
aspiration, ultimately illusory, to overcome the negative products of such an illusion.
Identification, whether conscious or unconscious, with something as ‘what I truly and
permanently am’, or as inherently ‘mine’, is a source of attachment; such attachment leads to
frustration and a sense of loss when what one identifies with changes and becomes other than
one desires. The deep-rooted idea of ‘Self’, though, is not to be attacked, but used as a
measuring-rod against which all phenomena should be compared: so as to see them as falling

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short of the perfections implied in the idea of Self. This is to be done through a rigorous
experiential examination of the phenomena that we do identify with as ‘Self’, ‘I’ or ‘mine’: as
each of these is examined, but is seen to actually be non-Self, falling short of the ideal, the
intended result is that one should let go of any attachment to such a thing. In doing this, a
person finally comes to see everything as non-Self, thereby destroying all attachment and
attaining nirvana. In this process, it is not necessary to give any philosophical ‘denial’ of Self;
the idea simply withers away, as it is seen that no actual instance of such a thing can be found
anywhere (M.I.138 ). One can, then, perhaps see the Self idea as fulfilling a role akin to a rocket
which boosts a payload into space, against the force of gravity. It provides the force to drive
the mind out of the ‘gravity field’ of attachment to the khandhas. Having done so, it then ‘falls
away and is burnt up’, as itself an empty concept, part of the unsatisfactory khandhas.
So, it is not that the Buddha ‘denied the self’, but that he saw taking anything as a
permanent, independent and pain free self as unsupportable, and also conducive to suffering.
More briefly, one can say he ‘did not accept anything as being a permanent self’. Or one can
say that he challenged all attempts to build an I-identity on anything … and taught people not
to Self-ise anything, so to speak.

Not ‘no-self’ or ‘no-soul’

Just as anattā is sometimes translated as ‘no-self’, it is sometimes translated as ‘no-soul’, but
while Buddhism does not accept a ‘soul’ in the sense of an immortal essence of a person, ‘soul’
in the sense of that which gives life to the body is not denied: the presence of the flux of
consciousness (viññāṇa), plus ‘vitality’ (āyu) and ‘heat’ fulfil this role (M.I.296). The English
word ‘soul’ can also mean the moral and emotional part of a person, and in this sense could be
seen to correspond to citta, a term which covers both ‘mind’ and ‘heart’, in the sense of the
centre of emotions. The term ‘soul’ can also refer to energy and spirit, as found in good art or
music that ‘have soul’; forms of such qualities are part of the Buddhist path. So, Buddhism
does not ‘lack soul’.

Annihilationism is also rooted in a belief in a Self

Deluded I-centredness is seen as shared even by Annihilationists. As S.III.46 says, the attitude
‘I am’ leads, among other things, to the idea ‘I will not be’, i.e. Annihilationism, of which
materialism is a clear example. Similarly, M.I.8 sees the wrong views ‘there is for me a s/Self’
and ‘there is not for me a s/Self’ as both arising from unmethodical speculation on whether or
what one was in the past, whether or what one will be in the future, or thinking, as to the present,
‘Now am I? Now what am I?’. That is, preoccupation with ‘I’ even leads to the idea that ‘I’ do
not exist. Thus, if the Buddha had said ‘s/Self does not exist’, he would have been legitimizing
such preoccupation. He thus did not see it as a true statement, or choose to say that ‘s/Self exists’
is false.
So the suttas see even Annihilationism, which the Buddha equated with denial of s/Self,
as tied up with belief in a Self. At S.IV.286, Annihilationism is among a range of views which
all arise due to ‘view on personality’. People of this kind of view believed in up to seven ‘Selves’:
the physical body, and various kinds of mental Selves, perhaps seen as psychic ‘centres’ (D.I.34–
6). While all such Selves were seen as destroyed at death, they seem to have been regarded as
unchanging during life, for the Buddha describes the Annihilationists as teaching the cutting off
of a ‘real/existent being (sato sattassa)’ (D.I.34): i.e. they saw death as destroying a substantially
real being/Self. The implication is clearly that an unchanging ‘real being’ is synonymous with a

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Self, and that it is contradictory to posit such an entity but then say that it can be destroyed. The
Buddha saw it as nonsense to say that a genuine Self or ‘real being’ – if it existed – could be
destroyed. The Annihilationist, then, is one who denies that anything of a person exists after
death, but who believes in a one-life Self, typically identifying this with the body. He is still
preoccupied with ‘I’ and ‘Self’, then.
While Annihilationists believed in a one-life Self, seen by the Buddha as a type of ‘real
being’, they could also sound like nihilists, denying not only that there is a world beyond death,
but also saying that ‘this world does not exist’ (D.I.55). There may have been different groups of
Annihilationists, but it is perhaps more likely that Annihilationists held that anything which does
not last forever does not really ‘exist’. If this is so, the Buddha’s criticism, that they accepted a
‘real being’ that is destroyed at death, would amount to the accusation that their beliefs were
inconsistent.
As regards modern philosophical materialism, I think that the Buddha would have seen
it as:


having too narrow a view of the kind of processes that there are,
so as to wrongly reduce consciousness to some mode of ‘matter’, and
 while being right to accept a ‘self’ in the sense of a changing and conditioned mental


construct, and


right not accept an unchanging, unconditioned self,


being wrong to deny any kind of mind-stream after death, and as
tending to support identification with the body as a substantial basis of identity, to be
controlled and moulded in the service of ego.
Accepted senses of ‘self’ in Buddhism
The Buddha accepted many ordinary usages of the word ‘self’, but within such a conventional
self – which we can call ‘empirical’, i.e. experiencable, self – , he taught that no permanent,
substantial, independent, essential, ‘metaphysical’ Self could be found. This is well explained
by an early nun, Vajir (S.I.135 , cf. Miln.25–8): just as the word ‘chariot’ is used to denote a
collection of items in functional relationship, but not a special part of a chariot, so the
conventional term ‘a being’, is properly used to refer to the five khandhas relating together, as
a working system. None of the khandhas is a ‘being’ or ‘Self’: these are simply conventional
labels used to denote the collection of functioning khandhas. A person has no person-essence.
Besides attā as simply meaning ‘oneself’, a related meaning is when it refers to
‘character’. For example, at A.IV.114, a monk is said to be a ‘self-knower’ (attaññū) when he
knows of himself that his spiritual qualities such as faith are developed to a certain degree. Other
passages use ‘attā’ to refer to one’s ‘self’ (character) as ‘uprooted and injured’ if one prevents
someone from giving alms (A.I.161), and as ‘become pure’ when one lives virtuously (M.I.179).
Such ‘character’, is clearly changeable, not a permanent self-essence. As it changes, it is
impermanent, and so must be anattā (S.III.67). ‘Attā’ can also be used as equivalent to ‘citta’,
‘mind’ or perhaps ‘heart-mind’. This is evident from an investigation of Dhammapada verse 160:
Self is protector of oneself (attā hi attano nātho),
for what other protector would there be?
For with a well-controlled self (attanā’va sudantena)
one gains a protector hard to gain.
Here, the ‘protector’ self is one which is ‘well-controlled’, paralleling a line at Dhp.35: ‘a
controlled (dantam) citta is conducive to happiness’. A self/citta identity is also seen at A.II.32

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and Dhp.43: the first refers to ‘perfect application of self’ as leading to prosperity, the second to
a ‘perfectly applied’ citta as of more benefit than the action of relatives. Now something which
must be controlled or well applied is evidently changing, and not an unchanging metaphysical
Self. The ‘protector’ self is simply the empirical citta, which is said to be very changeable, so
that it should not be seen as ‘my Self’ (S.II.94). Citta as ‘self’ seems to refer to one’s
psychological/emotional ‘centre’, which can be uncontrolled, badly applied and agitated, or well
controlled, well applied and calm. It is ‘self’ in this sense which can upbraid one, as can other
people, for lapses from virtue (A.V.88). It is also a ‘self’ which can be ‘unguarded’ even if a
person is protected externally by an army (S.I.72–3).
The non-Self teaching does not deny that there is continuity of character in life, and to
some extent from life to life. But persistent character-traits are merely due to the repeated
occurrence of certain cittas, in the sense of ‘mind-sets’. While character traits may be long-
lasting, they can and do change, and are thus impermanent, and so ‘non-Self’, insubstantial. A
‘person’ is a collection of rapidly changing and interacting mental and physical processes, with
character-patterns re-occurring over some time. Only partial control can be exercised over these
processes; so they often change in undesired ways leading to suffering. As any meditator
knows, the mind cannot be made to be calm, and often wanders in spite of one’s efforts; all one
can do is set up the conditions that are supportive of the mind being calm. Impermanent, mental
and physical processes cannot be a permanent Self. Being ‘painful’, they cannot be an
autonomous true ‘I’, which would contain nothing that was out of harmony with itself.
Note that I previously mistyped a few things in this talk, even after having read it
through several times. This is an example of how perception and actions are not something
there is full control over – they are non-Self! Yet what is said in this talk certainly expresses
ideas occurring recurrently in the bundles of changing processes called ‘Peter Harvey’.

Rebirth and non-Self

Buddhism sees no need to postulate a permanent Self, and it accounts for the functioning of
personality, in life and from life to life, in terms of a stream of changing, conditioned and
conditioning processes. Hence it is said that, from one life to the next, a being is ‘neither the
same nor different’ (Miln.40), that is, neither unchangingly the same nor completely different,
as the later being is causally shaped by the earlier being. One should, then, have compassion
for the being that one will become when reborn, – by acting ethically and so planting good
karmic seeds.
When the Buddha, in response to a query about a recently deceased person named X,
might say, that ‘X is reborn as a hungry ghost (peta/preta)’, this does not mean that X remains
the same in this rebirth, but only that the changing stream of processes conventionally named
‘X’ continues as a ghost.
Note that while rebirth is not seen to require a permanent Self or substantial ‘I’, belief
in such a thing is one of the things that is seen to cause rebirth.

Enlightened people as having developed an ego-free ‘great self’

Spiritually developed people of the ancient world are sometimes referred to in the West as ‘the
great souls of antiquity’. This idea finds a parallel in the Buddhist term mahattā, ‘great self’.
This does not refer some pre-existent underlying Self, but simply to the empirical self of a
person that has come to be strong in wholesome, skilful qualities. Of the Buddhist path, it is
said,‘This is the path by which those with great selves (mahattehi), great seers, have fared’

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(It.28–9). Such people have a ‘great self (mahattā)’ because they are developed in their body
of good qualities, ethical discipline, mind and wisdom (A.I.249), with an Arahat as ‘one of
developed self (bhāvit-atto)’ (It.79-80). The term mahattā resurfaced in recent times in the title
mahātma, ‘great soul’, applied to the Hindu teacher Gandhi.
Overall, the perspective of the Pali discourses of the Buddha is that:
i) in the changing, empirical self, no permanent Self can be found;
ii) yet one of a person’s volitional activities is the ‘I am conceit’ (asmi-māna) –
the gut feeling or attitude that one is or has a real Self, a substantial I;
iii) as a person develops spiritually, their empirical self becomes stronger as they
become more centred, calm, aware and open;
iv) in this process, awareness of all factors of personality as non-Self – empty of
an independent, permanent Self or anything owned and controlled by such a
thing – undermines grasping, clinging, craving, and attachment, and so makes
a person calmer and stronger;
v) at the pinnacle of spiritual development, the liberated person is free of all the
causes of dukkha, and thus lacks any ‘I am’ conceit, being free from the burden
of ego, yet has a ‘great’ empirical self: is a spiritually ‘big person’, calm,
centred, compassionate and wise.
Those who are enlightened ones have not ‘destroyed the self’; they have destroyed the ‘I am’
conceit and deluded sense of Self/I, and have directly known that they always were composed
of non-Self processes. They do not ‘attain no-self’, but attain insight into all as non-Self. It is
not that they know that things are ‘not the Self’, as the use of the word ‘the’ already posits a
Self that supposedly exists!
Sensitivity to the above nuances should help one avoid incoherent talk relating to the
non-Self teaching.

Nirvana as non-Self, though not impermanent or dukkha

While nirvana, like a supposed Self, is beyond impermanence and dukkha, it is still non-Self.
This is made clear in a recurring passage (e.g. at A.I.286–7), which says that all saṅkhāras,
here meaning conditioned phenomena, are impermanent and dukkha, but that ‘all dhammas’
are non-Self. ‘Dhamma’ (Sanskrit dharma) is a word with many meanings in Buddhism, but
here it refers to any basic component of reality. Most are conditioned, but nirvana is the
unconditioned dhamma (A.II.34); both conditioned and unconditioned dhammas are non-Self.
While nirvana is beyond change and suffering, it has nothing in it which could support the
feeling of I-ness; for this can only arise with respect to the khandhas, and it is not even a truly
valid feeling here (D.II.66–8).

Is the ‘Buddha-nature’ of the Mahāyāna a ‘true Self’?

Within the Mah y na, the idea of the ‘Buddha-nature’ can play a large role, especially in
Chan/Zen. This idea is rooted in the idea of the Tathāgata-garbha found in some Indian
Mah y na sūtras. ‘Tathāgata-garbha’ means something like ‘womb, or embryo of one who
moves in reality, i.e. of a Buddha’. The Tathāgata-garbha is equated with ‘emptiness’, in the
sense of being empty of and separate from all defilements (greed, hatred and delusion etc.), but
not empty of or separate from ‘the inconceivable Buddha-qualities, more numerous than the
sands of the Ganges’ (Srim. ch. 9). In the Tathāgata-garbha Sūtra, it is affirmed by the Buddha

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to be ‘complete with virtues and not different from myself’. It is an emptiness which is itself
full of possibilities; it is resplendent with the qualities of Buddhahood, beginningless,
unchanging and permanent (Rv. vv. 51, 84).
This ‘embryo’ is seen as existing within all living beings, indicating that, however
deluded or defiled they are, they can mature into Buddhas. The Tathāgata-garbha, then,
represents the ‘Buddha-potential’ within all beings. It has the intrinsic purity of a jewel, space
or water (Rv. vv. 28, 30, 49). It is brightly shining with lucid clarity (Rv. v. 170) and is ‘by
nature brightly shining and pure’ (Lanka.77). Beings are seen as ignorant of this great inner
treasure, but the Buddha reveals it to them so as to encourage them in spiritual development.
Moreover, it is the Tathāgata-garbha which responds to spiritual teachings and aspires for
nirvana (Srim. ch. 13).
The idea of the ‘brightly shining mind’ (Pali pabhassara citta, Sanskrit prabhāsvara
citta) has its roots in early Buddhist ideas as expressed in a Pali sutta at A.I.10: ‘Monks, this
mind is brightly shining, but it is defiled by defilements which arrive’; that is, the basic nature
of mind is radiant, even though it is often defiled by defilements which ‘visit’: which often act
like visitors to a house that then behave like they owned the place. In the context of the Pali
suttas, it is a bright potential that is uncovered and experienced when the five hindrances (such
as sense-desire and ill-will) are suspended in the jhānas, or meditative absorptions. But it is not
an enlightened state. Once found, it has to be worked with. When unobscured by defilements,
the brightly shining basic nature of mind can be a basis for the attainment of the liberating
insight that leads to the experience of nirvana; otherwise, defilements will in time return and
the various kinds of rebirth will follow, though some in the bright heavenly realms where the
defilements are weak. The Therav da tradition also does not see the ‘brightly shining mind’ as
permanent. The commentator Buddhaghosa (A-a I.61) refers to it as the ‘naturally pure latent
resting state of mind (bhavaṅga)’, this being the mode of mind that is uninterrupted in
dreamless sleep, but flicked in and out of in waking consciousness.
Now in the Mah y na, the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra (pp. 77–8) describes the Tathāgata-
garbha as ‘hidden in the body of every being like a gem of great value ... it is eternal,
permanent’. This makes it sound rather like a permanent Self, though the texts seem somewhat
ambivalent on this. On the one hand, the Dharma-body, the fully mature Tathāgata-garbha, is
the perfection of permanence and of Self (Srim. ch. 12). On the other, while the Tathāgata-
garbha may seem like either a Self or eternal creator to the ignorant, it is not so, for it is the
same as emptiness (Lanka.78). It may be Self-like, but is not a true Self, in the sense of an ‘I’:
‘The Buddha is neither a Self nor the skandhas (Pali khandha), he is knowledge free from evil
taints’ (Lanka.358).
The Mah y na Mahā-parinirvāṇa Sūtra (Taishō vol.12, text 374, ch.3, p.377b15–c14.)
says, however:

Because beings are overwhelmed by the defilement of ignorance, they develop distorted views.
They see what has an essential self as lacking an essential self. They see what is permanent as
impermanent. They see what is pure as impure. They see what is pleasurable as painful. … “What
has an essential self” refers to the Buddha. “What is permanent” refers to the Dharma-body.
“What is pleasurable” refers to nirvana. “What is pure” refers to the Dharma.
… Thinking of what lacks an essential self as possessing one, and of what possesses an essential
self as lacking one, is to have a distorted view of the Dharma. …
Saṃs ra lacks an essential self. The Tath gata possesses an essential self. The disciples and
solitary-buddhas are impermanent. The Dharma-body of the Tath gata is permanent. …

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This is acceptable in saying that it is wrong to see what is unconditioned – nirvana, the real
nature of the Tathāgata – as impermanent, painful or impure, but problematic in seeing
anything as a real Self. To me, this kind of view is at most a kind of skilful means, to attract to
Buddhism Hindus who believed in a true Self, as opposed to the ordinary self, seen as somehow
‘illusory’.
In Tibet, there was a debate between the self-emptiness (rang-tong) and. other-
emptiness (shen-tong) perspectives on ‘emptiness’. Those of the other-emptiness view – as
seen for example in Dzogch’en teachings – see the other-empty pure reality as the Tathāgata-
garbha, interpreted as a pre-existent fully enlightened reality that just needs uncovering: it is a
radiance that is empty of defilements. Those of the self-emptiness view, such as the Gelugpas,
see talk of ‘Tathāgata-garbha’ as simply a way of saying that emptiness of inherent nature of
the minds of beings means that they are capable of ultimate change, so that they can become
Buddhas. The latter view downplays the idea of the radiance of the mind, uncovered in
meditation, as the specific seed of future Buddhahood, whereas the other-emptiness view is
contentious in holding that the Tathāgata-garbha does not and need not change, being an
already present perfect Buddhahood that only needs to be uncovered.
In the history of the Buddhist Society, Christmas Humphreys of course believed in a
‘true Self’, this probably being a belief influenced by Theosophy, with its Hindu component,
and texts such as the Mah y na Mahā-parinirvāṇa Sūtra.

Abbreviations
A Aṅguttara Nikāya, transl. by Bhikkhu Bodhi, The Numerical Discourses of the Buddha,
Wisdom, 2012.
A-a Commentary on A, untranslated,
D Dīgha Nikāya, transl. by M.Walshe, Long Discourses of the Buddha, Wisdom, 1996.
Dhp Dhammapada, transl. e.g. by V.Roebuck, The Dhammapada, Penguin, 2010.
It Itivuttaka, transl, by P.Masefield, The Itivuttaka, Pali Text Society, 2001.
Lanka Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra, transl. by D. T. Suzuki, The Lankavatara Sutra, Routledge and Kegan Paul,
1932; repr. Motilal Banarsidass, 2003.
M Majjhima Nikāya, transl. by Bhikkhu Ñ ṇamoli and Bhikkhu Bodhi, The Middle Length
Discourses of the Buddha, Wisdom, 1995.
Miln Milindapañha, transl. by I.B.Horner, Milinda’s Questions, Pali Text Society, 1963 and 1964.
Rv Ratnagotra-vibhāga, transl. by J. Kongtrul and K.T.Gyamtso, Buddha Nature: The Mahayana
Uttara Shastra with Commentary, Snow Lion, 2000.
S Saṃyutta Nikāya, transl. by Bhikkhu Bodhi, The Connected Discourses of the Buddha,
Wisdom, 2005.
Srim rīmālā-devī Siṃhanāda Sūtra, transl. by A. & H. Wayman, The Lion’s Roar of Queen
rīmālā, Columbia University Press, 1974; repr. Motilal Banarsidass, 1989; and trnsl. by
Diana Y. Paul in Diana Y. Paul and John R. McRae, The Sutra of Queen rīmālā of the Lion’s
Roar, and The Vimalakīrti Sutra, Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research,
2004.
A, A-a, D, It, M, Miln and S references are to volume and page numbers of the Pali text, Pali Text
Society editions.

Further reading
Peter Harvey, An Introduction to Buddhism: Teachings, History and Practices, second edition,
Cambridge University Press, 2013, chapters 2 and 3.
Rupert Gethin, The Foundations of Buddhism, Oxford University Press, 1998, chapter 6.
Thanissaro Bhikkhu, ‘No-self or Not-self?’, 1996, Access to Insight website:
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/thanissaro/notself2.html
Thanissaro Bhikkhu, ‘The Not-self Strategy’, 2013, Access to Insight website:

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 http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/thanissaro/notselfstrategy.pdf
Peter Harvey, The Selfless Mind: Personality, Consciousness and Nirvana in Early Buddhism, Curzon
Press, 1995, chapters 1, 2 and 3.

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