User:Dorje108/Atman research

Walpola Rahula

Note: See "Chapter VI: The Doctrine of No-soul: Anatta" in Rahula's text What Buddha Taught for an excellent explanation of Anatta/No-self. You can download a PDF of the text for free online (http://www.dhammaweb.net/books/Dr_Walpola_Rahula_What_the_Buddha_Taught.pdf). You can also purchase a Kindle version for less than $10.

Intro to subject

What in general is suggested by Soul, Self, Ego, or to use the Sanskrit expression Ātman, is that in man there is a permanent, everlasting and absolute entity, which is the unchanging substance behind the changing phenomenal world. According to some religions, each individual has such a separate soul which is created by God, and which, finally after death, lives eternally either in hell or heaven, its destiny depending on the judgment of its creator. According to others, it goes through many lives till it is completely purified and becomes finally united with God or Brahman, Universal Soul or Ātman, from which it originally emanated. This soul or self in man is the thinker of thoughts, feeler of sensations, and receiver of rewards and punishments for all its actions good and bad. Such a conception is called the idea of self.

Buddhism stands unique in the history of human thought in denying the existence of such a Soul, Self, or Ātman. According to the teaching of the Buddha, the idea of self is an imaginary, false belief which has no corresponding reality, and it produces harmful thoughts of ‘me’ and ‘mine’, selfish desire, craving, attachment, hatred, ill-will, conceit, pride, egoism, and other defilements, impurities and problems. It is the source of all the troubles in the world from personal conflicts to wars between nations. In short, to this false view can be traced all the evil in the world.

Rahula, Walpola; Demieville, Paul (2007-12-01). What the Buddha Taught: Revised and Expanded Edition with Texts from Suttas and Dhammapada (Kindle Locations 1255-1266). Grove Press. Kindle Edition.

Relation to skandhas

The doctrine of Anatta or No-Soul is the natural result of, or the corollary to, the analysis of the Five Aggregates and the teaching of Conditioned Genesis (Paṭicca-samuppāda).2 We have seen earlier, in the discussion of the First Noble Truth (Dukkha), that what we call a being or an individual is composed of the Five Aggregates, and that when these are analysed and examined, there is nothing behind them which can be taken as ‘I’, Ātman, or Self, or any unchanging abiding substance. That is the analytical method. The same result is arrived at through the doctrine of Conditioned Genesis which is the synthetical method, and according to this nothing in the world is absolute. Everything is conditioned, relative, and interdependent. This is the Buddhist theory of relativity.

Rahula, Walpola; Demieville, Paul (2007-12-01). What the Buddha Taught: Revised and Expanded Edition with Texts from Suttas and Dhammapada (Kindle Locations 1284-1291). Grove Press. Kindle Edition.

Interdependence (Conditioned Genesis)

According to the doctrine of Conditioned Genesis [pratityasamutpada], as well as according to the analysis of being into Five Aggregates, the idea of an abiding, immortal substance in man or outside, whether it is called Ātman, ‘I’, Soul, Self, or Ego, is considered only a false belief, a mental projection. This is the Buddhist doctrine of Anatta, No-Soul or No-Self.

Rahula, Walpola; Demieville, Paul (2007-12-01). What the Buddha Taught: Revised and Expanded Edition with Texts from Suttas and Dhammapada (Kindle Locations 1348-1351). Grove Press. Kindle Edition.

On seeking a "Self" in Buddhism

Those who seek a self in the Buddha’s teaching quote a few examples which they first translate wrongly, and then misinterpret. One of them is the well-known line Attā hi attano nātho from the Dhammapada (XII, 4, or verse 160), which is translated as ‘Self is the lord of self’, and then interpreted to mean that the big Self is the lord of the small self.

First of all, this translation is incorrect. Attā here does not mean self in the sense of soul. In Pali the word attā is generally used as a reflexive or indefinite pronoun, except in a few cases where it specifically and philosophically refers to the soul-theory, as we have seen above. But in general usage, as in the XII chapter in the Dhammapada where this line occurs, and in many other places, it is used as a reflexive or indefinite pronoun meaning ‘myself’, ‘yourself’, ‘himself’, ‘one’, ‘oneself’, etc.2

Next, the word nātho does not mean ‘lord’, but ‘refuge’, ‘support’, ‘help’, ‘protection’.3 Therefore, Attāhi attano nātho really means ‘One is one’s own refuge’ or ‘One is one’s own help’ or ‘support’. It has nothing to do with any metaphysical soul or self. It simply means that you have to rely on yourself, and not on others.

Another example of the attempt to introduce the idea of self into the Buddha’s teaching is in the well-known words Attadipā viharatha, attasaraṇā anaññasaraṇā, which are taken out of context in the Mahāparinibbāna-sutta.1 This phrase literally means: ‘Dwell making yourselves your island (support), making yourselves your refuge, and not anyone else as your refuge.’2 Those who wish to see a self in Buddhism interpret the words attadipā and attasaraṇā ‘taking self as a lamp’, ‘taking self as a refuge’.3 We cannot understand the full meaning and significance of the advice of the Buddha to Ānanda, unless we take into consideration the background and the context in which these words were spoken.

[See text for rest of discussion]

Rahula, Walpola; Demieville, Paul (2007-12-01). What the Buddha Taught: Revised and Expanded Edition with Texts from Suttas and Dhammapada (Kindle Locations 1441-1464). Grove Press. Kindle Edition.

Dalia Lama

The root of all the Buddhist and non-Buddhist systems which appeared in India is that people were seeking happiness, and within the division of the phenomena of the world into objects that are used and the user of those objects, the Indians put particular emphasis on the self which uses objects. Most of the non-Buddhist systems, based on the fact that it often appears to our minds that the self is the controller of mind and body or that the self is undergoing pleasure and pain which in some sense appear to be separate from it, came to the conclusion that there is a separate self, a different entity from mind and body, which is the factor that goes from lifetime to lifetime and takes rebirth.

However, Buddhists do not assert that there is a self that is completely separate, or a different entity, from mind and body. Thus, they do not assert a permanent, single, independent self. This is because the four seals that testify to a doctrine as being Buddhist are that (1) all products are impermanent, (2) all contaminated things are miserable, (3) all phenomena are empty of self, and (4) nirvana is peace.

Since within the Buddhist systems there is no self completely separate from mind and body, there come to be different assertions within those systems on how the self is found within the mental and physical aggregates. In the systems of the Middle Way Autonomy School (svātantrika-mādhyamika, dbu ma rang rgyud pa), Mind-Only School, Sūtra School (sautrāntika, mdo sde pa), and Great Exposition School, a factor from within the mental and physical aggregates is posited as that which is the self. However, in the highest system of tenets, the Middle Way Consequence School, nothing from within the mental and physical aggregates is posited as the illustration of, or that which is, the self.

In this highest of systems, as in the others, there is an assertion of selflessness, but this does not mean that there is no self at all. In the Middle Way Consequence School it means that when we search to find the kind of self that appears to our minds so concretely, we cannot find it. Such a self is analytically unfindable. Analytical findability is called “inherent existence”; thus, when the Middle Way Consequence School speaks of selflessness, they are referring to this lack of inherent existence. However, they do assert that there is a self, or “I,” or person that is designated in dependence upon mind and body.

H.H. the Dalai Lama (2013-01-08). Kindness, Clarity, and Insight (Kindle Location 905-923). Snow Lion. Kindle Edition.

Alexander Berzin

Note: Berzin presents the view of atman as it is typically taught in the Tibetan philosophical tradition

Full article: http://www.berzinarchives.com/web/en/archives/study/asian_non-buddhist_traditions/indian_non-buddhist_traditions/atman_asserted_samkhya_nyaya_school/transcript.html

Three Characteristics of the Doctrinally Based Self (according to Tibetan tradition)

In general, this doctrinally based self that’s being refuted is one that has three characteristics:

1. It is static.

Now, you might hear the word permanent. Permanent is very misleading because it has two meanings, in at least English. Permanent can mean eternal. Well, Buddhism asserts that the self is eternal, so there’s no problem with that – no beginning, no end. So that’s not the problem. That’s not the issue.

The other meaning of permanent means that it doesn’t change, and that’s the meaning that is meant here – that it is not affected by anything, therefore it doesn’t change; it doesn’t do anything, not affected. So static is the word that I use for that. So a static “me,” not affected by anything.

2. The second aspect of it is that it is partless.

We hear the word one. Well, what does one mean? Actually it’s talking about partless, that is has no parts. Everything else has parts. Well, some of the Buddhist schools assert partless atoms and these sort of things. Let’s not get into that. But in general, everything has parts, but the “me” doesn’t have any parts. It’s either the size of the universe, some of them assert, later in Vedanta thought, which is the actual philosophy that’s used in most modern Hindu schools. Then you have this “atman is Brahma” and “one with the universe” type of thing. So partless in that sense (all parts are an illusion). Or it is just some tiny little monad, like a spark of life or something like that, that has no parts. So that’s this second thing, what is usually translated as one. That’s what one means in this context.

3. And the third aspect is that it can exist totally independent of any aggregates (in other words a body or a mind, that it can exist totally separate from that). And we’re not really talking necessarily in terms of what goes from lifetime to lifetime. Some of the schools – Nyaya does say that the atman does that. Samkhya doesn’t; it has a slightly different explanation.

So we basically think of these three aspects, since that is how it’s defined in Buddhism: static, monolithic, and can exist independently of a body and a mind. And it is that type of “me” that we imagine is the… there are three words that are used here:

• That it’s the possessor of a body and mind. It possesses – it owns it.
• And it lives inside it. It’s the inhabitant.
• And it controls it. You know, the little “me” sitting in the head pressing the buttons of what to do and taking in the information on the screen coming in from the eyes and the loudspeaker coming in from the ears.

Living inside the body (the inhabitant), controlling, and owning it: “This is mine. My body. My mind. My personality. My thoughts.” This is that “me” that’s being refuted here, OK?

Full article: http://www.berzinarchives.com/web/en/archives/study/asian_non-buddhist_traditions/indian_non-buddhist_traditions/atman_asserted_samkhya_nyaya_school/transcript.html

Rupert Gethin

Context for the doctrine of no-self

The Buddhist critique of the notion of ‘self’ or ātman is rooted in a specific historical context and initially directed towards particular understandings of the notion of self. The evidence of brahmanical, Jain, and Buddhist sources points towards the existence in north India of the fifth century BCE of a considerable variety of views and theories concerning the ultimate nature of the individual and his destiny.

Among the questions the early brahmanical texts known as the Upaniṣads seek to explore are: to whom or what the various experiences and parts of a being belong; who or what controls them; what is the ultimate nature of a being’s self. The standard term that the Upaniṣads use for the ‘self’ in its ultimate nature is ātman, which, although also employed as the ordinary word for ‘self’ in Sanskrit, may etymologically be derived from a word originally meaning ‘breath’. For the early Upaniṣads such as the Bṛhadāraṇyaka and Chāndogya (sixth century BCE), the self in its ultimate nature is a mysterious, ungraspable entity; it is the unseen seer, the unheard hearer, the unthought thinker, the unknown knower; it is the inner controller; it is what is immortal in us.1 Although it is much easier to say what it is not than to specify it concretely, certain quite definite things can be said of it. This ultimate metaphysical self is the unchanging constant underlying all our various and unstable experiences. As such it is indestructible and ultimately unaffected by any specific experience and quite beyond suffering:

The self is not this and not that. Ungraspable it is certainly not grasped; indestructible it is certainly not destroyed, without clinging it is certainly not clung to; unbound it comes to no harm, it does not suffer.[Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad]

This does not appear to be the only notion of the a ātman known to Buddhist texts. In later Indian thought we find the concept of a plurality of eternal unchanging ‘selves’, each corresponding in some way to individual beings in the world. Such a teaching is characteristic of the Indian schools of philosophy known as Sāṇkhya and Yoga and seems to be adumbrated in the UpaniṂad of Śvetāśvatara.4 What we have, then, in the notions of both the universal and individual ātman is an assumption of an unchanging and constant self that somehow underlies and is the basis for the variety of changing experiences; moreover this unchanging self is to be identified as what we ultimately are and as beyond suffering. It is this general understanding of the self that early Buddhist thought seeks to examine and question.

Gethin, Rupert (1998-07-16). The Foundations of Buddhism (pp. 133-134). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

Flow of physical and mental phenomena

Thus Buddhist thought suggests that as an individual I am a complex flow of physical and mental phenomena, but peel away these phenomena and look behind them and one just does not find a constant self that one can call one’s own. My sense of self is both logically and emotionally just a label that I impose on these physical and mental phenomena in consequence of their connectedness. In other words, the idea of self as a constant unchanging thing behind the variety of experience is just a product of linguistic usage and the particular way in which certain physical and mental phenomena are experienced as connected.

Gethin, Rupert (1998-07-16). The Foundations of Buddhism (p. 139). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

Rebirth

Let me sum up the Buddhist response to the questions I posed at the beginning of this section. The basic experienced facts of personal continuity are to be explained not with reference to an enduring substantial self, but with reference to the particular way in which the phenomena that make up a being are causally connected. And just as this causal connectedness is the basis of continuity within a particular life, so it is the basis of continuity between lives. Just as no substantial self endures during a lifetime, so no substantial self endures from death to rebirth. None the less there is a causal connection between the phenomena that constitute a being at the time of death and the phenomena that constitute a being at the start of a new life. This linking (pratisandhi/paṭisandhi) of different lives into a causal series, such that we can speak of someone being reborn as someone else, is understood as a particular function of mental phenomena (rather than physical phenomena); death is then not an interruption in the causal flow of phenomena, it is simply the reconfiguring of events into a new pattern in dependence upon the old. Thus, when asked whether the one who is reborn is the same or different from the one who died, the Buddhist tradition replies that strictly he (or she) is neither the same nor different.21

Gethin, Rupert (1998-07-16). The Foundations of Buddhism (pp. 143-144). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

Smith & Novak

What was the atta (Pali for the Sanskrit atman, or “self”) that the Buddha denied? At the time it had come to signify (a) a spiritual substance that, in keeping with the dualistic position in Hinduism, (b) retains its separate identity forever.

Buddha denied both these features. His denial of spiritual substance—the soul as homunculus, a ghostly wraith within the body that animates the body and outlasts it—appears to have been the chief point that distinguished his concept of transmigration from prevailing Hindu interpretations. Authentic child of India, the Buddha did not doubt that reincarnation was in some sense a fact, but he was openly critical of the way his brahmin contemporaries interpreted the concept. The crux of his criticism may be gathered from the clearest description he gave of his own view on the subject. He used the image of a flame being passed from candle to candle. As it is difficult to think of the flame on the final candle as being the original flame, the connection would seem to be a causal one, in which influence was transmitted by chain reaction but without a perduring substance. Smith, Huston; Novak, Philip (2009-03-17). Buddhism: A Concise Introduction (pp. 54-55). HarperOne. Kindle Edition.

Peter Harvey

The Buddha accepted many conventional usages of the word ‘self’ (also atta), as in ‘yourself’ and ‘myself’. These he saw as simply convenient ways of referring to a particular collection of mental and physical states. But within such a conventional, empirical self, he taught that no permanent, substantial, independent, metaphysical Self could be found. This is well explained by an early nun, Vajir: 5 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. None of the khandhas is a ‘being’ or ‘Self’, but these are simply conventional labels used to denote the collection of functioning khandhas.

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, or ‘mind-sets’. The citta as a whole is sometimes talked of as an (empirical) ‘self’ (e.g. Dhp. 160 with 35), but while such 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. Impermanent, they 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.

Harvey, Peter (2012-11-30). An Introduction to Buddhism (Introduction to Religion) (pp. 59-60). Cambridge University Press. Kindle Edition.

Punnadhammo Bhikkhu (Thai Forest Tradition)

The first sutta of the Digha Nikaya lays out sixty-two false views, or philosophical errors. These make a complex matrix of nuanced positions regarding metaphysical questions but we can simplify them all into two broad categories, (and one additional minor category.) The first major category of error is eternalism, or the belief that there are some "things" (such as a soul) that continue essentially unchanged forever. This was represented in the Buddha's time by all those Indian schools which postulated an eternal "atman", the Self or Soul or "jiva", life-principle. In later times, this philosophy was adopted in some form or another by all the theistic religions like Christianity, Islam or most forms of Hinduism.

The belief in an atman or soul in this sense usually goes hand-in-hand with the belief in a Creator-God, who is the first, most perfect and most powerful of the "souls". Sometimes the soul is seen as a part or a spark of the One Big Soul, as in the Upanashadic idea that Atman equals Brahman. Sometimes the human soul is seen as a separate entity created by God with an act of will. There are other variations on this theme. In any case, the idea of a God as First Principle or Creator would seem to be required once we accept the notion of an essential and eternal soul. The question of where these souls come from can only be answered by tracing them back to a first cause. The inquiry must end in an act of creation by a special ontologically privileged great-soul.

The opposite extreme view is annihilationism, which is a nearly literal translation of ucchedavada (the "cutting-off" view). This, in its simplest formulation, is the view that beings are "cut off" at death and utterly cease to exist. In the Buddha's time this was represented by various philosophies that either postulated the existence of a finite "life-principle" or took a hard-materialist line that denied any separate reality apart from the body.

Source: http://www.arrowriver.ca/dhamma/soul.html