No Self

Ric

So there is no-self because of the constant changing "sensations, emotions, and physical states, with no permanence or fixed identity." Every moment is different, what just happened...happened and can never happen again. You cant step into the same stream twice....or...there is no stream to step into.

I agree that all these things are changing.

So lets take Johnny for example. Johnny is extremely good in math and an excellent guitar player. He definitely didnt start like this but he reached these somewhat subjective designation. But I think we can all agree kind of what it means to be very good in math and very good in guitar. He is 25 now. He practices both skills everyday because he loves them. So at 35,45,55,65 he is still considered great at both these things. Now ok, I agree that at some age he wont be able to keep it up, his skill will decline and he wont be great anymore.

But dont you think its fair to say there is a Johnny self, one who loved math and guitar and is great at both. Moving beyond just conventional labels. He attached himself to two passions that create part of his identity and he stayed with them for most of his life. Are we not defined by our actions over time? If we are happy most of the time, can we not label the self as a generally happy person? or a depressed person ?

Vincenzi

there's no eternal, never-changing self.

Jeffrey

The 5 skandas that constitute his love of guitar are not static. Memories are not static. He presumably will have 4 limbs his whole life, but they will not be static the same.

Guitar player is a mental label, but what the designation refers to will change.

Ric

"Guitar player is a mental label, but what the designation refers to will change."

Im not sure I follow. The mental label of guitar player will not mean the same thing ?

Jeffrey

Yes. The skandas making it up will change. The mental label itself is not real. If we had a mental lable 'universe' you could say that is permanent, but in order for something in reality to respond to the label there must be skandas which change.

The skandas that make up reality are only known by mental labels. That part of reality is the 3 marks. Impermanent. Non-self, And unsatisfactory.

SherabDorje

What if he stops being a guitar player?

The issue is that what we perceive as "self" is constantly changing and rearranging its constituent parts, and has no existence aside from its attributes, that is, in the conventional sense. In the conventional sense Johnny has a self, but ultimately that self is not real.

RenGalskap

But dont you think its fair to say there is a Johnny self, one who loved math and guitar and is great at both. Moving beyond just conventional labels. He attached himself to two passions that create part of his identity and he stayed with them for most of his life. Are we not defined by our actions over time?

Supposing Johnny has a mid-life crisis and loses his love for math and music. If his self is defined by his love for math and music, what happens to his self when he stops loving math and music?

If we are happy most of the time, can we not label the self as a generally happy person? or a depressed person ?

What is this self that we are labeling "a generally happy person"?

Before you can search for something to see if it exists or not, you have to specify what you are searching for. In my understanding of Buddhism, the critical issue is not whether the self exists or not, but whether you can specify what the self is sufficiently to make a search possible.

Regardless of my understanding, the Sabbasavva Sutta has the Buddha saying that both "I have a self" and "I don't have a self" are entanglements that lead to suffering and stress.

Ric

Ok ok...im with you guys. You cant say he is a guitar player as a eternal static label. And the conventional self is used to describe the general terms. He is a great guitar player is a conventional term of self.

But how does always changing self turn into no self?

Jeffrey

its not no self. its not self. and what buddha said is that a impermanent self is not the self and it is unsatisfactory. The experience at nirvana is satisfactory and that is the true self. Otherwise you end up with a suffering buddha. The true self is whats left over when we stop grasping at self. If we say nothing remains then there is no love and compassion for a buddha. Or we say that love is suffering rather, well that sounds about right haha.

pegembara

Johnny before becoming a guitar player, was a baby, then a boy, a young man. He was not a guitar player until he started taking up guitar lessons. When he is too old to play he is no longer a guitar player.

So who is Johnny really? What is it about Johnny that is unchanging?

Jeffrey

And guitar playing is made up of a composite of learned informations. Just as a snowball is made up of frozen water molecules, atoms, quarks, and crystals, and snowball structure. And the social aspect around snowballs. The earth and the tilt to make winter etc. Entirely composed of impermanent pieces each piece does not have the 'snowballness' stored unlike the holographic motif.

Vincenzi

anatta doesn't mean no self; it means no permanent, everchanging self.
anatta/anatman is the negation of the (early hindu) concept of atman or soul.

...don't perpetuate the misunderstanding.

taiyaki

the problem is when we attach to labels and thus make an identity.

the fact we can feel happy and at times sad means that we aren't inherently happy or sad.

we are empty meaning we have no inherent, unchanging, permanent quality.

but this isn't a philosophical theory or concept. this is reality. looking within you right now. is there an entity called a self? i can't find anything and i am pretty sure no one else can find anything as well. there is nothing and there always will be nothing.

and it is because there is no inherent self we can construct a self. you have a different self than i do. it's all conceptual.

but the underlying reality is emptiness.

fun shit lol.

Sabre

Hi Ric,

No-self doesn't mean there isn't a person there. It's quite obviously Johnny exists and he can play guitar. But what is really defining Johnny? What is constant about him? Just as much as the guitar isn't Johnny, his skill to play the guitar isn't Johnny either. And his excellent thoughts on maths aren't Johnny too. That's why through thinking Johnny will not find this out and contemplating about this too much can give him a headache.

And you can look at Johnny for years but still don't know. That's why you have to look inside yourself to find out. A famous Zen answer to such questions is: "Who is asking the question?" It takes a lot of meditation cultivation (beyond all thoughts) before one can really understand this concept of no-self. To start cultivating it, you can take everything you see disappearing in meditation (or daily life), to be not yours. Because for something to be really yours to keep it must be permanent, don't you think? Now what hasn't changed yet? Is that maybe you? Most people take their will, awareness or consciousness to be them, they see it as the essence of their personal existence because they have never really seen that it is not continuous. But also these are empty of a self.

Some may agree intellectually, but to really experience it is another piece of cake. Seeing through this is impossible without deep meditation. Some people might never see it, others will or already have, but they can't really explain it in words. That's why there are so many schools of thought in Buddhism. Essentially they are saying the same thing, using different concepts, because all words always miss the point.

But still all teachers and the Buddha himself tried to explain it, of course: And these words can help us to cultivate the same insights.
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn22/sn22.059.nymo.html

Sabre

sukhita

anatta doesn't mean no self; it means no permanent, everchanging self.
anatta/anatman is the negation of the (early hindu) concept of atman or soul.

...don't perpetuate the misunderstanding.

This sounds more like it...
Everything in the world is impermanent, conditioned, in a process of change, and subject to dukkha. What we call a 'being' or 'self' or 'ego' is no exception. Why have a separate doctrine (anatta) if the 'self' or 'ego' has the same characteristics of everything else? Maybe, as Vincenzi says, it was to negate the concept of a permanent, everlasting Atman (True Self) that was taught by other traditions in the Buddha's time. Just a thought, I might be missing something vital here....

Floating_Abu

If you are eager to be nothing
before you know who you are,
you rob yourself of your true being.

Rumi

Vincenzi

anatta doesn't mean no self; it means no permanent, everchanging self.
anatta/anatman is the negation of the (early hindu) concept of atman or soul.

...don't perpetuate the misunderstanding.

This sounds more like it...
Everything in the world is impermanent, conditioned, in a process of change, and subject to dukkha. What we call a 'being' or 'self' or 'ego' is no exception. Why have a separate doctrine (anatta) if the 'self' or 'ego' has the same characteristics of everything else? Maybe, as Vincenzi says, it was to negate the concept of a permanent, everlasting Atman (True Self) that was taught by other traditions in the Buddha's time. Just a thought, I might be missing something vital here....

probably impermanence (of "the world") wasn't argued much, but the idea of a permanent soul (atman) was a central concept for early hinduism.

Ric

Ok, I agree we cant define ourselves 100%. I never thought I could. And I guess you guys also agree there are certain parameters that because they are predominant (not permanent) there is a reasonably accurate label we can assert to ourselves. It doesnt mean it will forever be that way.

So I guess my next question is....what great insight is this ? It seems like this concept should cause some kind of paradigm shift...but maybe not...

SherabDorje

Briefly, the "great insight" is that the strong feeling of "self" is what causes attachment to things in life. "Mine, mine... I want this, I don't want that...". It's the beginning of non-grasping of the transient things of life- that things "should" be a certain way, namely "The way I want them to be".

This is a large component of "Right View".