The Sermon at Rajagaha - Lord Buddha

Floating_Abu

He who knows the nature of self
and understands how the senses act,
finds no room for selfishness,
and thus he will attain peace unending.
The world holds the thought of self,
and from this arises false apprehension.

Some say that the self endures after death, some say it perishes.
Both are wrong and their error is most grievous.
For if they say the self is perishable,
the fruit they strive for will perish too,
and at some time there will be no hereafter.
Good and evil would be indifferent.
This salvation from selfishness is without merit.

When some, on the other hand,
say the self will not perish,
then in the midst of all life and death
there is but one identity unborn and undying.
If such is their self,
then it is perfect and cannot be perfected by deeds.
The lasting, imperishable self could never be changed.
The self would be lord and master,
and there would be no use in perfecting the perfect;
moral aims and salvation would be unnecessary.

But now we see the marks of joy and sorrow.
Where is any constancy?
If there is no permanent self that does our deeds,
then there is no self;
there is no actor behind our actions,
no perceiver behind our perception,
no lord behind our deeds.

Now attend and listen:
The senses meet the object
and from their contact sensation is born.
Thence results recollection.
Thus, as the sun's power through a burning-glass causes fire to appear,
so through the cognizance born of sense and object,
the mind originates and with it the ego, the thought of self,
whom some Brahman teachers call the lord.
The shoot springs from the seed;
the seed is not the shoot,
both are not one and the same,
but successive phases in a continuous growth.
Such is the birth of animated life.

...from The Sermon at Rajagaha

Courtesy: kowtaaia (on another forum)