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No Self implies True Self?

betaboybetaboy Veteran
in Buddhism Basics
First off, let's avoid arguments over semantics - whether it is no self or not self etc. It is anatta, so translate it any way you wish.

Some people are of the following view:

Suppose I say 2+2=5, you'll say it's wrong ... wrong in accordance with the right answer, which is 4. Wrong is judged against the right. Likewise, no self could mean 'things which are not self' .... implying that there is something called Self, against which this conclusion is made. If 4 is not the right answer, how can 5 be the wrong answer? If Self doesn't exist, how can we refer to anything else as 'no self'?

I neither agree nor disagree with this, but it gets me curious. Does no self mean no self at all? Or does it indirectly point to a true self?

Comments

  • robotrobot Veteran
    It's just a way of talking.
    It can move you along, just not that far.
    how
  • lobsterlobster Veteran
    I neither agree nor disagree with this, but it gets me curious. Does no self mean no self at all? Or does it indirectly point to a true self?
    The curious me that is neither this nor that
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neti_neti
    is as much empty of a true self as full of it . . .

    and now back to the curiosities . . .
    :thumbdown:
    howpommesetorangesanataman
  • wangchueywangchuey Veteran
    When you avoid causing suffering for yourself you are being your true self. So yes a true self exists. In that respect anyways.
  • DakiniDakini Veteran
    betaboy said:

    First off, let's avoid arguments over semantics - whether it is no self or not self etc. It is anatta, so translate it any way you wish.

    Some people are of the following view:

    Suppose I say 2+2=5, you'll say it's wrong ... wrong in accordance with the right answer, which is 4. Wrong is judged against the right. Likewise, no self could mean 'things which are not self' .... implying that there is something called Self, against which this conclusion is made. If 4 is not the right answer, how can 5 be the wrong answer? If Self doesn't exist, how can we refer to anything else as 'no self'?

    I neither agree nor disagree with this, but it gets me curious. Does no self mean no self at all? Or does it indirectly point to a true self?

    It points to the potential for realizing the True Self. Buddhanature (sometimes translated as "Buddha embryo" or "Buddhahood seed") is the potential for realizing the True Self, or Buddhahood. When the student understands and lives by "no self", i.e. gets the "self" out of the way, then he has the capacity to eventually realize the True Self of Buddhahood. This is how it's been explained to me.

  • howhow Veteran Veteran
    IMO Just a lot of words to describe what lies beyond our grasping's.
    All such definitions fall short of being as helpful as just allowing ones practice to illuminate them.
    What can help is trusting that the path toward sufferings cessation (and a knowledge of no self/not self) is really towards understandings that are innately unpossessable by any form of grasping.
    lobsterrobotJeffrey
  • federicafederica Seeker of the clear blue sky... Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubt Moderator
    I think the distinction between 'No Self' and Not-Self' is actually quite important, because one is inaccurate, and the other very misunderstood.....

    So I'm advised.
    lobsterVastmind
  • radagastradagast New
    Is the very idea of "self" a dualism? If one thing can be "self" while something else can be "not self", does this imply that self is not All-That-Is?
  • betaboybetaboy Veteran
    radagast said:

    Is the very idea of "self" a dualism? If one thing can be "self" while something else can be "not self", does this imply that self is not All-That-Is?

    Not if we regard the 'not self' as an illusion. Then self alone would be the one true reality.
  • radagastradagast New
    Wouldn't it be something if "self" alone is also an illusion? Wouldn't it be wild if "one true reality" is also an illusion?
  • betaboybetaboy Veteran
    radagast said:

    Wouldn't it be something if "self" alone is also an illusion? Wouldn't it be wild if "one true reality" is also an illusion?

    The fact that we recognize something as an illusion is proof that we have some order of reality as a frame of reference. Otherwise, even this recognition would have been impossible to begin with.
  • radagastradagast New
    It's easy to recognize illusion. Everything is illusion. The trick is to find something that is real... "real" ... ( whatever THAT means ) :p
    anataman
  • federicafederica Seeker of the clear blue sky... Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubt Moderator
    Self/Not-self are both illusory realities.
    anataman
  • radagastradagast New
    exactly :D
  • DairyLamaDairyLama Veteran Veteran
    federica said:

    I think the distinction between 'No Self' and Not-Self' is actually quite important, because one is inaccurate, and the other very misunderstood.....

    Very true. And there are different intepretations in different Buddhist traditions, so it's a rather tricky subject.
    federicaDavid
  • matthewmartinmatthewmartin Amateur Bodhisattva Suburbs of Mt Meru Veteran
    I don't follow how arithmetic matters here. It sounds like some sort of "two truths" (conventional and ultimate) sort of argument, which it seems is a big thing in Buddhist philosophy. Conventional truth is by social agreement (it is true that my name is Matt) or for pedagogical purposes (If you are preaching to a 6 year old with cancer, maybe that calls for Pure Land style Buddhism, not abstruse extinctionalism, which might be more appropriate for adults). Ultimate truth is in turn that hard to describe, hard to put your finger on real truth. And there are more complicated ways to express the "two truths" for which I'm not smart enough to summarize.

    And math, imho, is safely in the ultimate truth category. Before the big bang, the laws of physics may have been different, but math would still work the same.

    "True Self" is a Zen (and others) concept that re-invents an immortal soul (atman), but takes great efforts to not call it that. I haven't decided if this alternate view of an eternal soul is better than the naive one.





    how
  • ZeroZero Veteran
    betaboy said:


    First off, let's avoid arguments over semantics - whether it is no self or not self etc. It is anatta, so translate it any way you wish.

    Some people are of the following view:

    Suppose I say 2+2=5, you'll say it's wrong ... wrong in accordance with the right answer, which is 4. Wrong is judged against the right. Likewise, no self could mean 'things which are not self' .... implying that there is something called Self, against which this conclusion is made. If 4 is not the right answer, how can 5 be the wrong answer? If Self doesn't exist, how can we refer to anything else as 'no self'?

    I neither agree nor disagree with this, but it gets me curious. Does no self mean no self at all? Or does it indirectly point to a true self?

    By 'some people', are you referring to yourself?
    2+2 = 4 employs specific mathematical language... '=' denotes another way of saying something... so in a sense in this maths, 4 = x as long as x = 4 (however that x is made up)... that is what '=' means.
    To extrapolate this reasoning across to non-specific language / symbols and then to deny the very basis of that symbology (i.e the definitions dismissed by your exposition) is walking into a pointlessly contrived error.
  • JeffreyJeffrey Veteran
    true self cannot be grasped. So you can't show something and say 'oh that's true self'.

    That's a tough question. It's important to stay with such a question in a light way. For me my mind sort of blanks out. But the opposite of blanking out would be looking for an airtight theory and that is not good either.
  • fivebellsfivebells Veteran
    edited January 2014
    The Not-Self Strategy
    If we take the Buddha’s reasons here at face value [i.e., his reasons for refusing to answer Vacchagotta's point-blank question about the ontological status of "self"] , they indicate that both sides of the debate over the existence or non-existence of the self, instead of being partially right, are totally wrong. Their mistake lies in the point they have in common: the assumption that the Buddha’s teachings start with the question of the metaphysical status of the self, i.e., whether or not it exists

    Both the view “I have a self” and the view “I have no self”—and, in fact, all attempts to answer the question, “Do I exist?”—act as fetters and entanglements that prevent the ending of stress. In the terms that Ven. Sariputta uses in SN 22:2, the act of holding to a view that there is a self or that there is no self is a form of passion or desire for the perceptions and mental fabrications that go into forming the view.

    Avoiding the question of the existence of the self not only allowed the Buddha to sidestep an issue that could prevent a student’s progress on the path to the end of suffering; it also allowed him to focus directly on the kamma of self and not-self. In other words, it allowed him to look at the mental activities of I-making and my-making as activities, and to examine them in the terms that are appropriate to activities: When are they skillful in leading to the end of stress, and when are they not? If he had held to the doctrine that there is no self, there would have been no space in his teaching for the possibility that the notion of self could actually play a skillful role on the path, for it would have been a lie. With no room for I-making or my-making, the question that lies at the beginning of discernment—“What, when done by me, will lead to my long-term welfare and happiness?”—would have been aborted.

    If, on the other hand, he had held to the doctrine that there is a self, then whatever he identified as self could not be regarded as not-self, and so would have been left as an object of clinging, and thus a remaining area of limitation and stress.

    But to treat I-making and my-making purely as activities allowed him to give precise, helpful advice on when and where the perceptions of self and not-self— and what kind of self—are skillful strategies and when not
    JeffreywangchueyCinorjer
  • DakiniDakini Veteran
    radagast said:

    Is the very idea of "self" a dualism? If one thing can be "self" while something else can be "not self", does this imply that self is not All-That-Is?

    Self is the illusion. That's why realization of no-self opens the door to realization of Buddhahood (True Self).

    There's nothing wrong with dualism; Buddhism is full of dualism: male/female, skillful/unskillful, Enlightened/unenlightened, renunciant/householder, self/no-self, attached/non-attachment. This is reality. The goal is to reach a state where duality melts away, and there is only existence and Dharma, rising above the dualistic reality that can cause suffering if one is not sufficiently aware or Awake.
    Cinorjer
  • anandoanando Explorer
    Hi,
    yses its true, there is a self, an ego, a me and myself, but this material self is dying with the physical body.There is a second, real self in buddhism.this self is free after death.
    This is a basic buddhist principle, so we can escape the circeles of life and suffering.

    anando
    Cinorjer
  • CinorjerCinorjer Veteran
    edited February 2014
    Ah, the limitations of language. We say "illusion" and our minds translate that word to mean "it doesn't exist". But in context, the sutras are trying to say the self has a false appearance, that's all. A mirage does not exist. An illusion is a disguise. There is an insect that has perfected the illusion of being a leaf, but the insect still exists. It's just not a leaf, in spite of what our eyes tell us.

    Another example, look at your television or any movie. The movie appears to be images moving around on the flat screen. But that's an illusion. The movie is actually a series of still pictures flickering by so fast that our minds see them as one moving, flowing scene in motion. The movie still exists, although how we see it is an illusion.

    So the sutras say the self is an illusion. It appears to be this permanent, independent single thing called a mind that walks around in your body. This person suffers and laughs and desires and is not satisfied with who it is today.

    But that appearance of that mind is illusion. So what is the true nature of our self?

    Master Seung like to ask, "In the entire world, there is only one clear, abiding thing. What is it?"
    Vastmind
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