That said no harm in citing some core concepts, not from memory but instead as cited from a modern source and further described in Wikipedia, the source of all mostly correct knowledge:
Taken together with the perceptions of anicca (impermanence) and dukkha (imperfection), anatta (not self) perception is the last of the three marks of existence, which when grasped strategically, leads to dispassion (nibbida). Dispassion then causes the mind to naturally tend to the deathless, and this is called release (vimutti).[2]
"Selves & Not-self: The Buddhist Teaching on Anatta", by Thanissaro Bhikkhu. Access to Insight (Legacy Edition), 30 November 2013,
Self as soul
Although there's lots to say I'll just leave the next life out of this, as if the discussion doesn't need to go there. The Buddha surely was saying there is no self, that was clear, but he also rejected speculations about next lives. At least in some teachings where he didn't mention next lives instead he said that; it's all not so consistent. That was probably for different reasons, but for now we can say because he taught different things to different people in relation to what was most useful to them.
Self as assumed continuous being, the "real me"
In general I'm going to steer this blog well away from foreign concepts and Buddhist theory because it's supposed to be about my own understanding, but I'll break form related to that for an aside, with a definition from Wikipedia and a citation there from a modern Tibetan Buddhist source about the concept:
Vāsanā (Sanskrit; Devanagari: वासना) is a behavioural tendency or karmic imprint which influences the present behaviour of a person [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/vasana]
Sandvik (2007: unpaginated) states that:
Sandvik, K. (June 7, 2007). 'bag chags'. Jigtenmig - Classical Tibetan Language Blog. Source: [2] (Accessed: Sunday November 1, 2009)Lots to work with there, right. Although there's no way I could delve into both that one concept and the range of background ideas that make sense of it, a range of different Buddhism interpretations contexts, I'll treat that cited content as relatively self-explanatory, even if it's sort of not.
The next step seems clear enough; there is no real self tied to these types of habits. Whether there is or not seems a bit pointless at first, right, like the kind of thing only philosophers would argue about, something meaningless. The "self" is such habits, in one sense, and clearly they do exist. But we suppose it's something more, that those are aspects of a real me. That could derive from a belief in a soul but really it doesn't need to; it's just common sense. I do exist as a body, for sure, so why isn't there a real me, an inner self, as well. Maybe better to jump next to one possible answer, a reason why not.
What if no-self?
What if we turn it around and assume there is no self, what happens? We've got a strange idea in our mind, one that is inconsistent with the rest of our worldview, but I mean what else. Surely that wouldn't mean that we drop every single habit or preference, that I stop coming to work, forget about my kids, stop preferring cereal in the morning, or whatever else. The idea could be a tool for examining what these preferences, habits, and self-definitions really are. It's likely we wouldn't get to any new assumptions quickly, or that we could somehow become a lot more flexible about such things. It's hard to imagine it would help someone quit smoking.
Maybe that's not such a bad example. I smoked for some time, and had trouble quitting. It wasn't that it was tied to a definition of self, but it did relate to a physical, chemical addiction, and also to habits. I associated smoking with a lot of things; eating, waking up, relieving different kinds of stress. It was a bit ironic that it relieved stress from not smoking for whatever periods of time, from the effects of the addiction itself, so to that extent it was both the cause and the cure. My grandfather, being a good stubborn German (mostly), told a nice short story about him quitting. He just got tired of it and said that was it; he would never smoke again, and he never did. I love that kind of resolve, and the simplicity. To some extent I was really physically addicted; to another extent it was all habit, just in my head. Both ties gave me some trouble but I quit soon after that, and haven't smoked any cigarettes since, many years later.
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www.fakebuddhaquotes.com |
As I take it Buddhism isn't about quitting smoking but to some degree the example can inform about views of self that aren't useful. I take the Buddha as saying that a relatively radical and serious consideration that everything is impermanent and no real self exists can be practical and informative. But how do we do it? More theory definitely helps, but it's also easy to get lost in the ideas so that it never leads back to the place it should apply, everyday perspective. To me it really should tie to simple introspection, perhaps along with some other strange practices and mystical theories, if one goes in for such things.
To tie it back to the last entry on suffering, this is one place to bridge the different concepts together. It doesn't take a lot of meditative insight to realize which factors cause someone the most unhappiness. To just pick a couple, maybe it's stress at work, too much politics, or to another a lack of a family, not finding that right person as a spouse and having kids. The second is all something that doesn't already exist, right, a perceived lack. It might be an important goal for someone but it really is possible taking that goal the wrong way could lead away from that outcome instead of towards it. It's been my experience that someone is best able to be part of a stable relationship once they are able to be independent rather than co-dependent, so that they can join the other as a whole person and not a set of unfulfilled demands. But then I'm no relationship guru, and that's leading away from the point.
What about stress at work? I'd be lying if I said I can cure that with a few abstract ideas applied correctly, for myself of someone else. But here expectations definitely come into play, and adjusting them instead of changing the external conditions (other people) surely is one possible strategy. One easy mistake to make is to get hung up on how things "should be," to not focus on things as they are. Maybe in a service company someone feels the customer and services should be the main priority, and somehow financial goals and company image are much higher priorities (just hypothetical). A proper perspective would be able to balance all these as separate and relevant factors, and whatever else comes up as well. It wouldn't be a constant source of stress that ideas contradict, since contradiction is already a basic part of human and corporate nature anyway. Conflicting demands are another thing, but when the conflict is clear the next step is also clearer. To some degree choices must be made without a knowledge of outcomes but with the right perspective, and enough information, a person can take the "best guess" and next step without sweating inconsistencies.
Maybe this is why people with absolutely no moral compass seem to be the most comfortable among us, to some extent, because there isn't this sort of contradiction. They do what they want; easy. That's also definitely not in keeping with the Buddha's message, though. He is recommending someone move past these types of issues in a different way, to see the big picture and self more clearly, free of not seeing personal factors as an input, but not necessarily by dropping them.
But wait, that is it, isn't it, dropping self? Maybe in Zen meditation it is, but to me not exactly so in Buddhism. I need to keep most of the same goals and inputs I have right now, regardless of how aware of them I am or how grounded in a real permanent self I see them. I could take them more lightly, and benefit from examining them, or even dropping some, but in the end I'd have to act in many of the same ways as if there was a real, permanent self. Except I'd really not need to get depressed if I wasn't married with a child; why would that help, when taking steps to resolve it would do more than depression or anxiety. And I could make some peace with chaos and conflict at work, even unreasonable demands, contradictions, and bad outcomes, and so on. I wouldn't need to become the soulless guy that follows no principles but self-interest to do that, but some assumptions should shift a bit.
How does it work, no self, how do you do it?
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Map of interrelated Buddhst concepts, credit existentialbuddhist.com |
I've just said a little about how I interpret what it is but not how. Of course I'm no authority to put in any final word so this blog is just what I think, a few ideas on that.
So far I've mentioned it could relate to quitting smoking (definition of self as a smoker), stress at work (definition of expectations related to external consistency), and dissatisfaction related to not having a family, a spouse and children (expectation of having those things at a certain time, or even in general). Based on these diverse examples what I mean seems to not be so clear or unified. Even if someone could work past that it's not at all clear how changing expectations really relates to there being a self or not; it's just about expectations, interpretation of how things go, even just about response to them. There's not clearly a "no-self" here.
This is where it gets tricky. Assumptions about self are really tied to a very general and broad set of ideas, not really something someone is usually completely clear on. One might be proud of a job or status in a hobby, so I could be proud to be a parent, or an IT professional (or not; maybe I'd see that as neutral, or could be something to move away from), and could have been proud to be a snowboarder (before, when I did that). In those cases--the affirmative version--I might openly accept those things as good examples of what define "me." A lot of other things would be much more vague, just kind of there in the background. A car commercial might imply a person really defines themselves by what car they own but maybe a lot of people don't. It's funny how using an IPhone, Android based phone, or feature phone is so often accepted as self-defining now, but I'm drifting a little here.
To get back to the "how," how would you use this to adjust definition to feel happier (less suffering, more appropriate worldview, etc.). For me it's tricky but not that difficult. You use some form of introspection, studying yourself, to see which of these triggers is giving you a problem. The phone issue probably isn't, but then you never know. Some people might be spending an hour a day fretting over their next phone purchase, reading up or whatever, with that concern running in the background the other 23 hours. Work stress is probably on the list for almost everyone. Seeing how it works is a big part of the resolution process. Meditation might actually help at this step but I'm not seeing how a deep trance-like state is critical here. Just chilling out about the phone might be enough, but it might take a more rational acceptance of the issue to really be at peace with it.
For me this is possibly why the Buddha put it in such an unconventional format; because you really need to start from the ground up to get to a clear picture of all of it. If you can really grapple with and accept that "self" is only a collection of habits and preferences, along with a history that caused them, and expectations that fold in, then you can really unpack all that. If not then you're stuck at trying to relax, and you'd likely not get past people saying happy truisms, like something about accepting the things you can't change. That won't help. If there are dozens of separate things stressing you out on a daily basis, lots of crazy assumptions, desires, regrets, and expectations, then just relaxing isn't even close to the solution.
One might ask, did this work for me. For me, sort of. Except I'm not enlightened or elevated above the normal human condition; nothing like that. I did drop the smoking thing, but not really through the Buddha's insightful advice. I try to look at the big picture, to not sweat details. I really did cut ties with needing to own a lot of things; I just don't care about that. I've got a phone (Samsung Note, quite mid-range) but as far as all the rest I just don't need it. Of course it helps being an American related to looking shabby.
What about life as a monk, no self there?
Might as well mention this since I've done a little with that. In order to keep this short I'll stop short of any general statements here about monks and schools and the rest; more in another post, here just about my own experience as relating to no-self.
In a way it's easier for a monk because the role is defined by lots of rules, wearing those particular clothes, fulfilling a well-defined role in terms of actions and manner, and not being tied to many types of conventional definitions. Money essentially drops out but that part still gets to be a long story. Next one might say "wait a tick; those are still definitions of a self, just a different sort." I suppose so. It might counter that a little that it's clearly not supposed to act as a "self-image," but maybe not much. Monks still have titles and such, job roles, so some of those things transfer over.
I was only a monk for two months so my experience was all about adapting, not living within the role. For me the radical change of context also shifted my concerns, so there wasn't much going on related to what I owned or any other personal preferences. Complete abstinence is part of the deal but really nothing I could say about that would be informative; different people would likely relate to breaking that habit differently, or the longer term. Short term monks generally weren't so concerned about the deeper goals or even meditative practices, in my own experience, and I suppose long term monks less than you might think. So of course it broke all the normal cycle of expectations and self-definition by radically changing circumstances, but something a lot more mundane might do much of the same, like joining the military.
I'll close this before it's a book and rejoin it later under the next Buddhist concept that occurs to me. I'll close by citing one of countless references that go further into doctrine and more standard explanation, but googling "Buddhism no self" turns up scores more:
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