“Nope, never said that, either.”—The Buddha
Thanissaro Bhikkhu
The Buddha was careful to
classify questions according to how they should be answered, based on how
helpful they were to gaining awakening. Some questions deserved a categorical
answer, that is, one that holds true across the board. Some he answered
analytically, redefining or refining the terms before answering. Some required
counter-questioning, to clarify the issue in the questioner’s mind. But if the
question was an obstacle on the path, the Buddha put it aside.
When Vacchagotta the wanderer asked him point-blank whether
or not there is a self, the Buddha remained silent, which means that the
question has no helpful answer. As he later explained to Ananda, to respond
either yes or no to this question would be to side with opposite extremes of
wrong view (Samyutta Nikaya 44.10). Some have argued that the
Buddha didn’t answer with “no” because Vacchagotta wouldn’t have understood the
answer. But there’s another passage where the Buddha advises all the monks to
avoid getting involved in questions such as “What am I?” “Do I exist?” “Do I
not exist?” because they lead to answers like “I have a self” and “I have no
self,” both of which are a “thicket of views, a writhing of views, a contortion
of views” that get in the way of awakening (Majjhima Nikaya 2).
So how did we get the idea that the Buddha said that there is
no self? The main culprit seems to be the debate culture of ancient India.
Religious teachers often held public debates on the hot questions of the day,
both to draw adherents and to angle for royal patronage. The Buddha warned his
followers not to enter into these debates (Sutta Nipata 4.8), partly because once the sponsor
of a debate had set a question, the debaters couldn’t follow the Buddha’s
policy of putting useless questions aside.
Later generations of monks forgot the warning and soon found
themselves in debates where they had to devise a Buddhist answer to the
question of whether there is or isn’t a self. TheKathavatthu, an Abhidhamma text attributed to the time
of King Ashoka, contains the earliest extant version of the answer “no.” Two
popular literary works, the Buddhacharitaand Milinda Panha, both from around the first century CE,
place this “no” at the center of the Buddha’s message. Later texts, like the Abhidharmakosha Bhashya,
provide analytical answers to the question of whether there is a self, saying
that there’s no personal self but that each person has a “dharma-self” composed
of five aggregates: material form, feelings, perceptions, mental fabrications,
and consciousness. At present we have our own analytical answers to the
question, such as the teaching that although we have no separate self, we do
have a cosmic self—a teaching, by the way, that the Buddha singled out for
special ridicule (MN 22).
“There is no self” is the granddaddy of fake Buddhist quotes.
It has survived so long because of its superficial resemblance to the teaching
on anatta, or not-self, which was one of the Buddha’s
tools for putting an end to clinging. Even though he neither affirmed nor
denied the existence of a self, he did talk of the process by which the mind
creates many senses of self—what he called “I-making” and “my-making”—as it
pursues its desires.
In other words, he focused on the karma of selfing. Because
clinging lies at the heart of suffering, and because there’s clinging in each
sense of self, he advised using the perception of not-self as a strategy to
dismantle that clinging. Whenever you see yourself identifying with anything
stressful and inconstant, you remind yourself that it’s not-self: not worth
clinging to, not worth calling your self (SN 22.59). This helps you let go of it.
When you do this thoroughly enough, it can lead to awakening. In this way, the
not-self teaching is an answer—not to the question of whether there’s a self,
but to the question that the Buddha said lies at the heart of discernment:
“What, when I do it, will lead to my long-term welfare and happiness?” (MN 135).
You find true happiness by letting go.
Some ways of selfing, the Buddha and his disciples found, are
useful along the path, as when you develop a sense of self that’s heedful and
responsible, confident that you can manage the practice (Anguttara Nikaya 4.159).
While you’re on the path, you apply the perception of not-self to anything that
would pull you astray. Only at the end do you apply that perception to the path
itself. As for the goal, it’s possible to develop a sense of clinging around
the experience of the deathless, so the Buddha advises that you regard even the
deathless as not-self (AN 9.36). But when there’s no more
clinging, you have no need for perceptions either of self or not-self. You see
no point in answering the question of whether there is or isn’t a self because
you’ve found the ultimate happiness.
The belief that there is no self can actually get in the way
of awakening. As the Buddha noted, the contemplation of not-self can lead to an
experience of nothingness (MN 106). If your purpose in practicing is
to disprove the self—perhaps from wanting to escape the responsibilities of
having a self—you can easily interpret the experience of nothingness as the
proof you’re looking for: a sign you’ve reached the end of the path. Yet the
Buddha warned that subtle clinging can persist in that experience. If you think
you’ve reached awakening, you won’t look for the clinging. But if you learn to
keep looking for clinging, even in the experience of nothingness, you’ll have a
chance of finding it. Only when you find it can you then let it go.
So it’s important to remember which questions the not-self
teaching was meant to answer and which ones it wasn’t. Getting clear on this
point can mean the difference between a false awakening and the real thing.
Thanissaro Bhikkhu is
the abbot of Metta Forest Monastery and the author and translator of numerous
meditation guides. His latest book is Meditations 6.
