Challenging the traditional view of Anatta

Exploring Theravāda's connections to other paths - what can we learn from other traditions, religions and philosophies?
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tiltbillings
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Re: Challenging the traditional view of Anatta

Post by tiltbillings »

retrofuturist wrote:
I believe anatta does not mean 'no soul'... it means 'not soul'... The
"No self" (soul) is an appropriate translation of anatta.
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
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Re: Challenging the traditional view of Anatta

Post by pink_trike »

tiltbillings wrote:
retrofuturist wrote:
I believe anatta does not mean 'no soul'... it means 'not soul'... The
"No self" (soul) is an appropriate translation of anatta.
It would be really very nice of you if you would in the very least provide a few textual citations.
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Re: Challenging the traditional view of Anatta

Post by poto »

Spend more time meditating. That way you will have direct experience of Anatta and will not have to speculate as to it's meaning.
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Re: Challenging the traditional view of Anatta

Post by retrofuturist »

Greetings Tilt,
tiltbillings wrote:
retrofuturist wrote:
I believe anatta does not mean 'no soul'... it means 'not soul'... The
"No self" (soul) is an appropriate translation of anatta.
Anatta is an observable reality.

No soul is a speculative theory, unproveable, and "takes as its object a polarity, that of existence & non-existence" (SN 12.15). The Buddha said that "talk of whether things exist or not" (AN 10.69) is not a proper topic of Dhamma conversation. The Buddha did not endorse tiracchāna-kathā (animal-talk) let alone make it one of his most repeated teachings.

The Buddha is cool. 8-)

Metta,
Retro. :)
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Re: Challenging the traditional view of Anatta

Post by retrofuturist »

Greetings,

Some words of wisdom from Thanissaro Bhikkhu... with some bolding emphasis by me.

No Self or Not Self?
http://www.canonpali.org/lib/modern/tha ... self2.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
One of the first stumbling blocks that Westerners often encounter when they learn about Buddhism is the teaching on anatta, often translated as no-self. This teaching is a stumbling block for two reasons. First, the idea of there being no self doesn't fit well with other Buddhist teachings, such as the doctrine of kamma and rebirth: If there's no self, what experiences the results of kamma and takes rebirth? Second, it doesn't fit well with our own Judeo-Christian background, which assumes the existence of an eternal soul or self as a basic presupposition: If there's no self, what's the purpose of a spiritual life? Many books try to answer these questions, but if you look at the Pali canon — the earliest extant record of the Buddha's teachings — you won't find them addressed at all. In fact, the one place where the Buddha was asked point-blank whether or not there was a self, he refused to answer. When later asked why, he said that to hold either that there is a self or that there is no self is to fall into extreme forms of wrong view that make the path of Buddhist practice impossible. Thus the question should be put aside. To understand what his silence on this question says about the meaning of anatta, we first have to look at his teachings on how questions should be asked and answered, and how to interpret his answers.

The Buddha divided all questions into four classes: those that deserve a categorical (straight yes or no) answer; those that deserve an analytical answer, defining and qualifying the terms of the question; those that deserve a counter-question, putting the ball back in the questioner's court; and those that deserve to be put aside. The last class of question consists of those that don't lead to the end of suffering and stress. The first duty of a teacher, when asked a question, is to figure out which class the question belongs to, and then to respond in the appropriate way. You don't, for example, say yes or no to a question that should be put aside. If you are the person asking the question and you get an answer, you should then determine how far the answer should be interpreted. The Buddha said that there are two types of people who misrepresent him: those who draw inferences from statements that shouldn't have inferences drawn from them, and those who don't draw inferences from those that should.

These are the basic ground rules for interpreting the Buddha's teachings, but if we look at the way most writers treat the anatta doctrine, we find these ground rules ignored. Some writers try to qualify the no-self interpretation by saying that the Buddha denied the existence of an eternal self or a separate self, but this is to give an analytical answer to a question that the Buddha showed should be put aside. Others try to draw inferences from the few statements in the discourse that seem to imply that there is no self, but it seems safe to assume that if one forces those statements to give an answer to a question that should be put aside, one is drawing inferences where they shouldn't be drawn.

So, instead of answering "no" to the question of whether or not there is a self — interconnected or separate, eternal or not — the Buddha felt that the question was misguided to begin with.
Why? No matter how you define the line between "self" and "other," the notion of self involves an element of self-identification and clinging, and thus suffering and stress. This holds as much for an interconnected self, which recognizes no "other," as it does for a separate self. If one identifies with all of nature, one is pained by every felled tree. It also holds for an entirely "other" universe, in which the sense of alienation and futility would become so debilitating as to make the quest for happiness — one's own or that of others — impossible. For these reasons, the Buddha advised paying no attention to such questions as "Do I exist?" or "Don't I exist?" for however you answer them, they lead to suffering and stress.

To avoid the suffering implicit in questions of "self" and "other," he offered an alternative way of dividing up experience: the four Noble Truths of stress, its cause, its cessation, and the path to its cessation. Rather than viewing these truths as pertaining to self or other, he said, one should recognize them simply for what they are, in and of themselves, as they are directly experienced, and then perform the duty appropriate to each. Stress should be comprehended, its cause abandoned, its cessation realized, and the path to its cessation developed. These duties form the context in which the anatta doctrine is best understood. If you develop the path of virtue, concentration, and discernment to a state of calm well-being and use that calm state to look at experience in terms of the Noble Truths, the questions that occur to the mind are not "Is there a self? What is my self?" but rather "Am I suffering stress because I'm holding onto this particular phenomenon? Is it really me, myself, or mine? If it's stressful but not really me or mine, why hold on?" These last questions merit straightforward answers, as they then help you to comprehend stress and to chip away at the attachment and clinging — the residual sense of self-identification — that cause it, until ultimately all traces of self-identification are gone and all that's left is limitless freedom.

In this sense, the anatta teaching is not a doctrine of no-self, but a not-self strategy for shedding suffering by letting go of its cause, leading to the highest, undying happiness. At that point, questions of self, no-self, and not-self fall aside. Once there's the experience of such total freedom, where would there be any concern about what's experiencing it, or whether or not it's a self?
Further related reading, from Thanissaro Bhikkhu, complete with analysis of relevant sutta material...

The Not-self Strategy
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/auth ... tself.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Metta,
Retro. :)
"Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."
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Re: Challenging the traditional view of Anatta

Post by tiltbillings »

I don’t find Ven Thanissaro’s argument all that convincing. It is not totally wrong, but it is hardly totally correct. Anatta can certainly be translated as “no self.” There is nothing in the structure and grammar of the word that says otherwise. One might appeal to context, but that is not always clear cut either.

“sabbe dhamma anatta” This is to say within the full range of whatever can be experienced by a worldling or by a Buddha there is no self to be found. Anatta can tell us that this or that is not a self, but it also tells us that there is no self in terms of an unchanging, self identical agent to be found anywhere in any way.

Monks, whatever contemplatives or priests who assume in various ways when assuming a self, all assume the five clinging-aggregates, or a certain one of them. - SN III 46.

This is simply saying that there is no self that is not a conditioned process.

Not self or no self, it depends upon context.
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
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Re: Challenging the traditional view of Anatta

Post by jcsuperstar »

if there is no self to be found which seems to be pretty much accepted then "how then is there a soul" is a good question to ask here. i mean without a self to hold, have, be whatever it is one does with a soul, what point is there in even believing in a soul?
สัพเพ สัตตา สุขีตา โหนตุ

the mountain may be heavy in and of itself, but if you're not trying to carry it it's not heavy to you- Ajaan Suwat
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Re: Challenging the traditional view of Anatta

Post by tiltbillings »

DorjePhurba wrote:Hello All,

Today I was browsing through Amazon.com and I was reading reviews for one of Bhikku Bodi's books and I encountered a very harsh review of his book that argued that the traditional view of Anatta is incorrect. I will post the review here and I'd like to know if what this person says is at all reasonable and makes sense.

The review: . . . This doctrine is also called by the Greeks Apophasis.

So, there it is. What do you all think?
Holding one's nose, it is eminently flushable. It rests upon a twisting of the language by individuals to get the texts to say what it they want the texts to say.

Simply:

Monks, whatever contemplatives or priests who assume in various ways when assuming a self [soul], all assume the five clinging-aggregates, or a certain one of them. - SN III 46.

If there were a permanent, unchanging self/soul that is an agent and that we ultimately are, how would it relate to that which changes without changing? If it acts, it changes. If it feels it changes. If it goes from ignorance to knowledge it changes. It goes from delusion to awakening it changes. In other words, this supposed truly true unchanging self/soul that we supposedly truly are begins looking like the khandhas - it changes.
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
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Re: Challenging the traditional view of Anatta

Post by BlackBird »

Is annihilationism wrong view in so far as it too has to presume a self to be annihilated?
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'The Blessed One is the Teacher, I am a disciple. He is the one who knows, not I." - MN. 70 Kitagiri Sutta

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Re: Challenging the traditional view of Anatta

Post by cooran »

Tilt said: Simply: Monks, whatever contemplatives or priests who assume in various ways when assuming a self [soul], all assume the five clinging-aggregates, or a certain one of them. - SN III 46.

If there were a permanent, unchanging self/soul that is an agent and that we ultimately are, how would it relate to that which changes without changing? If it acts, it changes. If it feels it changes. If it goes from ignorance to knowledge it changes. It goes from delusion to awakening it changes. In other words, this supposed truly true unchanging self/soul that we supposedly truly are begins looking like the khandhas - it changes.
Thank you Tilt. Well said! :bow:
Ven. Dr. W. Rahula said: People become nervous at the idea that through the Buddha’s teaching of Anatta, the self they imagine they have is going to be destroyed. The Buddha was not unaware of this.

A bhikkhu once asked him: ‘Sir, is there a case where one is tormented when something permanent within oneself is not found?’

‘Yes, bhikkhu, there is,’ answered the Buddha. ‘A man has the following view: “The universe is that Ātman, I shall be that after death, permanent, abiding, ever-lasting, unchanging, and I shall exists as such for eternity”. He hears the Tathāgata or a disciple of his, preaching the doctrine aiming at the complete destruction of all speculative views… aiming at the extinction of “thirst”, aiming at detachment, cessation, Nirvāna. Then than man thinks: “I will be annihilated, I will be destroyed, I will be no more.” So he mourns, worries himself, laments, weeps, beating his breast, and becomes bewildered. Thus, O bhikkhu, there is a case where one is tormented when something permanent within oneself is not found.’[11]

Elsewhere the Buddha says: ‘O bhikkhus, this idea that I may not be, I may not have, is frightening to the uninstructed world-ling.’[12]

Those who want to find a ‘Self’ in Buddhism argue as follows: It is true that the Buddha analyses being into matter, sensation, perception, mental formations, and consciousness, and says that none of these things it self. But he does not say that there is no self at all in man or anywhere else, apart from these aggregates.

This position is untenable for two reasons:

One is that, according to the Buddha’s teaching, a being is composed only of these Five Aggregates, and nothing more. Nowhere has he said that there was anything more than these Five Aggregates in a being.

The second reasons is that the Buddha denied categorically, in unequivocal terms, in more than one place, the existence of Ātman, Soul, Self, or Ego within man or without, or anywhere else in the universe. Let us take some examples.

In the Dhammapada there are three verses extremely important and essential in the Buddha’s teaching. They are nos. 5, 6 and 7 of chapter XX (or verses 277, 278, 279).

The first two verses say:

‘All conditioned things are impermanent’ (Sabbe SAMKHĀRĀ aniccā), and ‘All conditioned things are dukkha’ (Sabbe SAMKHĀRĀ dukkhā).

The third verse says:

‘All dhammas are without self’ (Sabbe SAMKHĀRĀ anattā).[13]

Here it should be carefully observed that in the first two verses the word samkhārā ‘conditioned things’ is used. But in its place in the third verse the word dhammā is used. Why didn’t the third verse use the word samkhārā ‘conditioned things’ as the previous two verses, and why did it use the term dhammā instead? Here lies the crux of the whole matter.

The term samkhāra[14] denotes the Five Aggregates, all conditioned, interdependent, relative things and states, both physical and mental. If the third verse said: ‘All samkhārā (conditioned things) are without self’, then one might think that, although conditioned things are without self, yet there may be a Self outside conditioned things, outside the Five Aggregates. It is in order to avoid misunderstanding that the term dhammā is used in the third verse.

The term dhamma is much wider than samkhārā. There is no term in Buddhist terminology wider than dhamma. It includes not only the conditioned things and states, but also the non-conditioned, the Absolute, Nirvāna. There is nothing in the universe or outside, good or bad, conditioned or non-conditioned, relative or absolute, which is not included in this term. Therefore, it is quite clear that, according to this statement: ‘All dhammas are without Self’, there is no Self, no Ātman, not only in the Five Aggregates, but nowhere else too outside them or apart from them.[15]

This means, according to the Theravāda teaching, that there is no self either in the individual (puggala) or in dhammas. The Mahāyāna Buddhist philosophy maintains exactly the same position, without the slightest difference, on this point, putting emphasis on dharma-nairātmya.

with metta
Chris
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Re: Challenging the traditional view of Anatta

Post by tiltbillings »

Just a bit about the above "review."

Take this line from the above "review" -This doctrine is also called by the Greeks Apophasis. - and google it so:
"This doctrine is also called by the Greeks Apophasis." Amazon and you can see that Ken Wheeler aka Denise Anderson uses much of the above review as a boilerplate response to those books that do not promote a self view in Buddhism.

http://www.google.com/search?q=site:ama ... n&filter=0" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
>> Do you see a man wise [enlightened/ariya] in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.<< -- Proverbs 26:12

This being is bound to samsara, kamma is his means for going beyond. -- SN I, 38.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?” HPatDH p.723
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Re: Challenging the traditional view of Anatta

Post by Dan74 »

Perhaps what can be say fairly unequivocally is that it is unwise to be attached to a self or a view of a self. Just as it is unwise to be attached to a view of no-self.

?

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Re: Challenging the traditional view of Anatta

Post by Ben »

Hi Mike
mikenz66 wrote:For further amusement you can read this Amazon Forum:
Denise Anderson says:
FreeThinker says:
Kenneth,

Please share with us your bountiful knowledge and explain the Theravada concept of the Unconditioned, including how it is seen from a traditional Theravada point of view as being part of the material/5 skandas.

A: Theravada is utterly materialistic by its OWN accord....evidences for same? ......
Bhikkhu Bodhi (Theravada's ignorant mouthpiece)
I thought this writer seemed to ring some bells...
Bhikkhu Bodhi, Mara’s right-hand whore
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kind regards

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Re: Challenging the traditional view of Anatta

Post by Sanghamitta »

Dan74 wrote:Perhaps what can be say fairly unequivocally is that it is unwise to be attached to a self or a view of a self. Just as it is unwise to be attached to a view of no-self.

?

_/|\_
Call me Simple Simone :smile:

But to me No Atta = Buddhism.
No Self = Vedanta.
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Dan74
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Re: Challenging the traditional view of Anatta

Post by Dan74 »

Hi Simone! :smile:

Well, Simon says, this Buddhism won't be much good to you if you merely attach to this formula, as a view. In fact, I'd say it would get in the way.

Investigate, where is this self? Just believe, post bizarre reviews, blather on about it, etc... This is what you call papanca, believe, and attachment to views, which is an obstacle to practice.

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