Advaita seeks Atman, Buddhism seeks anatman, right?

[cappuccino]

Fake news

I advise you to read the scriptures more


perhaps do not try to translate

[Coëmgenu]

Fake news

I advise you to read the scriptures more


perhaps do not try to translate

You, Cappuccino, should re-acquaint yourself with the basics of the Dharma. It is far from you and you are far from it. I am worlds more qualified to translate than you, both being educated in classical Chinese and being a former seminarian of the Tendai sect. You are neither of these, being an unqualified ātmavādin who believes in "the soul" and "the Christian God." You are not qualified to critique my understanding of the Dharma.

[Rambutan]

because no self is an experience of nothingness

not self is what you want to contemplate

Please explain what you understand differentiates these two terms.

There is nowhere an intrinsically existent self can be found within composite phenomena (and all phenomena is composite phenomena).

Are you asserting the existence of something that can be identified as the “not-self”? Like, each being possesses a “not-self”? Is that what you are contemplating?

[cappuccino]

because no self is an experience of nothingness

not self is what you want to contemplate

Please explain what you understand differentiates these two terms.

no self is one extreme, self is the other extreme


the middle way is… to regard form as not self, etc.


The Discourse on the Not-self Characteristic

[cappuccino]

Bhikkhus, form is not-self. Were form self, then this form would not lead to affliction, and one could have it of form: 'Let my form be thus, let my form be not thus.' And since form is not-self, so it leads to affliction, and none can have it of form: 'Let my form be thus, let my form be not thus.'


Anatta-lakkhana Sutta

[Rambutan]

Bhikkhus, form is not-self. Were form self, then this form would not lead to affliction, and one could have it of form: 'Let my form be thus, let my form be not thus.' And since form is not-self, so it leads to affliction, and none can have it of form: 'Let my form be thus, let my form be not thus.'


Anatta-lakkhana Sutta

And what do you think he is saying here?

[cappuccino]

And what do you think he is saying here?

To regard this body as not you


It’s impermanent and unsatisfactory

[Rambutan]

And what do you think he is saying here?

To regard this body as not you
It’s impermanent and unsatisfactory

But no “you” is being asserted either.
What the Buddha is saying isn’t that there’s a “you” but it’s not your body. He’s saying that when one looks for “you” it really can’t be found anywhere.not in the body, not in emotions, and so on.

In other words, “you” can’t really be found anywhere.

[cappuccino]

But no “you” is being asserted either.
What the Buddha is saying isn’t that there’s a “you”

You are not suffering?


You are not trying to awaken?

[cappuccino]

In other words, “you” can’t really be found anywhere.

Except obviously you exist


Hence no self is logically flawed

[Coëmgenu]

The uprooting of identity is seen by the world as a horror. To the Āryans, it is the highest pleasure.

[cappuccino]

The uprooting of identity is seen by the world as a horror. To the Āryans, it is the highest pleasure.

You don’t know me

[Coëmgenu]

The uprooting of identity is seen by the world as a horror. To the Āryans, it is the highest pleasure.

You don’t know me

I don't know you, but I know enough to know that you are not an Āryan.

[Rambutan]

But no “you” is being asserted either.
What the Buddha is saying isn’t that there’s a “you”

you are not suffering?
you are not trying to awaken?

There’s no intrinsically existent “you” (atman) that experiences suffering. That’s flipped backwards. It’s really the other way around.
The suffering is the result of mistakenly believing that there’s really a “you”.
It’s precisely because we think “this is me, this is mine” that suffering (dukkha) arises. That’s the whole point. As Buddhadada Bikkhu wrote in Heartwood of the Bodhi Tree “There is nothing that can be cling to as “me” or “mine”.
That’s the whole point of the Buddha’s teaching.

[cappuccino]

I don't know you, but I know enough to know that you are not an Āryan.

What do you think you know?

If I — being asked by Vacchagotta the wanderer if there is a self — were to answer that there is a self, would that be in keeping with the arising of knowledge that all phenomena are not-self?

shrug