Anattā and Nibbāna
Egolessness and Deliverance
by
Nyanaponika Thera
Here are two excerpts, though I recommend reading the entire essay:
In India, a country so deeply religious and philosophically so creative, the far greater danger to the preservation of the Dhamma’s character as a “middle way” came from the other extreme. It consisted in identifying, or connecting, the concept of Nibbāna with any of the numerous theistic, pantheistic or other speculative ideas of a positive-metaphysical type, chiefly with various conceptions of an abiding self.
According to the penetrative analysis in the Brahmajāla Sutta (DN 1), all the diverse metaphysical and theological views concerning the nature of the self, the world and a divine ground from which they might come, arise from either of two sources: (1) from a limited and misinterpreted meditative experience (in which we may also include supposed revelations, prophetic inspirations, etc.), and (2) from bare reasoning (speculative philosophy and theology). But behind all these metaphysical and theological notions, there looms, as the driving force, the powerful urge in man to preserve, in some way, his belief in an abiding personality which he can invest with all his longings for permanence, security and eternal happiness. It is therefore not surprising that a number of present-day interpreters of Buddhismperhaps through the force of that powerful, instinctive urge for self-preservation and the influence of long-cherished and widely-held viewsadvocate a positive-metaphysical interpretation of Nibbāna and Anattā. Some of these sincerely believe themselves to be genuine Buddhists, and possess a genuine devotion towards the Buddha and a fair appreciation of other aspects of his teaching. We shall now look at these views.
-Anattā and Nibbāna
Egolessness and Deliverance, Nyanaponika Thera, II The Positive-Metaphysical Extreme,
Section 4
The Truth of AnattāSection 5
(a) Common to both views is the assumption of an eternal self supposed to exist beyond the five aggregates that make up personality and existence in its entirety. The supposition that the Buddha should have taught anything like that is clearly and sufficiently refuted by the following saying alone:
Any ascetics or brāhmans who regard manifold (things or ideas) as the self, all regard the five aggregates (as the self) or any one of them. (SN 22:47)
This textual passage also excludes any misinterpretation of the standard formulation of the Anattā doctrine: “This does not belong to me, this I am not, this is not my self.” Some writers believe that this formula permits the conclusion that the Buddha supposed a self to exist outside, or beyond, the five aggregates to which the formula usually refers. This wrong deduction is disposed of by the statement of the Buddha quoted above which clearly says that all the manifold conceptions of a self can have reference only to the five aggregateseither collectively or selectively. How else could any idea of a self or a personality be formed, if not from the material of the five aggregates and from a misconception about them? On what else could notions about a self be based? This fact about the only possible way whereby ideas of a self can be formed was expressed by the Buddha himself in the continuation of the text quoted above:
There is, bhikkhus, an uninstructed worldling.• He regards corporeality as self, or the self as possessing corporeality, or the corporeality as being within the self, or the self within corporeality (similarly with the four mental aggregates). [8] In this way he arrives at that very conception “I am.”
Further it was said: “If there are corporeality, feeling, perception, formations and consciousness, on account of them and dependent on them arises the belief in individuality • and speculations about a self” (SN 22:154, 155).
(b) If the words “I,” “ego,” “personality” and “self” should have meaning at all, any form of an ego-conception, even the most abstract and diluted one, must necessarily be connected with the idea of particularity or separateness with a differentiation from what is regarded as not “ego.” But from what would that particularity or differentiation be derived if not from the only available data of experience, the physical and mental phenomena comprised by the five aggregates?
In the Majjhima Nikāya sutta called “The Simile of the Snake” (MN 22), it is said: “If, monks, there is a self, will there also be what belongs to self?” — “Yes, Lord.” — “If there is what belongs to self, will there also be ’My self’?” — “Yes, Lord.” — “But since a self and self’s belongings cannot truly be found, is this not a perfectly foolish doctrine: ’This is the world, this the self. Permanent, abiding, eternal, immutable shall I be after death, persisting in eternal identity’?” — “It is, Lord, a perfectly foolish doctrine?” [9]
The first sentence of that text expresses, in a manner as simple as it is emphatic, the fact pointed out before: that the assumption of a self requires also something belonging to a self (attaniya), i.e., properties by which that self receives its distinguishing characteristics. To speak of a self devoid of such differentiating attributes, having therefore nothing to characterize it and to give meaningful contents to the word, will be entirely senseless and in contradiction to the accepted usage of these terms “self,” “ego,” etc. But this very thing is done by those who advocate the first of the two main-types of the “positive-metaphysical extreme”: that is, the assumption of a “great universal self or over-self” (mahātman) supposed to merge with, or be basically identical with, a universal and undifferentiated (nirguṇa) metaphysical principle which is sometimes equated with Nibbāna. Those who hold these views are sometimes found to make the bold claim that the Buddha wanted to deny only a separate self and that in none of his utterances did he reject the existence of a transcendental self. What has been said before in this section may serve as an answer to these beliefs.
-Anattā and Nibbāna
Egolessness and Deliverance, Nyanaponika Thera, II The Positive-Metaphysical Extreme,
Section 5
By
Dr. G.P. Malalasekera
Here is an excerpt, thought, again, I recommend the entire essay:
The Buddhist argument against the doctrine of ātman is
twofold. In the first place the Buddha takes various aspects
of the personality and contends that none of them can be
identified with the ātman since they do not have
characteristics of the ātman. Thus, the question is asked
(e.g., in M I 232 ff ): Is the body (the physical personality)
permanent or impermanent? The answer is: It is
impermanent. Is what is impermanent sorrowful or happy?
Sorrowful. Of what is impermanent, sorrowful and liable to
change, is it proper to regard it as ’This is mine, this I am,
this is my soul?’ It is not. The canonical commentary, the
Paṭisambhidāmagga (I 37), adds that rūpa etc., is not self in
the sense that it has no core (sāra).
The same argument is repeated for the other aspects of the
personality such as feeling (vedanā), perception or ideation
(saññā), dispositions or tendencies (saṅkhāra) and
consciousness (viññāṇa).
A similar procedure is attributed to Prajāpati in the
Chāndogya Upaniṣad (8 7-12) but there is a very great
difference in the attitudes of the two questioners. Prajāpati
assumes the existence of an ātman and, when he fails to
12
identify it with any of the aspects of the person-personality,
continues to assume that it must exist within it, somewhere,
somehow, in spite of its failure to show up in a purely
empirical investigation. The Buddha, on the other hand,
accepts, the definition of the ātman, without assuming its
existence or non-existence; and when the empirical
investigation, fails to reveal any such ātman, He concludes
that no such ātman exists because there is no evidence for its
existence.
The second argument of the Buddha is that belief in a
permanent self would negate the usefulness of the moral
life. More of this later. In the first discourse, the
Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta, given after his
Enlightenment, the Buddha set out the Four Noble Truths.
In the second, the Anattalakkhaṇa Sutta,
[2] He stated the
characteristics of his doctrine of the not-self (anattā). Here
He begins by emphasizing that if there were a self it should
be autonomous, but no such thing is to be found. Matter
(rūpa) is not the self. Were matter self, then the body would
not be subject to affliction, one should be able to say to it
’Let my body be thus. Let my body be not thus.’ But this is
not possible; the body is shifting and ever in change and,
therefore, ever accompanied by misery and affliction.
Accordingly, it cannot be the self. The same is repeated for
the other aspects of the personality. The conclusion is,
therefore, reached that all these things, whether past, future
or presently arisen, in one self or external, gross or subtle,
inferior or Superior, far or near, are all to be viewed thus:
13
’This is not mine, this is not what I am, this is not my self.’
Then it is added, when a man realises that all these things
are not the self he turns away from them and by the
extinction of desire he attains release. Here we find for the
first time indication of the Buddha’s purpose in enunciating
His doctrine. All misery, in His view, arises from the
delusion of self which causes man to strive to profit himself,
not to injure others. The most effective therapeutic against
the folly of seeking to gratify longings is the realization that
there is no truth in the doctrine of a permanent self.
-The Truth of Anattā, Dr. G.P. Malalasekera,
pages 12-14