There is no self (anatta)

Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson, Bhante, Wisdom Quarterly

The ego is an identity of our own construction

While in an ultimate sense there is no "self" or "soul" or "ego," in conventional terms these are very real. What is "self"?

Ultimately, it is an impersonal composite of the Five Aggregates clung to as self. In that sense is there no self. Conventionally, the composite is composed of these eight elements shortened to five:

1. form (the body, the Four Elements);
2. feelings
3. perceptions
4. mental formations
5. consciousness.

All of these physical-and-mental elements (or "formations") are dynamic processes (not static things), ceaselessly rising and falling, and clung to as a permanent, pleasant, personal "self."

This continuum, flashing forth and falling away at every moment (which itself is composed of three phases or submoments of arising, turning, and perishing), is the "self" referred to in everyday speech.

Ultimately speaking and in the highest (paramattha) sense, THERE IS NO SELF. There is rebirth, there is disappointment (suffering, dukkha), there is only ignorance (illusion, maya) manifesting as liking, disliking, and delusion.

• Hey, if there is no self then who or what is reborn? No (personal) thing, but rather it is this impersonal process of the Five Aggregates continuing life after life until the truth is awakened to.

These Five Aggregates (heaps or khandhas) pass away but are replaced in the next moment by nearly identical mind moments (cittas) and mental factors (cetasikas), in addition to corporeal-form (rupa).

Therefore, foolishly, many Buddhists, having heard that ultimately there is no self, confound this with there being no conventional self at all.

The "self" (atta in Pali, atman in Sanskrit) we imagine is very real, just as the rope-snake on the road is real at that moment, just as memories are real, just as any view we cling to is real to the one who imagines it as real.

Clinging (being perniciously attached) to it is the great problem, for it leads to a great deal of disappointment, suffering, and misery. For things are not what they seem: They are not enduring, not able to fulfill us, not personal.

What I took to be real, this I, that is unreal.

Though things may be taken as otherwise -- viewed and clung to as permanent, able to satisfy and fulfill, and as a self that lasts even two moments -- they reveal themselves as false. The illusion becomes clear, and the Truth is seen. What is the truth? It's good news! The insatiable slave master driving itself through rebirth after rebirth, torment after torment, is ultimately unreal.

The Buddha taught the direct path to realizing the truth to awaken from the illusion of ignorance, "self," suffering, and rebirth. But the world is consumed with it. We are not there yet, not awakened (for we have not penetrated the truth directly, though we may be able to repeat it or intellectually grasp it),

And until we are there, there will be the experience of much misery and ill (not getting what we want and getting what we don't want, all collectively labelled dukkha).

Because it is very hard, if not impossible, to believe that there is no self, here is a better explanation by the German scholar Ven. Nyanatiloka (Anton Gueth): anatta.