Not self: Why the Buddha still said "I" (sutra)

Maurice O'Connell Walshe (trans.), Arahan Sutra: "Arhat" (SN 1.25) edited and expanded by Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson, Crystal Quintero (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

The Buddha is golden and marked with a Vedic swastika, a traditionally auspicious symbol (appropriated by Hitler and Nazis) that indicates enlightenment/noble state of an arhat.

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Perhaps Semjase the deva asked.

[A certain deva asked:]

 

One who is an arhat [Pali arahant],

Work complete [goal achieved],

Free from taints, clad in final body,

That person still might still use such words as "I,"

Still perchance might say: "They call this 'mine'."...

Would such a person be prone to these conceits?

• [WQ: There is no self. All things are impersonal, egoless, devoid of self ("empty"). There is no permanent thing in the Five Things Clung to as Self. An enlightened person, even at the first stage, directly realizes that and is thereby awakened, freed, liberated, emancipated, and makes an end of all suffering. So how can such a person still use the word "I" or speak of things as "mine"? This would be due to a very subtle habit of speaking in a non-ultimate or "conventional" way to get some meaning across and be understood. But there would be no chance of a fully enlightened person, like the Buddha or arhats, being confused by the use of such words or knowing them by direct insight to be illusory, vain, unreal. Why? It is because all "things" (dharmas) are marked by Three Characteristics of Existence: they are impermanent, unsatisfactory, and impersonal/empty.]

Oh, now that makes sense!

[The Blessed One/the Buddha answered:]

 

Bonds are gone for one free of all conceits.

All delusion's chains are cast aside:

Truly wise, one has gone beyond any such thoughts.

• Walshe 1: Yam matam, "whatever is thought." Mrs. Rhys Davids's emendation of yamatam in the text (paraphrased as "conceits and deemings of the errant mind," following the Commentarial maññanam "imagining").

Yet, that person still might use such words as "I,"
Still perchance might say: "They call this 'mine'."

Well aware of common worldly speech,

One would speak conforming to such use.

• Walshe 2: Cf. DN 9: "These are merely names, expressions, turns of speech, designations in common use in the world, which the Tathagata ["the person who has arrived and who has gone beyond"] uses without misapprehending them." [There is a difference between common or "conventional" and "ultimate" truth/speech.]

What do you mean there's NO self?

What the h*ll are you talking about, Gautama?! The self is the eternal atman (soul)!

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"All beings subsist on nutriment" (Khp 4).

• [That "nutriment" is not necessarily physical food but different sorts of things -- like one's latent store of karma, or joy for certain devas, or contact/sense impression.]

Then Ven. Radha went to the Blessed One, bowed, and sat respectfully to one side. As he sat there he ask the Blessed One: "A 'being' (satta or Sanskrit sattva] venerable sir, a 'being,' it is said, but to what extent is one said to be a 'being'?"

You'll see. The truth will set you free.

[The Buddha responded:] "Radha, any desire, passion, delight, or craving for [physical or fine-material] form, when one is caught up (satta) there, tied up (visatta) there, one is said to be a 'being' (satta).
 

"Radha, any desire, passion, delight, or craving for feeling (sensation)... perception... formations... consciousness, when one is caught up there, tied up there, one is said to be a 'being'" (SN 23.2). 

• [What we call a living being is in fact a collection of groups that are clung to. Ignorance clings to them and takes them to be a "self, ego, soul, personality, or essence." They are not that, but the Enlightened One realized that these impersonal, impermanent, and unsatisfactory things (aggregates, heaps, constituents) are what beings cling to as a self. This is perhaps the hardest thing to understand in all of Buddhism, but it is what distinguishes an ordinary worldling from an enlightened (or noble and therefore liberated) one.]

"I am" is the greatest conceit. There is no self.

Few Buddhists seem to realize that in Mahayana Buddhism, the most famous apocryphal discourse is the Heart Sutra (Prajñāpāramitāhṛdaya Sutra or Heart of Wisdom Discourse) tackles this deep, profound, subtle, and exceedingly difficult topic. All of the 100,000 lines are dedicated to explicating this teaching. But it is only the direct realization, the liberating insight into it, that liberates one. Upon realization, one becomes a stream enterer, the first stage of enlightenment. Without it, there is no Buddhist "enlightenment" (bodhi) and therefore no glimpse or touching of liberation (nirvana). There may be many things, but there will not be freedom from all suffering.