CHAPTER VI. THE DOCTRINE OF NO-SOUL: ANATTA
 |
| What the Buddha Taught (Ven. Rahula) |
What in general is suggested by soul, self, ego, or the Sanskrit
atman, is that in a person (a human, demon, spirit, animal, celestial messenger, angel, demigod, god,
deva,
brahma, or whatever) there is a permanent, everlasting, and absolute animating entity, which is the unchanging substance behind the changing phenomenal world.
According to some most religions, each individual has such a separate "soul" (enduring or immortal self) that is created by God, and which, finally after death, lives eternally either in hell, purgatory, limbo, heaven, or is annihilated -- its destiny depending on the judgment of its creator.
According to others, it goes through many lives (reborn, reincarnated, purifying, paying off its karmic debt, learning, growing, maturing, changing for the better, evolving) until it is completely purified and becomes finally united with God (Brahma, the personal "Supreme" Being), Brahman (GOD, the impersonal Absolute), Universal Soul (godhood) from which it originally emanated.
This soul or self in a human is the thinker of thoughts, feeler of feelings, and receiver of rewards and punishments for all its good and bad choices and actions. Such a conception is called the doctrine of self.
Buddhism says what is impossible: It stands unique in the history of human religion, philosophy, and thought in denying the existence of such a soul, self, or ego (atman).
According to the awakened teaching of the Buddha, the idea of self is an imaginary, deluded, false assumption which has no corresponding reality, and this delusion produces harmful thoughts of "me" and "mine," selfish desires, craving, clinging, attachment, hatred, resentment, ill-will, conceit, pride, egoism, and other defilements, impurities, and problems.
It is the source of all the troubles in the world from personal conflicts to wars between nations. In short, to this false view can be traced all the harm (wrong, evil) in the world. One idea is psychologically deep-rooted in a human, that of self protection and preservation.
For protection humans have created God, on whom we depend for our protection, safety, and security, just as a child depends on a parent, and for self preservation we have conceived the idea of an immortal soul, which will live eternally in hell or heaven.
In our ignorance, weakness, fear, and desire we need these two sides of a coin to console ourselves. So we cling to them deeply and fanatically.
The mere suggestion that there's no soul, no self, no ego is unreal is offensive! It's angering and preposterous! "Nothing else might be real, but at least self is real!" we insist. Even language works against us: There's no way to talk or think without continuing to imagine an actor (noun) as the subject, the doer of the action (verb).
The Buddha's teaching does not support this ignorance, weakness, fear, and desire, but aims at making humans and devas enlightened by removing them and revealing the ultimate truth, striking at the very root of our wrongly conceived assumption.
According to Buddhism, our ideas of God and soul are false and empty. Though highly developed as theories and theologies, they are all the same extremely subtle mental projections, dressed in intricate metaphysical and philosophical phrases.
These ideas are so deep rooted in us -- so taken for granted by us, that is, the intuitive but mistaken Cartesian assumption Cognito ergo sum or "I think therefore I am" -- and so near and dear to us that we do not want to hear nor understand any teaching against them.
The Buddha knew this quite well. In fact, he said that his teaching was "against the stream" (patisotagami), against our selfish desires. Just four weeks after his great awakening (enlightenment), seated under a Ficus religiosa tree, the Awakened One thought to himself:
"I have realized this Truth so deep, difficult to see, and difficult to understand . . . comprehensible only by the wise . . . people who are overpowered by passions (greed and hatred) and surrounded by a mass of darkness (ignorance) cannot see this Truth, which is against the stream, which is lofty, deep, subtle, and hard to comprehend."
With these thoughts in mind, the Buddha hesitated for a moment wondering whether it wouldn't be a wearisome waste of time if he tried to teach and explain the ultimate Truth he had just realized to a world such as this.
Then he compared the world to a lotus pond: In a lotus pond there are some lotuses still remaining under water, others that have risen up only to water level, and others that have risen above the water and are now untouched by it.
In the same way in this world there are human at different levels of development. Some would understand the Truth. So the Buddha was encouraged to teach it [Mhvg. (Alutgama, 1922), p. 4 f; M I (Pali Text Society), p. 167 f.] by Brahma Sahampati (a very high born God) for the sake of those "with only a little dust in their eyes." He decided to teach the impossible because it leads to liberation from ALL suffering and nothing else does.
The doctrine of anatta (Sanskrit anatman) or no-soul (no-self) is the natural result of, or the corollary to, the analysis of the Five Aggregates clung to as Self and the teaching of Dependent Origination (Conditioned Co-genesis, paticca-samuppada).
In the discussion of the first ennobling/enlightening truth (the truth of the disappointing nature of all things, dukkha), what we assume to be a "being," "self," "soul," or "individual" is composed of the Five Aggregates. But when these aggregates are analyzed and examined, there is nothing behind them which can be taken as "I," soul, or self, or any unchanging abiding substance. That is the analytical method.
The same result is arrived at through the doctrine of Dependent Origination, which is the synthetical method. According to this nothing in the world is absolute. Everything is conditioned. Everything is relative and interdependent -- that is to say, not able to stand alone or independent. This is a Buddhist "theory of relativity."
Dependent Origination
Before going into the question of no-soul, no-self, no-ego, it is useful to have an idea of what Dependent Origination means. The principle of this doctrine is given in a short formula of four lines:
When this is, that is. (Imasmim sati idam hod)
When this arising, that arises. (Imassuppada idam uppajjati).
When this is not, that is not. (Imasmim asati idam na boti)
When this ceases, that ceases. (Imassa nirodha idam nirujjhati).
On this principle of conditionality, relativity, and interdependence, the whole of existence and the continuity of life and its cessation are explained in the detailed formula called Paticca-samuppada "Dependent Origination." It consists of 12 factors:
1. Through ignorance are conditioned volitional actions or karma-formations. (Avijjapaccaya samkhara).
2. Through volitional actions is conditioned consciousness. (Samkharapaccaja vinnanam).
3. Through consciousness are conditioned mental and material [name and form, mind and body] phenomena. (Vinnanapaccaja namaruparti).
4. Through mental and material phenomena are conditioned the six faculties (i.e., five physical sense-organs and mind). (Namarupapaccayd salayatanam).
5. Through the six sense faculties is conditioned (sensorial and mental) contact. (Salayatanapaccaya phasso).
6. Through (sensorial and mental) contact is conditioned sensation. (Phassapaccaja vedana).
7. Through sensation is conditioned craving. (Vedanapaccaja tanha).
8. Through craving is conditioned clinging. (Tanhapaccaja upadanam).
M III (PTS), p. 63; S II (PTS), pp. 28, 95, etc. To put it in a more modern form: When A is, B is; when A arises, B arises; when A is not, B is not; when A ceases, B ceases.
9. Through clinging is conditioned the process of becoming. (Upadatiapaccaya bhavo).
10. Through the process of becoming is conditioned birth. (Bhavapaccaya jati).
11. Through birth are conditioned (12) decay, death, lamentation, pain, and so on. (Jatipaccaya jaramaranam...).
This is how life arises, exists, and continues. If this formula is taken in reverse order, it comes to the cessation of the impersonal process:
(1) Through the complete cessation of ignorance, volitional activities or karma-formations cease; (2) through the cessation of volitional activities, consciousness ceases... (12) through the cessation of birth, decay, death, sorrow, and so on cease.
It should be clearly remembered that each of these factors is conditioned (paticcasamuppantia) as well as conditioning (paticca samuppada).
1. Therefore, they are all relative, interdependent, interconnected, and nothing is absolute or independent. Therefore, no first cause is accepted by Buddhism.
2. Dependent Origination is considered a circle rather than a linear chain.
3. The question of free will has occupied an important place in Western thought and philosophy. But according to Dependent Origination, this question does not and cannot arise in Buddhist philosophy.
If the whole of existence is relative, conditioned, and interdependent, how can will alone be free will, like any other thought, is conditioned. So called "freedom" itself is conditioned and relative. Such a conditioned and relative "free will" is not denied.
There can be nothing absolutely free, physical or mental, as everything is interdependent and relative. If free will implies a will independent of conditions, independent of cause and effect, such a thing does not exist.
How can a will, or anything for that matter, arise without conditions, away from cause and effect, when the whole of existence is conditioned and relative, and is within the law of cause and effect?
Vismuddhi Magga (PTS), p. 517.
See above p. 29.
Limited space does not permit a discussion here of this most important doctrine. A critical and comparative study of this subject in detail will be found in a forthcoming work on Buddhist philosophy by the present writer.
Here again the idea of free will is basically connected with the ideas of God, soul, justice, rewards, and punishments. Not only is so-called free will not free, but the very idea of free will is not free from conditions.
According to the doctrine of Dependent Origination, and according to the analysis of a living being into the Five Aggregates clung to as Self, the idea of an abiding, immortal substance in human or outside, whether it is called I, soul, self, or ego, is considered only a false belief, a mental projection.
This is the Buddhist doctrine of anatta, no-soul and no-self.
In order to avoid confusion, it should be mentioned here that there are two kinds of truth -- conventional truth (sammuti sacca) and ultimate truth (paramattha sacca).
When we use such expressions as "I," "you," "being," "individual," and so on, it is true in a conventional sense. Language is a set of conventions. But ultimately there is no self, no being as such. And to say so is to speak in conformity with ultimate truth even as it differs from the conventions of the world and language. There is something, but it is not a self, soul, or ego.
The ultimate truth is that there is no "I" or "being." This is an ultimate reality. As a Mahayana sutra says, "A person (
puggala) should be mentioned as existing only in designation (i.e., conventionally speaking, there is a being), but not in reality (or substance)."
More
