The doctrine of An-Atta, literally "not-self" (An = not,
Atta=self) is one of the most well known of early Buddhist doctrines, but
also a source of major confusions when it is taken out of the context of
transformative Buddhist practice and treated as a doctrine, to the effect that
"there is no self."
This essay deals with several complicated issues connected
with the an-atta doctrine. To summarize ahead of time the main points:
(1) The early Buddhist an-atta doctrine does not challenge
the ordinary non-specialist individual's sense of "being a self." The An-atta
doctrine is not a theory about the kind of being that human persons are. So far
as the Pali Canon is concerned, you are and remain pretty much whatever kind of
being you already think you are: A person capable of free choices, responsible
for your choices; a self with an identity separate from other selves; a single
center of consciousness persisting through time; and so on. These are
assumptions assumed by almost everyone in ordinary life and ordinary discourse
(questioned only by specialist philosophers and psychologists), and they are
left unquestioned in the Pali Canon as well.
(2) Outside the context of meditation, the practical point of
the an-atta doctrine is better expressed by translating an-atta as "not-me," as
in "my stereo set is not me" -- if someone steals or wrecks my stereo set, if I
regarded my stereo set as not-me, I would not feel this as a personal attack on
me. If Kisa Gotami had been able to regard her son as "not-me" she would have
been able to accept his death and move on with her life. A good Buddhist would
be able to feel "my wealth and possessions are not me," "my reputation is not
me," my bodily appearance is not me," and so on.
(3) The more radical implications of the An-Atta doctrine
apply only to meditators in the specific context of ancient India. Other
non-Buddhists in contemporary India (such as the author of the nearly
contemporary Bhagavad Gita) attribute special religious significance to specific
and highly unusual, ecstatic and blissful experiences achievable in advanced
meditation. These experiences are held to be experiences of a particular entity
called Atta (Atman in the Sanskrit language), which exists beyond change, and is
identical with the highest, eternally existing Supreme Being, Brahman. In this
context, the main practical point of the Buddhist An-Atta doctrine is to refuse
to attribute special religious significance to any particular meditative
experience. No matter what exalted spiritual experiences a person is able to
attain even in deepest meditation, every specific object or condition a person
is able to experience, external or internal, belongs to the world of the
changeable Khandhas. Nothing one can directly become aware of, externally or
internally, qualifies as being an unchanging Atta/Atman, connected to a Supreme
Being (Brahman). Absolutely everything that a meditator could experience, and
might be tempted to regard as her Atman/Atta, should be regarded as An-Atta,
"not-Atta" (not Atman) instead.
Interpreted in the way described in (2) and (3) above, the An-atta teaching is
basically the same as the teaching about becoming a non-abiding Viññana, treated
in a previous essay. That is, the An-atta teaching does not teach a theory to
the effect "I am a non-self," but rather describes an attitude "I" should take
toward whatever I perceive: I should regard everything I do perceive or could
perceive, as an-atta.
(4) A few passages in early Buddhist writing (especially
outside the Pali Canon) could be understood to be asserting a "theory of the
self," denying the existence of a self in the more ordinary sense. It may be
that the concern of some early Buddhists went beyond the practical issues
described above, and tried to develop doctrines stating objective truths about
human psychology, among which was the doctrine roughly translatable as "there is
no self."
This final point is where critical reconstruction is relevant
and important. For critical reconstruction, the issue is not what early
Buddhists believed, but "What needs to be true for the Buddhist way of life to
be well-founded?" Suppose someone comes up with totally convincing arguments
that, objectively speaking, a theory about the non-existence of self stated
somewhere in the Pali Canon is false. Would this in any way undermine the
validity of the Buddhist way of life? No it would not. The points listed in (2)
and (3) above are essential points of the an-atta doctrine central to the
fundamental Buddhist way of being in the world, and they are in no way dependent
on any theory denying the existence of a self.
Whatever can be said about what Buddhists believe or do not believe, my main argument is that the validity of Buddhist spirituality does not turn on the truth/falsity of any theory about the objective existence or non-existence of a self, if this is a theory about the kind of being which human persons are or are not. The main practical intent of the An-Atta teaching is as an aid to internal personal transformation. This transformation consists in ceasing to become so identified with some particular Condition of the world -- either in the external material or social world, or in the internal world of feelings -- that she would experience some change in this Condition as a deep threat to her sense of self esteem or meaning in life.
This emphasis on the practical purpose of the An-Atta teaching as an aid to internal transformation is in accord with the emphasis in the Pali Canon on the practical rather than theoretical intent of its teachings generally. One expression of this point is the Parable of the Raft: A man on a long journey came to a wide river, and had to spend many days building a raft that would get him across. But when he got across, he found he had become attached to the raft he had built, and so now he carries a large raft on his back wherever he goes. The Raft is like Dhamma which the Buddha teaches, Dhamma being the Pali word for "teaching." The moral of the story: "Dhamma is for crossing over, not for retaining." All Buddhist teaching, including the An-Atta teaching, is just a practical guide to internal personal transformation -- ultimately "crossing over" to Nibbana. It's a mistake to become attached to it as a theory to be held onto for its own sake apart from this practical purpose.
Another expression of this is the Pali Canon polemic against "views." "Views" are listed as possible objects of Upadana -- a person should resist the temptation to "Cling to Views." "Clinging to Views" leads to preoccupation with "disputing about views," i.e. letting concern for defending one's theories distract from the practical task of personal transformation that should be the main business of a Buddhist. One passage in fact applies this point to theories about the existence/non-existence of a self. Evidently, the author of this passage at least knew of some others who were disputing about the existence and non-existence of a self. To counter this Clinging to, and disputing about Views, both Views, on both sides of this issue, are listed as Views not to Cling to.
- One should not Cling to the View "for me there is a self,"
- And also one should not Cling to the View, "for me there is no self" (See Majjhima Nikaya 2.8, p. 92.)
This point seems directly relevant to the habit of some modern scholars of trying to treat all serious thought as "philosophy," which leads them to try to extract from early Buddhist writings a "philosophical theory of the self," which can then be compared to theories of the self proposed by other philosophers, and evaluated as to its objective truth or falsity. Modern philosophers especially like to focus on theories about which there is some controversy, because discussing controversial issues has become the main business of philosophy today. From a Buddhist perspective, such "disputing about Self-Views" means putting off the practical business of personal transformation until some complicated theoretical issues can be settled, which often means putting this off indefinitely.
Because of their theoretical orientation, modern philosophers tend also to
ignore practical techniques described in the Pali Canon for bringing about this
personal transformation, such as the meditation practice called Vipassana.
A proper contextual understanding of early Buddhism must treat Vipassana and the
An-Atta teaching as mutually defining. "Coming
to regard all perceptual objects as An-Atta" needs to be
understood as something that can plausibly be achieved by practicing Vipassana.
And Vipassana must be practiced in such a way that it will plausibly aid in
reaching the goal of "coming to regard all perceptual objects as An-Atta."
This will be the main topic of another essay,
Vipassana as the Practice of An-Atta.
*****
In the remainder of this essay I want to show also that a
close contextual reading of typical passages in the Pali Canon giving the
An-Atta teaching, supports the interpretation of this teaching presented above. That is, the
An-Atta doctrine is most often
stated in connection with the Khandhas. These passages don't assert that, "no
self exists," or "I am not a self." Rather they assert that everything belonging
to the Khandhas (Bodies, Feelings, etc.) should be regarded as not-self.
"Not-self" does not describe "me," but those things -- the Khandhas as
perceptual objects -- that "I" perceive. The contrast is not with "belief in
self," but with an attitude described as "regarding something belonging to Body,
Feelings, etc. as Atta."
The reason for this given in these passages just rehearses a
central argument constantly repeated throughout the Pali Canon:
- Everything belonging to the Khandhas is impermanent
- Upadana/clinging to anything impermanent is source of
dukkha
- Full emotional realization of impermanence would cause
cessation of Clinging, freeing a person from Tanha, Upadana, and Dukkha.
The addition to this argument that brings in the An-atta
doctrine is the statement that whatever is impermanent and liable to change
beyond one's control should not be considered Atta. To "regard something as
Atta" is clearly the same thing as to Cling to it (Upadana). To regard it as
An-atta instead is the same thing as resisting the tendency to Cling to it.
What the An-atta doctrine explicitly states, then, is that
the way I can become free of Tanha, Upadana, and Dukkha, is to resist the
temptation to regard something belonging to the impermanent khandhas as Atta. I
should regard them all as An-Atta instead, not self, instead.
In plainer English, the practical point for ordinary
householder non-meditators, is that I should resist the tendency to "identify
with" or "become deeply invested in" some particular impermanent condition in
the world.
- The ideal is not to become identified with my possessions,
for example. I would be able to regard my car as "not-me," so that if someone
wrecks my car I do not take this personally as an attack on "me."
- I would also be able to express my ideas in a group, but
not become so identified and personally invested in my ideas and words, so that
I take any criticism of my ideas as a personal attack, so that such criticism
quickly gives rise to a personal contest between me and my "attacker."
- I would be able to regard my reputation, or the reputation
of my wife or children as "not me." I would be able to regard my own bodily
appearance as "not me," so that my basic self-confidence and inner peace would
not be deeply threatened by changes in my bodily appearance or the reputations
of myself or those close to me.
This point is illustrated in the following passage from the
Pali Canon:
An unskilled person... regards [something belonging to the] Body[-Khandha] as Atta... He lives obsessed by the notion: ‘I am [this] Body' ... As he lives obsessed by this notion, that Body of his changes and alters. With the change and alteration of Body, there arise in him sorrow, lamentation, pain, displeasure, and despair... (Samyutta Nikaya, p. 854)
Among English-speaking people, few people would be tempted to assert as a
theory, that "I am my Body," "my Body is my self." But many people
are tempted to treat a nice-looking bodily appearance as crucial to their self
esteem, to identify themselves with their bodies on a feeling-level, in
such a way that this will make them vulnerable to deep Dukkha ("sorrow,
lamentation, etc.") when, say, they lose their formerly beautiful head of hair.
This is what it means practically speaking to "regard my hair as Atta,"
and the reason why it is better to be able to regard my hair as An-Atta
instead.
*****
The main confusion surrounding the an-atta teaching comes
- when atta is translated by the ordinary English word
"self,", so An-Atta as translated as "not-self"
- and when this doctrine is then taken to be a statement
about the kind of being that I am -- it is taken to mean
that, even though I might think I am a self, or am a being who has a self, the
objective truth is that I am not a self, or that I don't have the self that I
thought I had.
To make very clear why this is a mistaken understanding of
the Pali Canon An-atta teaching, it will be helpful to spell out more
specifically some meanings of the English word "self" that might lead to this
mistaken understanding of the An-atta teaching.
Here is one Encyclopedia description of what the term "self"
is generally taken to signify in Western philosophy:
The term 'self' is often used interchangeably with the word
'person'... Thus a self is conceived to be a subject of consciousness, a being
capable of thought and experience and able to engage in deliberative action... A
self is a being that is able to entertain first-person thoughts. A first-person
thought is one whose apt expression in language requires the use of the
first-person pronoun "I." (E. J. Lowe. article "Self" in The
Oxford Guide to Philosophy. Ed. Ted Honderich. Oxford:
Oxford Univ. Pr. 1995.
p. 860)
In other words, when taken as a description of a certain kind of being,
"being a self" can roughly be understood to me equivalent to "being a person." A
person with a self, is a different kind of being than a stone, which has no
self.
- To be a self is to be aware of things. "I" can be aware of
trees. Presumably a stone is not aware of the trees that surround it.
- Conscious selves last through time. Acts of awareness come
and go, "I" have many experiences coming one after another, but "I," my self
that is experiencing a sunny day today is the same self that experienced a rainy
day yesterday.
- Being a self implies the ability to take up attitudes
toward what I am aware of. A stone does not have an attitude toward the trees
that surround it.
- Being a self means having intentions, acting on those
intentions, and being morally responsible for those actions. If a stone falls on
me, I don't blame the stone because I attribute to the stone an intention to hit
me. If a person with a "self" hits me with a stone, I blame the person, because
I attribute to this person a "bad intention" toward me. Selves last through time
in this sense also. If I intentionally did someone wrong last week, I am a
person who owes them an apology this week. Being a self acting with personal
intentions means that I can have personal achievements (stones don't have
achievements), and I am a being capable of being proud of my achievements
because they are my achievements.
- Being a self means having a unique personality, different
from other selves. Being a self means having an identity and being able to some
extent to choose one's identity. Presumably a stone does not have a personality,
or identity, or an ability to choose its identity.
All of these are assumptions we take for granted everyday. We
take them so much for granted that we rarely think about such things.
The most important thing to say to avoid confusions is that
the An-atta doctrine presented in the Pali Canon does not deny that persons are
"selves" in any of the above senses. The opposite is true: it takes for granted
an audience of readers who are, and take themselves to be, "selves" in all the
above senses. An-atta is not a description of the kind of being that "I" am, or
that "I" am not.
Perhaps the best way of describing the meaning of An-Atta is
that it is describes an attitude that "I" can take toward things I am aware of.
Suppose I am aware of my car in mint condition, and it is a principle source of
my self-esteem. A "car" is an object belonging to the Khandha "Body." So,
according to the quotation above, my attitude toward the car can be described as
"regarding this Body [the car] as Atta." If someone takes a sledge hammer and
wrecks this car that I regard as Atta, this attitude causes me to regard this as
a personal attack on me (causing "sorrow, lamentation, etc.") The An-atta
teaching advises me to take a different attitude toward the car, an attitude
that can be described as "regarding the car as An-Atta."
If I am able to regard my car as An-Atta, and if we take the
English word "self" to refer to this "I" able to have this attitude toward the
car, then we could say that the Buddhist goal is to become that kind of self
able to regard everything that it perceives as An-atta, to "become a self able
to regard everything I perceive as not-self."
Another passage makes the point well by using the comparison of someone burning
grass and branches.
[Gotama says to a group of Bikkhus]: Bikkhus, What do you think? If people carried off the grass, sticks,
branches and leaves in this Jeta Grove [where Gotama was staying], or burned
them, or did what they liked with them, would you think, 'People are carrying us
off or burning us or doing what they liked with us'?
- No, venerable sir.
Why not?
- Because these things are neither our self [Atta] or what belongs to our self.
Majjhima Nikaya tr. Bhikkhu Bodhi. Somerville, Mass. Wisdom Publications. 1995, p. 234-35
In the same way, a person able to regard her car as An-Atta, not-self, would not regard what happens to the car as "happening to me."
****
The An-Atta teaching is not a theory about the kind
of being I am, at all. The An-atta teaching describes rather a
goal I might achieve -- I who am already a self (in the English sense of the
word) might achieve the difficult goal of being able to regard everything I
perceive as An-Atta, not-me,
not-essential-to-my-sense-of-self-esteem-or-meaning-in-life. Theoretically, this
being that I am could be called a "self" (in English). It's just that, for
reasons to be explained, connected with contemporary Hinduism -- the Pali
Canon avoids using the word Atta in any positive sense whatsoever. So, because
of certain connotations of the word Atta in the cultural/religious context of
ancient India, the Pali Canon avoids using the word Atta in a way that it would
seem normal to us to use the English word "self." This is why simply translating
Atta by the English word "self" can be very misleading.
******
I want now to quote a passage from the Pali Canon that
expresses the An-Atta teaching in a fairly clear form.
This passage goes through all the five Khandhas (Body,
Feelings, Perceptions, Conditions, Consciousness). It points out that everything
belonging to any of the five Khandhas is changeable beyond a person's control,
and so Clinging to them is a source of Dukkha. It gives this as a reason why the
person "who clearly and rightly understands" will perceive everything belonging
to the changeable Khandhas as An-Atta.
It finishes by saying that because he understands all these things, "the
noble disciple turns away from Body, from Feelings, from Perceptions, from
Conditions, from Consciousness. Being thus detached, he is free from Craving and
Clinging, being free from Craving and Clinging, he is liberated, and he
experiences the freedom of liberation. For he knows that the holy life has
reached its culmination, what he set out to accomplish is accomplished, he is
free."
We can ask about the "noble disciple" mentioned in the last
section of this passage just quoted, who accomplishes the achievement of freedom
from Craving and Clinging: Is this noble disciple a person, or "self" in the
English senses of the word listed earlier? Clearly he is.
- Unlike a stone, he is a personal being (a "self") who is
aware of things belonging to one or more of the five Khandhas, and able to take
up an attitude toward these things that he perceives.
- Unlike a stone, he is a personal being able to form a
concept of a life-goal (Nibbana as complete psychological freedom), work toward this goal,
and achieve this goal, an immense and heroic personal achievement (stones don't
have heroic achievements).
- The noble disciple who eventually achieves this goal is the
same person who beforehand had not yet achieved it, but set out to achieve it --
these are different, before-and-after states of the same personal "self" lasting
through time.
We might want to call this noble disciple a "self." The most
exact thing to say about the passage quoted below is that it does not raise
the question as to whether the word Atta properly applies, or does not
apply, to the noble disciple himself. The only question addressed is whether the
word Atta properly applies to anything this noble disciple perceives and might
be tempted to Cling to, i.e. anything belonging to the Khandhas.
And even this question is not a matter of what is objectively true or not
true. The only objective truths that are asserted is that everything belonging
to the Khandhas is subject to change beyond a person's control, and this is the
reason to regard all these things as An-Atta. The point of the passage is not to
urge the noble disciple to adopt a new theory about anything. It
is to urge him to undertake a practical task, an internal
psychological transformation consisting of a cessation of Craving and
Clinging which would manifest itself in an extraordinary ability to stand in a
certain relation to all things belonging to the Khandhas, a relation described
as "perceiving them as An-Atta."
Here is a fuller excerpt from the Pali Canon passage in
question:
‘Bodies [all material objects belonging to the Body-Khandha] are An-Atta.
If Bodies were Atta
Bodies would not be subject to disease,
and it would be possible
in the case of Bodies to command:
"Let my Body be like so, let my Body not be like so."
But because Bodies are An-Atta,
therefore Bodies are subject to disease,
and it is not possible to command:
"Let my Body be like so, let my Body not be like so."
The statement, "If X were Atta, it would not be subject to disease," defines
very clearly the contextual meaning of the term Atta. One should not call something Atta if
it is subject to any kind of disease. Similarly one should not call something
Atta unless it is under one's complete control.
The text then goes the other four Khandhas, repeating about
each exactly what was said about the first Khandha, Bodies, concluding that
because everything belonging to any of the Khandhas is subject to unpleasant
changes ("disease") beyond one's control, nothing belonging to the Khandhas
qualifies as Atta.
Feelings are an-atta...
Perceptions are an-atta...
Conditions are an-atta...
Consciousness is an-atta.
If Feelings... Perceptions...
Conditions.. Consciousness
were Atta,
[then none of these] would be subject to disease,
and it would be possible... to command
"Let my Feelings be [or not be] like so...
Let my Perceptions be [or not be] like so...
Let my Conditions be [or not be] like so...
Let my Consciousness be [or not be] like so..."
But because [all of these] are An-Atta
[they are all] subject to disease
and it is not possible to command:
"Let my Feelings be like so...
Let my Perceptions be like so...
Let my Conditions be like so...
Let my Consciousness be like so..."
What think you think, monks,
Is Body stable, or subject to growth, decay, and death?
- ‘Subject to growth, decay, and death, Lord.'
But is that which is subject to growth, decay, and death painful or pleasant?
- ‘Painful, Lord.'
‘Is it right to consider what is subject to growth, decay, and death,
what is painful and impermanent, as "Mine", "I", "Myself" [Atta]?'
-‘Certainly not, Lord.'
"Is it right" to consider any particular impermanent/painful thing as Atta. This makes it clear that the issue is whether some specific changeable reality deserves to be called Atta. This does not deny the existence of anything one might perceive. It just says that it is not right to give the name "Atta" to anything one perceives, with the practical implication that to call something Atta is to Cling to it with an expectation of permanence.
‘What do you think --
Are Bodies... Feelings... Perceptions... Conditions... Consciousness,
stable, or subject to growth, decay, and death?
—‘Certainly not [stable], Lord.'
Therefore Bodies... Feelings... Perceptions... Conditions... and Consciousness,
past, future, or present, subjective or objective,
earthly or ethereal,
low or exalted, near or far,
are to be perceived by him
who clearly and rightly understands as:
"This Body is not mine, is not I.
I am without Self (An-Atta)."
"This Feeling is not mine, is not I,
I am without self"
Etc.
Understanding this, the noble disciple turns away from Bodies, from Feelings,
from Perceptions, from Conditions, from Consciousness.
Being thus detached,
he is free from Craving and Clinging
being free from Craving and Clinging
he is liberated
and he experiences the freedom of liberation.
For he knows that the holy life has reached its culmination,
what he set out to accomplish is accomplished,
he is free.
Note that, in the context, "turn away" from Feelings clearly
does not mean "have no Feelings." This would amount to the advice to Cling to a
Feelingless state -- "Feelingless-ness being a particular Condition, belonging
to the Conditions-Khanda -- in other words having a deep and inflexible aversion
to all Feelings, therefore subject to Dukkha when Feelings involuntarily appear,
or when change takes place from one Feeling to another, beyond one's control.
"Turn away" must therefore be taken to mean "refrain from identifying with" any
particular feeling, to refrain from defining one's identity in relation to any
particular feeling. It means regarding all Feeling-states, including
feelinglessness, as equally An-Atta, therefore having no deep and inflexible
attachment to any particular state of Feeling or not-Feeling.
Concretely, this would not mean repressing Feelings, but the
opposite, being comfortable with an extremely wide range of Feelings. Sometimes
in the morning I say "I'm not myself today." What does this mean? It means that
there is a certain range of feeling-states (belonging to the Feeling-Khandha)
that I feel comfortable with, and fit within my self-image. When I experience
feeling-states beyond this range -- this is when I say "I'm not myself today."
But if I were able to regard all feeling-states whatsoever as equally an-atta,
there would be no boundaries as to the feeling-states I was comfortable with. I
would never say "I'm not myself today."
Does this passage say that the noble disciple should realize that he
is not a personal self, but that his being consists only in a
bundle of impersonal elements or forces listed as the Khandhas? It
actually says the opposite about his relation to the Khandhas: He is a personal
being who has the capability of becoming completely separate from --
psychologically independent of -- anything belonging to the Khandhas.
Actualizing this possibility, realizing or at least approaching this goal, is in
fact what finally matters in life.
******
There are two common ways of explaining the Buddhist An-Atta teaching that the passage quoted above shows to be clearly mistaken. Both of these mistakes commonly show up in student papers:
#1. Some students mistakenly describe the goal of Buddhism as "becoming An-Anatta," or "Achieving An-Atta."
#2. Other students insist that the term Atta must have some positive use, and so take it to refer to the Atta or "self" of the ideal Buddhist who regards everything belonging to the Khandhas as "not-self." Sometimes students mistakenly describe this ideal Buddhist by saying that "he has found his true Atta."
Partly this is a matter of the use of words. Understanding the thought of the Pali Canon requires understanding some key words that Buddhists use, and leaning to use these words in the same way they are used in the Pali Canon.
As to #1: The Pali Canon does not use the term An-Atta in phrases like, "become An-Atta," or "achieve An-Atta" to describe the Buddhist goal. Taken literally, this would amount to saying that the goal is to "become a non-self," which is exactly what passages like that above does not say. The proper phrase would be to say that the goal of Buddhism is "to become a person able to regard all perceptual objects as An-Atta."
#2 is a little more complicated. It is understandable that some students would want to use the term Atta to refer to the person who is able to regard all perceptual objects as An-Atta -- to say that this person is an "Atta" who regards everything belonging to the Khandhas as An-Atta -- or to say that this is a person who has rejected all false conceptions of himself, and has "found his true Atta." Why talk about all the things that cannot be called Atta, unless to contrast all these things with something that can be called Atta?
The idea here is not necessarily completely wrong. It's just that early Buddhists don't talk this way. Word-usage in the Pali Canon shows that its authors generally avoid using the term Atta to refer in a positive way to anything at all.
For example, one can note that, in the passage quoted above, the question simply is not raised as to whether "the noble disciple" can himself be referred to as Atta. This is partly because of the practical intent of the passage. Its main purpose is to further the practical project of internal transformation -- achieving the very difficult goal of genuinely becoming someone able to regard absolutely every Condition as not-essential-to-me. Raising the question as to whether the person who achieves this goal can be called Atta or not would serve no practical purpose. It would just satisfy a reader's need for a theory about what kind of being a person is -- in other words the need for a Self-View which the Pali Canon does not want to fulfill.
There is probably also a deeper reason having to do with certain other strands of thought in ancient India that Buddhists wanted to contrast themselves with. That is, there were some Hindu thinkers in India roughly contemporary with the Pali Canon, who believed that there is one perceptual object which very advanced meditators can directly perceive and experience at deep meditation, which does qualify as Atta (or Atman, to use the Sanskrit equivalent). To say that such an ecstatic spiritual experience is the experience of one's Atman is to give this experience immense religious significance, because in this Hindu context, Atman is identical with Brahman, the Supreme Being. As I will argue further in a separate essay, early Buddhist avoidance of any positive use of the word Atta/Atman at all is most likely due to the fact that they associated the word Atta/Atman with this particular view of the goal of meditation, and the religious significance that some attributed to certain specific meditation-experiences, precisely by describing such an experience as "an experience of Atman." The practical effect of the Buddhist ban on any positive use of the word Atta/Atman is to deny that any particular experience a person can have (any perceptual object a person could become aware of), even in deepest meditation, has any special religious significance. The only thing that has religious significance for early Buddhists is the ability to be free of Clinging to any particular experience or Condition in the world, in the external material world or in the internal mental/spiritual world. This point will be more fully explained in another essay.
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Can Atta be aptly translated as "soul"? The main objection to this is that normally, thought or beliefs about a soul in Western religion and philosophy are not connected with any meditation practices. Philosophers might try to prove or disprove the existence of a spiritual soul, or try to describe what a soul is if they think there is one. Religious believers might take "belief in a soul" as necessary to their faith. Ordinarily, among both philosophers and religious believers, "belief in a soul" is an intellectual belief about an unseen entity that they believe exists, but never expect to directly perceive -- don't expect it ever to become a "perceptual object." By contrast, some contemporary Hindu meditators think that there is some intense and transformative spiritual experience a person can have at deep meditation, and they say that this ecstatic experience is an experience of one's Atta/Atman. The main point of the Buddhist An-Atta teaching, for meditators, is that a particular experience like this is just one more experience (one more Feeling or mental Condition), not the experience of something one should Cling to or identify with.
So, as to its essential point, the An-Atta passage quoted above neither affirms nor denies the existence of a soul in the normal Western sense. If "being a soul" is something that I simply am, but can never experience and choose to Cling to or not Cling to, then the validity of Buddhist spirituality is not dependent on the existence of such a soul, but is also compatible with there being such an unseen entity.
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It could be said that the passage above does have to do with the issue of
"identity." Normally, most people have a "relational identity," an identity
defined in relation to possibly changing Conditions in the world, as when I take
"being a father," "being a teacher," "being a soccer star" as part of my
identity. To take "being a soccer star" as essential to my identity is to regard
this Condition as Atta. Since this Condition is changeable beyond my control (if
I lose my leg), defining my identity in this way makes me vulnerable to the kind
of deeply disturbing Dukkha we call "having an identity crisis."
Would regarding every Condition as An-Atta mean having
no identity? Not necessarily. It would just mean not having my sense of
self-esteem be deeply and inflexibly dependent on some particular relational
identity. At any given time, I would have some relational identity, but there
would always be some part of myself which would be independent of any particular
identity, an "I" able to freely float between different identities, and to adopt
new identities when changing Conditions render older identities unavailable.
This is a sense in which the above passage envisages the possibility of being an
"I" that exists beyond changing Conditions in the world.
The question sometimes arises: What am "I" if I regard everything I perceive as
"not-me"? The most explicit answer given in the Pali Canon is the one described
in an earlier essay: I am a non-abiding Viññana, a Viññana not "seeking support
in," "finding rest in," "abiding in" anything that I perceive.
What does this mean in practice? One way of putting this is
that I would be a person able to really have the attitude toward all Conditions:
"No matter what happens, I can handle it." "All Conditions" here would include
both external conditions and internal Conditions such as Feeling-states. I could
handle my wife running off with someone else, and I could also handle the
uncomfortable Feelings of jealousy this might arise in me.
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A final question could also arise: In the above passage,
"Consciousness," Viññana is listed as the fifth Khandha. Doesn't the word
"Consciousness" refer to "I" as a perceiving subject, so that its effect is to
deny that I as a perceiving subject am not a self?
To answer: Note first that listing Consciousness/Viññana as
the fifth Khandha is a different use of the word than its use in the passage
quoted in an earlier essay, which speaks of the relation of Viññana to the first
four Khandhas. Viññana in this latter sense can be in a state not vulnerable to
change if it refrains from "abiding in" any changeable perceptual objects. By
contrast, when Viññana is listed as the fifth Khandha as it is here, it is
treated as something that is by its very nature part of the world of change.
This is made evident in the following passage:
An unskilled person... regards [something belonging to the] Consciousness[-Khandha] as Atta... He lives obsessed by the notion: ‘I am [this] Consciousness' ... As he lives obsessed by this notion, that Consciousness of his changes and alters. With the change and alteration of Consciousness, there arise in him sorrow, lamentation, pain, displeasure, and despair... (Samyutta Nikaya, p. 854)
When the passage speaks of a person's Consciousness as something that could
change in such a way as to cause that person severe Dukkha, clearly it is not
referring to the "I" lasting through time that can be aware of such a change and
be deeply distressed by it.
I think the best solution to this puzzle lies in a different
aspect of Buddhist psychology, which speaks of Consciousness as operating
through the five external senses -- sight, hearing, touch, taste, smell -- or a
sixth internal sense called mano by which a person perceives internal
things like thoughts and feelings.
Consciousness operating through the sense of sight is called "eye-Consciousness" for example. "Eye-Consciousness" is clearly subject to change beyond one's control, (a) because the eye itself can become diseased or go blind, and (b) because seeing also depends on there being things to see, impossible in the darkness. If I go blind, or cannot see anything because of darkness, "I" am still a conscious being, conscious of the fact that I cannot see. And this change-in-eye-consciousness-beyond-my-control might cause "me" (as a conscious being) deep distress, unless I had managed to become a non-abiding Viññana, not "abiding in" anything changeable.
In other words, when this passage says "that Consciousness of his changes,"
it can't refer simply to "being conscious" in general, in which case
"Consciousness changes" could only mean, "becoming unconscious." But
clearly an unconscious person is not someone who feels "sorrow, lamentation,
etc." The phrase "that Consciousness of his changes," can only refer to a
change from one particular state of Consciousness (e.g. feeling
happy, calm, etc.), to an opposite particular state (feeling sad,
disturbed, etc.)
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All this could be put in linguistic terms by describing how
the word Atta is used in the Pali Canon: The word Atta in the Pali Canon has a
meaning but no reference -- more exactly, it has no reference among changeable
perceptual objects.
-- It has a meaning, which is quite different from the
meaning of the English word "self." The passage above clearly implies what this
meaning is: Something only qualifies as Atta if (a) it is something I can
perceive, and choose to Cling to or not Cling to, and (b) it is not subject to
change beyond my control, change which would be deeply disturbing if I did Cling
to it.
-- It has no reference because (a) everything I could
perceive and potentially Cling to is subject to change beyond my control, and
(b) the question is not raised whether the word Atta applies or does not apply
to "I" who choose to Cling or not-Cling to what I perceive.
By comparison, for me the English word "dragon" also has a
meaning but no reference. I know what the word "dragon" means. When I see an
animal in a movie cartoon, I know whether it fits the meaning of "dragon,"
whether it qualifies as a dragon or not. It's just that I believe that this word
has no reference to anything in the real world. There is no entity in the real
world to which it refers.
Or: For an atheist, the word "God" has a meaning but not a
reference. He knows what the word "God" means, what a God would be if there were
one. It's just that he thinks there isn't one. The word "God" has a meaning but
no reference.
Similarly, for early Buddhists, the word Atta has a meaning
but no reference. They have a very definite idea about what would qualify as
Atta if there were such a thing. They just think that there is no such thing.
More exactly, the only candidates considered for being Atta are all possible
perceptual objects grouped under the five Khandhas, and all perceptual objects
are changeable, so none of them fit the meaning of the word Atta, "it is not
right" to apply the word Atta to them.