The Great anattā/anātman debate

[Goofaholix]

The question is not which translation is correct. The question is why anyone would think the differences in translation make any difference in this case. Because to me in this case I see no difference. Regardless which translation you were to hand me, I would see a self going to nibbana, even in the one saying "oneself."

And by focussing on one pronoun you've missed the whole point of the poem... one doesn't get to Nibbana by normal modes of transport (ie animals in those days) like it were a place to travel to, but by taming the mind (or taming self view).

A significant portion of Buddhist scripture and practice revolves around the taming of the mind, this poem is consistent with that.

[Goofaholix]

...
In practical terms, the way I see it what is important is not whether there is some kind of a transcendental non-self Self beyond all the things we normally consider self, but rather dismantling the false self-making here and now. If there is some kind of a Higher Self, it will reveal itself and the less we conceptualise it and cling to this idea, the more chance we have of that happening, since this concept will just become another fetter, another fortress of the false self...

Well explained.

[moggy]

No knots exist for one with conceit abandoned;
For him all knots of conceit are consumed.
Though the wise one has transcended the conceived,
He still might say, ‘I speak,’
He might say too, ‘They speak to me.’
Skillful, knowing the world’s parlance,
He uses such terms as mere expressions.

Is the above sutta a "just shut up" sutta as well?

[chownah]

The question is not which translation is correct. The question is why anyone would think the differences in translation make any difference in this case. Because to me in this case I see no difference. Regardless which translation you were to hand me, I would see a self going to nibbana, even in the one saying "oneself."

For me the noun vs. pronoun idea is a non-starter....totally meaningless. There could be some important distinction there but if there is then I am missing it and yet I still find a consistent message in all the translations. It seems that if there is an important distinction there then you are missing it just like I am missing it and you still find a consistent message in all the translations just like I do. So, we are on the same side of the issue in many ways. The only difference I see between us is that you take the verse to imply the existence of some kind of self while I see the verse as a lesson for people who are just beginning on the path as evidenced by their thinking that nibhanna is a place you can go to in a vehicle and the lesson being taught is that it happens through ones own internal efforts and not by traveling. Clearly if the lesson is being taught to someone with such an uninformed view that you have to travel to get to nibhanna then one must talk in the most conventional terms if you want them to understand what you are saying. Would the buddha teach a really difficult idea to understand like anatta to such uninformed people?.....I think not....the buddha was probably not teaching anatta so it is probably wrong to interpret the words used as support for some view on anatta.
chownah

[Coëmgenu]

I suspect the misunderstanding here comes about due to the fact that the mind of the Buddha transcends the 5 aggregate-consciousnesses (ear-consciousness, nose-consciousness, etc).

The misreading might be wrongly conflating transcending the aggregates with not having them altogether.

A mind that transcends the aggregates would be a true self. If your mind transcends the aggregates but still "has" them, then you haven't achieved parinibbana yet.

If it were true that a mind that transcends the aggregates would be a true self it would still be inappropriate to believe from a mainstream Buddhist standpoint on account of the inability we have to form any viable concept of the self.

If a true self exists, its impossible to form any viable conception of it, hence the no-self teaching. It is not a teaching saying "absolutely definitely there is no continuation to your life and you have no cosmic significance", it is simply an acknowledgement of the teaching of the Buddha vis-a-vis if it is possible to form a conception of the self that is without wrong-view.

[binocular]

I ask you to provide examples of authoritative Buddhist teachers shutting down dissent with "no self" as an ontological fait accompli, and you come back with Wikipedia and Encyclopedia Britannica? I think you should read the former past the first sentence as I think it provides a more balanced presentation suggests.

I provided two well-known resources and asked a question -- If what Wiki and EB state is not in line with Buddhist doctrine, then why do Buddhists, in this time and age, tolerate such misinterpretation?

This is much more explicit, from a well known introductory handbook written 60 years ago. I'm not sure what Walpola Rahula is famous for other than having written a well known introductory handbook written 60 years ago but I don't think he was an example of what I was looking for.

Many people who came to Buddhism did so through his book. And some of them have the "You will agree and shut up" attitude.

I don't know how long you've been practicing but it's probably past time to move away from dated introductory handbooks. Practice oriented teachers these days present a much more balanced and practical approach of finding release from identification with self view rather than obsessing about ontological questions.

Granted, things do appear to be changing.

Interestingly, some prominent people at this forum (and at a former one), who used to be so adamant about no-self, don't seem to engage in these discussions anymore. The power dynamics appear to have changed. I never thought such would be possible.
There was a time when discussions on anatta were severely limited or not permitted at all. No-self was the party line and anyone who dared to think differently got a verbal kick in the head from the powers that be. Back then, I was one of the many who took the force of the blow. Maybe I am a bit like that Japanese soldier who lived in the forest for decades after the end of WWII, thinking WWII is still going on.
Those who nowadays have the opportunity to discuss anatta, shouldn't take this opportunity for granted. It wasn't always or everywhere like this.


Edited for spelling.

[binocular]

Well explained.

Really, despite this part --

According to Buddhism, the deepest, most pernicious erroneous view held by sentient beings is the view that a permanent, eternal, immutable, independent self exists. There is no such self, and deep down we know that.

http://www.acmuller.net/yogacara/articles/intro.html

?

[binocular]

If a true self exists, its impossible to form any viable conception of it, hence the no-self teaching. It is not a teaching saying "absolutely definitely there is no continuation to your life and you have no cosmic significance", it is simply an acknowledgement of the teaching of the Buddha vis-a-vis if it is possible to form a conception of the self that is without wrong-view.

The social context of this is that it is (at least for some people) not easy to find a Buddhist who will allow for a view that broad. So it's hard to have trust or faith that Buddhists would allow for this. This can be a source of anxiety about Buddhism and Buddhists; and this anxiety doesn't necessarily remain unmanifested. It can show in how one builds some doctrinal views.

If someone has become independent of others in the Teacher's Teaching -- that's great for them. Those who haven't are in trouble.

[Dan74]

Well explained.

Really, despite this part --

According to Buddhism, the deepest, most pernicious erroneous view held by sentient beings is the view that a permanent, eternal, immutable, independent self exists. There is no such self, and deep down we know that.

http://www.acmuller.net/yogacara/articles/intro.html

?

Do you take issue with the quote from Prof Lusthaus or what I wrote that Goofaholix had quoted? It helps if you're more specific.

[binocular]

Do you take issue with the quote from Prof Lusthaus or what I wrote that Goofaholix had quoted? It helps if you're more specific.

You and he appear to be saying different things. He says there is no permanent self, you say it's important to dismantle the false self (and that the Higer Self, if there is such a thing, will reveal itself in due time).

He says, as quoted by you:

According to Buddhism, the deepest, most pernicious erroneous view held by sentient beings is the view that a permanent, eternal, immutable, independent self exists. There is no such self, and deep down we know that. This makes us anxious, since it entails that no self or identity endures forever.
/.../
Though nothing whatsoever is permanent, we imagine all sort of permanent things - from God to soul to essences - in an effort to avoid facing the fact that none of us has a permanent self.

http://www.acmuller.net/yogacara/articles/intro.html

But you say:

In practical terms, the way I see it what is important is not whether there is some kind of a transcendental non-self Self beyond all the things we normally consider self, but rather dismantling the false self-making here and now. If there is some kind of a Higher Self, it will reveal itself and the less we conceptualise it and cling to this idea, the more chance we have of that happening, since this concept will just become another fetter, another fortress of the false self.

This back-and-forth about "there is a higher self"/"there is no self" - what purpose does it serve? It seems to me the Buddhist project is about removing delusion, not about arguing over views.

Have you not been following this thread?

[Coëmgenu]

If a true self exists, its impossible to form any viable conception of it, hence the no-self teaching. It is not a teaching saying "absolutely definitely there is no continuation to your life and you have no cosmic significance", it is simply an acknowledgement of the teaching of the Buddha vis-a-vis if it is possible to form a conception of the self that is without wrong-view.

The social context of this is that it is (at least for some people) not easy to find a Buddhist who will allow for a view that broad. So it's hard to have trust or faith that Buddhists would allow for this. This can be a source of anxiety about Buddhism and Buddhists; and this anxiety doesn't necessarily remain unmanifested. It can show in how one builds some doctrinal views.

If someone has become independent of others in the Teacher's Teaching -- that's great for them. Those who haven't are in trouble.

Even if the Buddhist in question allowed for a view that broad, that broad view is functionally equivalent to the "there is no self" position, provided to Buddhist in question is orthodox. Because, for us, human beings, there is no self. Maybe there was a true self to the Buddha, from his perspective, (who am I to say?). But that seems like pointless speculation, along the lines of "how many angels can fit on the head of a pin? can the Buddha unenlighten himself?".

He did go out of his way to label annihilationism as a fallacy, which means anyone who is telling you that there is nothing, nada, zilch, after death, or that from one birth to another there is no continuity, is misrepresenting the teaching and probably comes from deficient Western Dharma proliferation, having inherited "half" of the teaching through books and the suttas, but hasn't actually engaged the religion in any meaningful way.

----------

If there was a "true self" accessible to the Buddha, he certainly didn't believe it was possible to form any conception of it at all, from our perspective, otherwise he would have just explained: "there is a true self but you can't access it without Awakening" or something of the like.

Even that, to the Buddha, would be a wrong-view, since any conception of self is out the window.

So the not-self teaching and the terminological expression of "no-self" (which is merely a coalescence of that teaching), are both fundementally the same teaching.

Not that anyone is arguing this anymore in the thread, but here's my two cents on the no-self/not-self debtate: changing no-self to not-self wont actually end annihilationism, I am not as optimistic as Ven Thanissaro. The only thing that ends annihilationism, in my opinion, is the full embrace of orthodox Buddhism.

[Coëmgenu]

...since any conception of self is out the window.

I think some aspects of the orthodox teaching strike Westerners as off-putting because it clashes with our Americanized sense of "think for yourself", "explore every option".

Because as Stephen Batchelor points out, you can argue that Buddhism does legitimately have a conception of "thought crime" within it. The question is if you decide to trust the Buddha and agree that conceptions of the self are wrong-views. Because certainly, if you espouse wrong-views, they are treated as thought-crime because they are antithetical to Buddhadharma.

If you are Buddhist, you say "yes, the prohibition on these certain types of views is justified" because Buddhism does have to be taken, at least partially, on faith at first. No one goes into Buddhism already knowing all of the scholastic elements of the tradition.

If you are a critic of Buddhism coming from the general Secular-Humanist school of Agnosticism/Atheism, you just think Buddha wants to tell you what to think, and how to think it, like any cult leader.

Not accusing anyone here of being a Secular Humanist Agnostici/Atheist, that is just a very wide-ranging category of people in the West and the influence of its distinct hermeneutical style and mainstream American moral values vis-a-vis personal freedom and liberation (not in the Dharmic sense) is vast and creeps into many areas of society that don't identify themselves as being "secular Humanist".

[davidbrainerd]

Show me that Buddha says nobody goes to Nibbana. Of course, if you did so, you wouldn't be proving anything, since I know many places where he says people do go to Nibbana. It would only mean we had a contradiction in the suttas, BUT I don't think such a contradiction is there. Buddha never said "nobody goes to Nibbana" any more than he ever said "there is no self." And those two statements are one: nobody goes to Nibbana = there is no self, and there is no self = nobody goes to Nibbana. And none of you can demonstrate either statement.

[davidbrainerd]

No knots exist for one with conceit abandoned;
For him all knots of conceit are consumed.
Though the wise one has transcended the conceived,
He still might say, ‘I speak,’
He might say too, ‘They speak to me.’
Skillful, knowing the world’s parlance,
He uses such terms as mere expressions.

Is the above sutta a "just shut up" sutta as well?

This is referring to the aggregates. Like if I walk into the Mexican supermarket to buy some corn husks or avocados and they look at me funny because I'm white. "Me" and "I'm" here are merely expressions. They're looking at the aggregates, not the real me.

[davidbrainerd]

The question is not which translation is correct. The question is why anyone would think the differences in translation make any difference in this case. Because to me in this case I see no difference. Regardless which translation you were to hand me, I would see a self going to nibbana, even in the one saying "oneself."

For me the noun vs. pronoun idea is a non-starter....totally meaningless. There could be some important distinction there but if there is then I am missing it and yet I still find a consistent message in all the translations. It seems that if there is an important distinction there then you are missing it just like I am missing it and you still find a consistent message in all the translations just like I do. So, we are on the same side of the issue in many ways. The only difference I see between us is that you take the verse to imply the existence of some kind of self while I see the verse as a lesson for people who are just beginning on the path as evidenced by their thinking that nibhanna is a place you can go to in a vehicle and the lesson being taught is that it happens through ones own internal efforts and not by traveling. Clearly if the lesson is being taught to someone with such an uninformed view that you have to travel to get to nibhanna then one must talk in the most conventional terms if you want them to understand what you are saying. Would the buddha teach a really difficult idea to understand like anatta to such uninformed people?.....I think not....the buddha was probably not teaching anatta so it is probably wrong to interpret the words used as support for some view on anatta.
chownah

The point is clearly that you can't go there in physical terms, yet something goes there. So I guess really modern Buddhism rejects going to Nibbana in any sense altogether. So Nibbana doesn't exist? Is that what I'm hearing?