What if Anatta(non self) actually means Not Me, Not Mine???

[lyndon taylor]

My apologies tilt, you actually attacked my awareness as a buddhist and that didn't seem fair, thank you for your apology, sincerely

Well I've almost got the skhandas memorized; let me start, and start with the things I totally accept as illusory and end with the ones i still have trouble with like Mind

Anything I can see is not me, me, mine, or my self, anything I hear is not me, mine or myself, anything I can touch, taste, feel, smell is not me, mine, or my self, my body its organs and my senses are not me, mine or my self, my everday thoughts are not me, mine or my self, and finally my conciousness is not me, mine , or my self (this is from memory, mind you, I may even have left out 1 of the skandhas)

I personally am of the school that believes there is still something left that is me, mine, the pure good within me, that goes on after death and existed before birth, but thats no what we are here to argue about

I am not sure what you mean by what do the skandhas entail, but the skandhas are by nature illusorary or deceptive, they want to trick us into thinking they are much more important than they really are, they are impermanent, they don't last forever,and you sure as hell can't take them with you when you die, we do have to live with them, but we can learn often to ignore them and definetly not let them run our lives. they are not Dhammas, they are not truth, OK ill stop now before I start to try making things up!!! cheers

[tiltbillings]

My apologies tilt, you actually attacked my awareness as a buddhist and that didn't seem fair, thank you for your apology, sincerely

I did not intentionally attack your awareness as a Buddhist, but you might want to consider how you have come across here with your rewriting the suttas, for example. But we can put that aside.

Well I've almost got the skhandas memorized; let me start, and start with the things I totally accept as illusory and end with the ones i still have trouble with like Mind

Anything I can see is not me, me, mine, or my self, anything I hear is not me, mine or myself, anything I can touch, taste, feel, smell is not me, mine, or my self, my body its organs and my senses are not me, mine or my self, my everday thoughts are not me, mine or my self, and finally my conciousness is not me, mine , or my self (this is from memory, mind you, I may even have left out 1 of the skandhas)

I personally am of the school that believes there is still something left that is me, mine, the pure good within me, that goes on after death and existed before birth, but thats no what we are here to argue about

Basically, the khandhas are a way of talking about the totality of the experience of what we are at any moment. They are tools of investigation, and it is at looking at the khandhas, as they play themselves out moment to moment in our lives, that the Dhamma unfolds.

"It is in this very fathom-long physical frame with its perceptions and mind, that, I declare, lies the world, and the arising of the world, and the cessation of the world, and the path leading to the cessation of the world." — SN 2.26

[reflection]

That teachings don't seem to make sense to you is not a good reason to change them around. It is the very delusion, the very wrong view, that is to be addressed, not the teachings. This goes for all of us really, so this isn't meant to be taken personal.

What I mean is, the teachings don't contain the truth, they are only pointing to it. So anyone can change the teachings all they want, but still have the wrong view. Nothing is effectively changed, only they may convince themselves of understanding more than they really do.

But when deeper understanding arises the teachings begin to be seen from another perspective, a 'lower' form of truth, using conventions and words, which will in essence never be fully right, no matter how we translate it, or even if we don't translate it.

[lyndon taylor]

I wasn't trying to change around the teachings, Reflection, I was just doing an innocent experiment, not devious crime!!!, to see if there was any possibility that atta had been mistranslated as self, when it meant mind, the experiment worked in the sense that not only did all the scriptures make perfect sense when we replace self with mine, but through our members support we actually found a scripture that proved, to the Buddha at least, the teaching of the skandhas being not self also meant not mine, and not me. In other words it had a triple meaning, so obviously my aha monent of the word mine popping into my head was just my memory of reading; "this is not mine, this is not me, this is not my self", in reference to the skandhas many times before on forums, my temple never taught me the teaching of no self as I was just a novice. this is all pretty new stuff to me, I've only been studying no self for about 6 months and for more than half of that time I was convinced it was a load of hooey!!!! Well people change time goes on, its been a wonderful learning experience, my sincere apologies for any who mistook the pure intent of what I was trying to do, which is simply make sense of some very difficult to grasp scriptural concepts.

I am not under the illusion that the pali word atta means me, mine and self, all three, although one noted source I quoted said atta can sometimes in common usage be translated as me, and attaniya as mine

[reflection]

I understand you are trying to make sense of it and I'm happy you got some more understanding. I'm not saying it is totally wrong or a crime or anything. It was meant as a general warning to look in the right direction.

Because in my experience whenever teachings are hard to understand it is better to question our own understanding/experience instead of the teachings or even translations. I've found that whenever I did not understand the suttas, it was usually due to me, not due to the suttas or due to the translation. There are some iffy translations of certain passages, but those are not that central.

Also, the teachings only point to something. However we translate it, it will always miss the point. If something would be better off with another translation, that doesn't change the thing they are pointing to. And that what's being pointed to, that's the thing to investigate, turn around and experiment with. By merely retranslating and rethinking people fall into the trap of staying at a level of convention, missing the real point. Deep insights are not based on thoughts.

[SarathW]

Hi Lynden
Have you read this article?

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/auth ... el202.html