boundless wrote: ↑Sat Mar 03, 2018 3:07 pm
Hello!
So the quesion is: what did the Buddha mean when he denied "the self"?
viewtopic.php?f=13&t=31350 Here there is an ongoing thread about this issue. (if you wish, you can post there your thoughts on this. I will certainly read them)
Thank you in advance!
I think everybody knows what we are speaking about. When it comes to humans above age 2 + 5 species of animals, there arises the though that there is a "me" that is seeing and experiencing things. The idea that there is this thing inside there, called a self. When we think about rocks or computer, nobody believes there is a self inside your car or things like that.
The appearence of this wrong conclusion in such organisms is based on lack of information about how things really work (ignorance) + the feeling of subjectivity. When the real way a human organisms works is understood, this opinion will arise no more and will be seen as a stupid opinion based on not knowing how things work. Similar to how a modern human would look at a bushman that claims cars are pushed by mysterious forces. And this is where the "supreme confidence" of stream entry comes from. If one would come to a modern human and tell him cars are pushed by tiger-forces, would the modern human have any doubt about things really working like that ? Would he seriously even consider such a stupid idea ? Or would he have supreme confidence that cars work because of the engine, the fuel, etc. ?
Buddha claims the dhamma is "clear, well exposed, inviting one to come and see". Weather it is correct or not one can only know by checking for himself. If he was correct then great, you now know an invaluable information. If he was wrong, then he was just another philosopher who got it wrong like so many others have been. The only way one can find out weather he was correct or not is through reading the higher dhamma section of the nikayas. (connected discourses, chapter 2,3,4)