Martin Verhoeven
Buddhism, then, does not advance a concept of a permanent self. Human beings tenaciously cling to a mistaken idea of self, and this in turn gives rise to pride, selfishness and attachment to self. That which holds continually to the idea of self is sometimes termed mānas. As this doctrine applies to the ego, or “me,” it is alternately rendered as the teaching of “impersonality.” Breaking free of this confused attachment to a large degree marked the successful completion of the Buddha’s journey to “enlightenment.” With such hard-won insight into the truth of no-self came an end to suffering and entry into a state of profound peace, that is, nirvana. This state is often mistakenly understood to mean “extinction.” It is true that with the realization of nirvana, the transitory psycho-physical elements which constituted the Buddha’s false personality disappeared without a trace. Just as all the mangoes attached to a stem bearing a bunch of mangoes undergo the fate of that stem if it is broken, so the body of the Tathagata has broken what leads to existence. As long as his body lasts, gods and men will see him. On the breaking up of the body, at the end of his life, gods and men will see him no more.3 However, as this passage carefully points out, the Buddha does not say there is nothing, only that what is is not accessible to the eyes. In another related passage this important distinction is drawn even more clearly. Just as the flame touched by the wind goes toward stillness, goes from sight, so the sage delivered from his names and bodies [or the five impure aggregates] enters stillness, goes from the sight of all. . . . He who has attained stillness, no measure can measure; to speak of him there are no words. What the mind might conceive vanishes. Thus every path is closed to discussion.4 This subtle distinction is not theological hair-splitting. It conveys a psychological and spiritual insight that lies at the heart of the Buddhist idea of self and person. There is, it appears, a concept of permanence in Buddhism associated with the state of nirvana, but it is not self or anything a self can possess. Paradoxically, nirvana is the condition no-self; it exists but is free of a self. We will return to this paradox later. The Anatta-Lakkhana Sutta (Discourse on the Characteristic of NoSelf) was the second core teaching that the Buddha preached to his first five disciples after his enlightenment. When the disciples heard this teaching, they became Arhats (the word literally means “worthy of respect” and refers to enlightened persons below the stage of Buddhahood). So important is this teaching to a proper understanding and practice of
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Religion East & West