Selves are not independently existing soul-pearls, but artifacts of the social processes that create us.
Daniel Dennett - Consciousness Explained
No-self (Pāli: अनत्ता anattā; Sanskrit: अनात्मन् anātman; Tibetan: བདག་མེད་ bdag med; Chinese: 無我 wú-wǒ; Japanese: 無我 muga) is a key philosophical concept in Buddhism - it’s the idea that separated Buddhism from Hinduism.
This post is separated into four sections:
In the same way that Jesus was born into a Jewish society, the Buddha was born into a Hindu society. Many of the ideas of Hinduism (such as reincarnation) found there way into Buddhism. One idea that didn’t was Ātman.
Ātman (/ˈɑːtmən/; Sanskrit: आत्मन्) is existence of an individual essence or soul. The goal of Hinduism is realization that Ātman is the true self, unchanging and eternal, and its identification with Brahman, the ultimate reality.
Buddhism instead teaches Anātman - noself. The goal of Buddhism is the realization that there is nothing in the universe that is a separate, permanent, unchanging self does not exist.
In the course of his life, one man acquires many ‘I’s’.
Jean Vaysse - Toward Awakening
No-self is the opposite of our natural instinct. It’s even further still from the strong sense of individualism we have in the West.
Our instinct is that we exist in the world - there is the world and then there is us. We have a body and a story, and somewhere along our entire journey there is a constant I.
This body is mine, I want to have certain thoughts, I don’t want to have certain feelings. All this desire rests upon the idea that the world is over there, and I am here.
No-self teaches that instead of being separate from the world, we are the world. There is no world and us - just the world.
As soon as something gets into the business of self-preservation, boundaries become important, for if you are setting out to preserve yourself, you don’t want to squader effort trying to preserve the whole world
Daniel Dennett - Consciousness Explained
Evolution is driven by separation - as Daniel Dennett notes in Consciousness Explained, the distinction between everything inside the closed boundary of an organism and the external world is at the heart of all biological processes.
Evolution requires a sense of self - separation is needed to drive the test component (through competition) of the generate, test select loop that drives evolution.
In order for us to survive and thrive as a biological thing, we need to be separated from the world and others. This separation, while useful for evolution, is a falsehood.
The naive reaction to no-self is nihilism - that the no-self argument is denying existence. This isn’t what no-self means at all.
No-self denies the existence of a separate, inherently existing self. The kind of self that exists independently of the rest of the universe, the kind of self that gives rise to a ‘me and them’ attitude.
It does not deny that you or I exist - we most certainly do! But this thing we call I, is not separate from everything else.
The mind is divided into parts that sometimes conflict.
Jonathan Haidt
His (Siddhartha Gautama) amazing insight was that all suffering or dissatisfaction arises from a mistaken understanding that we are a separate and distinct self.
Tara Branch - Radical Acceptance
Our incorrect view of a separate self causes suffering. We identify and appropriate to impermanent things that are not us. We create and hold onto stories and narratives about who we are and what we should be.
Thinking and identifying with our little bit of the universe causes suffering.
Our sense of self creates temporal connections that don’t exist. We think about past failures as our own. In reality the person that made those mistakes doesn’t exist anymore. They deserve our compassion, not our guilt. This disconnection from the failures of your past and today allows you to feel compassion where you otherwise would feel guilt.
Our sense of self increases the physical and psychic pain that we otherwise can let go of. All of a sudden it is my hand, my emotions, my feelings that are causing me pain. This pain is mine, and I need to do something about it.
As soon as something gets into the business of self-preservation, boundaries become important, for if you are setting out to preserve yourself, you don’t want to squander effort trying to preserve the whole world: you draw the line.
Daniel Dennett - Consciousness Explained
Our sense of self naturally brings about comparisons with others. The success of our peers makes us feel bad when it should do the opposite.
In reality, there is no separation between us and others - the successes of others are our successes. The pain of others is also our pain.
Sharing success is metaphysical support for commitment to a kind life. Sharing pain is a metaphysical support for commitment to a compassionate life.
How can we start to decompose, deconstruct and detach from this idea of a separate self?
When we look at our body closely, we can see that the boundary between the world and ourselves is fluid.
When we breath, we intake oxygen into our blood. At what point is it ours? When we exhale, we eject carbon dioxide into the air. When is it part of the world and not us?
Impermanence is crucial to the life of everything.
Thich Nhat Hanh - The Heart of Understanding
The truth of impermanence means that an inherently existing, separate self cannot exist. Anything that is impermanent cannot be separate. What is was before and what it is after mean it does not inherently exist - instead the self is caused by the universe.
The second vector used to attack the self is that of control.
Our illusion of control (of both internal and external) smashes into our massive lack of influence in the world inside and outside of us. Our own subconscious hides information, biases the information we see and influences us using subtle feeling and emotion.
The Cula Saccaka Sutta is found in the Majjhima Nikaya (Middle Length Discourses). In it the Buddha teaches that we cannot command our mind our body - we cannot demand our body to never age.
Another example of our lack of control is Daniel Kanehman’s System One and System Two. System One is an automatic, quick and unconscious way of thinking. System Two is a slow, deliberate and conscious way of thinking. How much control do you have over either?
System One is clearly not you - it happens without your conscious understanding. System Two perhaps feels more like you - but are you in control of the thoughts that pop into your head? Are you in control of the emotions that you feel?
No self means freedom from the past - freedom from your past and future selves. In freeing yourself you become one with everything else.
It’s not that you don’t exist - clearly you exist, other people exist, the world exists.
So what is the no in no-self? The negation in no-self denies the existence of a separate self - there is no self that exists without something else. That something is the entire universe.
This link, connection and dependence between you and the world gives you the space to exist.
Each wave is born and is going to die, but the water is free from birth and death.
Thich Nhat Hanh - The Heart of Understanding
The final, ultimate, atemporal conclusion of no-self is that if you don’t exist separately, you exist for all time. When the biological, social and intellectual processes that we identify with come to an end, the universe will continue. And so will we.