Beware of authority

In 1895 when Lord Kelvin said that, “Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible,” how many people believed him?  I am guessing many.  He was a man of his time and well respected.  But he was dead wrong about flying machines.  In our everyday world, many people are dead wrong about a lot of things even though, in many examples, the evidence seems to say that they are not wrong.  This happens in our courts, our universities, and in the business world including many other places, too many to name. 

In Buddhism, we believe the Dalai Lama if he tells us the Buddha denied the âtman.  The same goes with Thich Nhat Hanh, Walpola Rahula, David Kalupahana, Steven Collins, to name just a few.  The number of persuasive authorities seems overwhelming.  But a preponderance of authorities does not make it so, that the Buddha categorically denied the âtman. 

What reason would the Buddha have for denying the âtman in the first place?  Is the âtman suffering?  If it is suffering, the Buddha never says so. First of all, he tells us that it is the five khandhas  of grasping consisting of material shape, feelings, perception, volitions, and consciousness that are suffering (D. ii. 305).  Does the Buddha equate any of these suffering khandha with the âtman?  The answer is no, of course not.  Is the cause of suffering the âtman?  It cannot be.  The Buddha has never said the âtman is the cause of suffering.  What then is the cause or origination of suffering?  It is the “five khandhas affected by clinging that is the cause of suffering” (M. i. 191).  Logically, the cessation of suffering can only come about when we remove the desire for the five khandhas (M. i. 191).  Nowhere does the Buddha mention the removal of the âtman or in modern parlance, the death of the ego.

Our great scholars and priests of the no-self (anâtman) never mention the fact that it is the five khandhas that are the problem all sentient beings face.  The âtman is not a problem, except that it clings to what is not itself mistaking these khandhas for itself rather than transcending them (nirodha).

Authorities can be helpful—but not always.  It is a dangerous habit to get into when we begin to over trust an authority hence not relying on our own ability to realize truth.

Comments

[Thezennist]

Eidolon : Not if you read the entire sutra beginning on page 84, Chapter 27e.

[Methexis]

The Buddha is an authority, too.

[Eidolon]

Okay, Zennist. Following your frequently reiterated quotation from the Catusparisat Sutra, I have obtained the same (the only English translation which exists, apparently, from 1973). Here is a quote I'd like your interpretation of, found on p. 86 of the E. J. Brill edition, Chapter 27, verse 10, the Buddha is speaking:
"O monks, the foolish ordinary man (prthagjana) [translated thus in the text as are the following Sanskrit words], who is not learned (in the dharma), keeps to the conventional designation (prajnapti): 'A Self, a self', but there is no self nor that which belongs to the self. When suffering, O monks, arises, it (just) arises (and) when suffering is being destroyed [footnoted], it is destroyed. When things (samskara) arise, they arise (and) when things are being destroyed, they are destroyed. Dependent on these causes and conditions the continuum of things (samskarasantati) originates."

So doesn't this contradict what you have said about the Buddha's claims re the Self? Isn't the best interpretation that the Buddha is indicating that there *is* Something beyond the individual sense of self, which is "self-like", likely held in common by all sentient beings? I agree that nowhere have I seen any translation of the Buddha quoted as directly denying the existence of atman, identified as such by the translator.