In the very self

The late Dr. Nakamura, who was perhaps one of Japan's greatest Buddhist scholars and who, by the way, was a great Vedic scholar, had this to say about personality-view and the self (atman).

"Thus, in early Buddhism, they taught avoidance of a wrong comprehension of non-âtman as a step to the real âtman. Of things not to be identified with the self, the misunderstanding of body as âtman is especially strong opposed. Foolish people comprehend their body as their possession. Buddhist of early days called this miscomprehension 'the notion on account of the attachment to the existence of one's body' (sakkâyaditthi) and taught the abandonment of it" (Ways of Thinking of Eastern Peoples, 90-91).

Some Buddhists, today, believe the Buddha denied the self, altogether; that it is the central theme of his religion. But there is no undisputed evidence in the Buddhist canon that the Buddha made every effort to both de-transcendentalize and deconstruct the self; hopefully to eliminate its sacred privilege for us. The case against the self has been largely a straw man attack by a particular school of Buddhism. Incidentally, nobody should be surprised that Dr. Nakamura, despite his credentials, has been all but ignored when it comes to his academic view about self.

It is almost a given in virtually all of the Buddha's discourses that the criterion is the self, in the sense of being the implicit point of reference for disclosing what is real and what needs to be abandoned. In keeping with this, the central aim of the Buddha’s methodology is to get us to abandon the conditioned for the unconditioned.

In light of this, only the modern reads the Buddha's teaching otherwise, in a completely heterodox and skeptical manner as if the Buddha were saying, "See, we are conditioned all the way down." (This brings to mind a story told about Bertrand Russell. After his lecture to the public about the wonders of astronomy, describing the planets and the sun, a little old lady, sitting at the back of the hall, told him,"What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant turtle." Amused, Bertrand asked her, "What pray tell us what is the turtle standing on?" "Oh you're very clever, young man, very clever," said the old lady. "But it's turtles all the way down!")

For a mind trained in the most simple basics of classical philosophy and theology, the Buddha's methodology is clearly apophatic inasmuch as what is to be removed is the conditioned so that unremovable self is laid bare. Indeed, the Buddha’s teaching is all about the shedding of the conditioned garments of impermanence and suffering to reach complete nirvana in the very self (praty-atman).

Comments

[Lebensgeist]

Great Post. Great to know another source for the position that early Buddhism did not deny the self and was apopathic. How will those who rule out the self explain rebirth? They can`t. Some say conciousness transmigrates and make conciousness a sort of atman. Only if we believe in existence of self, yet undetectable, there is something to identify with that is reborn. No Self, No rebirth. It is awful to watch how some of these people want to explain at the same time no-self and rebirth. At the end, they always fail miserably, they cannot make sense.

[Bodhiratna]

LOL, that story about Bertrand Russell is wonderfully hilarious. It is pitiful and quite unfortunate to know some of these Buddhists, who are mostly Westerners (and often of the Theravada sect), tend to advocate the view that the Buddha teaches no-self anywhere.

It is very probable that most of these no-self Buddhists are former Christian and/or people with mental disorder. If one wants to verify about what was said, just swing over to Esangha and see how the 'establishment' (mostly 'rank and file' moderators) operate a Buddhist form! Certainly these people have control issues and they do not seem to care about genuine Buddhism except to keep their 'power' over the masses.

I am quite glad to know that blog like this let viewers know the real side of Buddhism. And in this arena of internet proliferation, more and more people will wake up and intuit into the 'fact' that these no-self Buddhists are nothing but Mara in Buddhist robes.

Bodhiratna