By speaking of the I, what is meant is not the vocal or subvocal I, or even a conceived shadowy I, but something quite beyond it. This is the ‘first person’ that can never be the subject of investigation by the physical sciences or psychology.
Buddhism begins with the I. It can’t begin with a rejection of the I insofar as any such rejection will still be attended by the unspeakable, silent I. Such a capricious denial of the I, upon introspection, has not removed the I at all. One simply believes there is no I who refuses to look beyond their mental concepts to where the real I lives. Even those who believe they can negate everything mental only end up at the doorstep of the ineffable I.
Evidence that Buddhism begins with the I is no more evident than in the many discourses in which the Buddha teaches his students that they are not the Five Aggregates (pañca-khandha) consisting of material shape, feeling, perception, habitual tendencies and consciousness.
“Wherefore, monks, whatever is material shape, past, future or present, internal ... thinking of all this material shape as ‘This is not mine, this I am not, this is not my self,’ he should see it thus as it really is by means of perfect wisdom. Whatever is feeling ... whatever is perception ... whatever are the habitual tendencies ... whatever is consciousness, past, future or present, internal ... thinking of all this consciousness as ‘This is not mine, this am I not, this is not my self,’ he should see it thus as it really is by means of perfect wisdom. Seeing it thus, monks, the instructed disciple of the pure ones turns away from material shape, he turns away from feeling, turns away from perception, turns away from the habitual tendencies, turns away from consciousness; turning away he is detached; by his detachment he is freed; in freedom there is the knowledge that he is freed and he comprehends: Destroyed is birth, brought to a close the Brahma-faring, done is what was to be done, there is no more being such or so” (M. iii. 20).
The Buddha wants his students to make a sharp distinction between the unspeakable I and the psychophysical organism (pañca-khandha) which is secondary to the I. For the Buddha, the great danger in not making such a sharp distinction which either fundamentally denies the I (natthatta) completely, or confuses it with the Five Aggregates, is that the I will entrap itself in samsara.
It is only when the I becomes support (natho) of itself that the bewitching power of the Five Aggregates is severely weakened in which its world starts to become empty and barren whereas before it seemed otherwise. Still, this is only the beginning of the path because the I still has to see that the world of phenomena, which is manifest through the conditioned Five Aggregates, lacks substance which it alone is. Only then does samsara stop insofar since the I-substance is all there is and ever was or will be; which now fully recognizes itself in all of its infinite expressions whereas before it did not.
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