The problem with the Theravada standpoint of no self (anattâ) is that it assumes the five khandhas or aggregates are exhaustive. If you can't find an âtman here, there is none to be found—and the Buddha found no âtman in these aggregates, or so the story goes (which happens to be nonsense).
But the Buddha never intended the aggregates to be the alpha and omega, that if one cannot find their self here—well, there is no âtman (S., anâtman). It’s an illusion.
Still, despite this, the Buddha taught the destruction and abandonment of the aggregates because they are suffering and people, in their deeply entrenched stupidity, cling to them assuming they are their self when in fact they’re not.
Awakening or sambodhi is not possible by assuming that the aggregates are exhaustive of all there is and there is nothing beyond their walls. The Buddha never taught such a doctrine given how negative the aggregates really are.
“The monk examines the five aggregates by their nature of impermanence, suffering, becoming ill, being like a boil, being like an arrow, hardship, becoming sick, being the other, being that which is decayed, bringing the bad, being evil, being dangerous, being an obstacle, being afraid, being that which is rotten, being not lasting, being without a resistance, being without a protection, being without refuge, being empty, being bare, being void, being anattâ, being harm, having change as norm, being without an essence, the root of hardship, being like an executioner, being a decay, having âsava, being conditioned, being a victim of mara, having birth as norm, having aging as norm, having sickness as norm, having death as norm, having grief as norm, having lamentation as norm, having despair as norm, having sorrow as norm” (Patisambhidamagga).
Given that the Buddha taught the destruction and abandonment of the five khandhas or aggregates (S. v. 61) there is, obviously, an outside to this which is counter to the aggregates. The one who abandons the aggregates; who says they are not my self (na meso attâ) is in a safe place, to be sure.
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