Buddha did not preach against an ātman

Most of what is written about the so-called doctrine of not [the] self or in Pali and Sanskrit, respectively, anattā and anātman amounts to people writing in a trance; people who can’t seem to wake up from this dogmatic trance and think anew. 

The Buddha, it may come as a shock to many Buddhists, didn’t preach against an ātman.  He neither taught against such a category nor even implied it was bad.  He only taught people not to regard or view what is conditioned to be their real self or ātman. Nothing conditioned is the ātman—all conditioned things are, in fact, not the ātman including this perishable, corporeal body which we are thrown into. 

This might explain why in a Sanskrit dictionary anātman (अनात्मन्) can mean 1 destitute of spirit or mind, 2 corporeal, 3 not self, different from ātman, 4 the perishable body. 

Taking this definition to Buddhism, anātman is fungible with the five aggregates of 1 physical being, 2 feeling, 3 perception, 4 volition and 5 consciousness, which are transmuted into what we moderns would call the psychophysical individual.  This is the person who we think we are, who is reading this blog. But all this is not the self or who we really are.

In fact, the Buddha says:

"Monks, physical being is impermanent ... Feeling is impermanent ... Perception is impermanent ...Volitional formations are impermanent ... Consciousness is impermanent.  What is impermanent is suffering.  What is suffering is not the self.  What is not the self should be seen as it really is with correct wisdom thus: This is not mine, this I am not, this is not my self [na meso attā’ti]" (S. iii. 45).

Now just imagine someone believing that the clothes they wear about daily is who they really are.  They might believe this hat is my head, this shirt is my torso, the gloves are my hands, these pants are my legs and the shoes are my feet.  We might say to this odd fellow, “Sir, this hat is not your real body nor are the rest of your clothes.”  But because he is strongly attached to his clothes he can’t seem to let go of his belief that his body are these clothes.

Are you beginning to get the picture of what the Buddha is really saying?  Don’t take anything which is conditioned to be your real self.  And if you asked the Buddha his reason, he would tell you that conditioned things, such as your corporeal body, are impermanent and liable to suffering and will eventually succumb to death. 

In light of the Nikayas, it is fake Buddhism that teaches that the Buddha, categorically, taught against a self when he really taught his followers not to identify with that which is not [the] self or anātman which, for example, are the five aggregates.  It is only when we dis-identify or abandon all that which is not [the] self that the self is finally revealed in its own light.  Such people "with self as protection [attadīpā] wander in the world, own nothing, are completely freed in every way" (Sutta-Nipāta, 501).

Comments

[n. yeti]

Maybe it's better to say I agree with the Flower Garland, since the lesser follows the greater :).

The example of Ananda comes to mind. Not many Western Buddhists are familiar with Shakyamuni's disciples, at least not in the same way that many Christians have passing familiarity with those of Yeshua (and by the way, off topic, Aramaic was commonly used as a trade language, and it seems only logical that Yeshua had met with some Buddhist teachings carried from the East).

There appears to have been a lot of debate in early Buddhism about Ananda, who is recorded in various scriptures, both Theravadin and Mahayana, to have been a troubled fellow in many regards. He seemed to lack moral perfection as well as the ability to sustain Samadhi due to weak concentration. And yet, of all the saints who followed Gautama, he seemed to have been very much in the Buddha's favor.

If Ananda gained sainthood on the basis of wisdom, I cannot see this as in any way different from faith. Here was a guy who was easily swayed by Kapila magic and the sexual arts of wayside women, but still (according to the Shurangama sutra) he managed to pry himself free from their honeyed embrace, and I think it was only on the basis of faith rather than moral conscience or strict obedience to the rules of the Vinaya.

This is really leading to a whole other topic of wisdom versus knowledge, but I think I'm not the best to expound on that. Maybe someone else can take that up.

[Vyartha]

n. yeti: the Flower Garland nods in agreement: "if stated as faith ... that covers everything"

Faith is the embryonic state of the indwelling unborn mind of Awakening

when the seed meets with the conditions (sun, earth, water) it sprouts

[n. yeti]

Faced with this, I think many people in the West or those new to Buddhism in general (perhaps even new to any kind of religion and are drawn to Buddhism because it lacks the dogma of other religions) tend to reach a point of doubt. Why would I want this? How could I give this up, would I no longer be human...but I like being human!!

The fact remains that faith is, in my opinion, the strongest factor for success along the Buddhist path for people at this point, who may have some good moral habits and perhaps dissatisfied with material delights, seeking something greater, a higher understanding, something which breaks all doubts and establishes the person anew with a correct understanding of reality.

It should not be underemphasized how important the final point of the original post is -- Buddhism teaches total liberation from all mundane limits, something not easily understood nor cheaply obtained by the average person who clings to the functioning of the skandhic system and the twinfold delusion of selfhood in a self-existent universe.