Continuity, Identity, and Attachment
Meditation on No-self
What No-self Is Not
Not a denial that there is this experienced reality Not "self-effacement"
What No-self Is Not (continued)
"According to Buddhist concepts, at this first breakthrough, one realizes "no-self." But this expression, no-self...can be very misleading. At first blush, the idea seems un-inviting if not positively absurd. It sounds like a negation of individuality, a frightening loss of controlling center, or a kind of deluded regression. But what is meant by noself is becoming free from the perspective of "self as thing" (satkayadrishti). Conceptually this is not quite the same as losing self nor does it imply the absence of a "personality of self."; self is seen in Buddhism as "a dynamic process, a shifting web of relations among evanescent aspects of the person such as perceptions, ideas, and desires. The Self is only misperceived as a fixed entity because of the distortions of the human point of view." no-self is often misunderstood as "self-does not-exist-at-all" rather than "self-is not-an-essence-or entity," "by people who have not imagined any scheme of existence other than entities or essences."--David Galin
What is No-self?
A natural conclusion of the teaching of dukkha A natural conclusion of radical empiricism
No-self as a natural conclusion of dukkha
What does William Waldron say about this question? "Conceit" does not mean "pride"; "conceit"="house-builder effect"
No-self as a natural conclusion of radical empiricism
"...humans tend to seek and find, or project, a simplifying pattern to approximate every complex field in two nonconscious ways: by lumping (ignoring some distinctions as negligible) and by splitting (ignoring some relations as negligible). Both lumping and splitting create discrete entities useful for manipulating, predicting, and controlling at the sensori-motor level and at abstract levels too. Unfortunately, they may impose ad hoc boundaries on what are actually densely interconnected systems and then grant autonomous existence to the segments. As this occurs in experience of our own ,,inner life and in concepts of the structure of ,,the person, we come to see the self as a bounded persisting entity rather than as a dynamic open network of relations. This view of self as entity or essence is maintained so strongly because it is rooted in these basic nonconscious cognitive approximations...When we first come into this life we form a self in order to cope with the world. The baby has rather scant self and commensurately little ability to deal with the world. We develop a self to deal with the world, but we also develop the habit of solidifying that self, and that solidifying habit congests the flow of nature, leading to suffering"--David Galin
What is the "self" that Buddhism is denying?
1. An independent, unchanging, unitary entity 2. A semi-autonomous agent, changing from moment to moment, who possesses and controls the body and mind 3. A personal identity existing by its own nature independently of conceptual and verbal designation "It is this self of mine that speaks and feels, which experiences here and there the result of good and bad actions...this self of mine is permanent, everlasting, eternal, not subject to change, and it will endure as long as eternity."--M I 8
"Person" does not equal "self"
"A person is a complex system, made up of component subsystems. Person always includes the entire self-organizing, multilevel, causal thicket, including bodily, mental, and social aspects, and representations of past and future organizations (selves). This list is meant to be open-ended, and other dimensions can be added as needed. Person, of course, is embedded in a larger complex environment (the universe)."
Self as mind's identification with certain phenomena or functions
The identified "self" is just the tip of an iceberg in the dynamic processes of life Lets examine whether those things the mind identifies with are "self"
By "me," we cannot really mean to include all the parts of a person, for apparently not all parts of a person are necessary for the person to continue to exist. To say that there is a self means that there is indeed such one substance that is necessary, the "real me."
So let's look at whether and what is this "necessary ingredient" of self
The Oreo cookie you had for breakfast A toe; a limb A preference you have (e.g. for chocolate cakes, for Chinese movies) Linguistic skills DNA The brain
Is the brain the "self"?
"Perhaps the most dramatic and most scientifically significant are the studies by Sperry, Bogen, Zaidel, and their colleagues...of the ,,splitbrain patients whose cerebral hemispheres have been surgically disconnected for the treatment of epilepsy. After the surgery each hemisphere is separately conscious and can perceive, learn, and remember, without knowing what the other hemisphere is experiencing...In [an] experiment a picture is shown to one hemisphere and the patient is asked to point to a matching object in a row of objects before him. Both hemispheres can see the objects; only one was shown the picture. In one case, when the picture was shown to the right hemisphere, as expected, the left hand pointed to the correct object, but patient the said, ,,I know it wasnt me that did that! Presumably by way of the left (speech) hemisphere...[In such an incident], just who are the ,,persons involved? What has become of the apparently unified self that existed before the surgery? Is it now two, or was it always two, but now the duality has been made obvious?" The examples of earthworms, starfish, etc.
Five Aggregates
Meant as a scheme of exhaustive representativeness, totally including everything in our experience Can you think of any experience that is not included? Unlike some forms of later Buddhism, early Buddhism does not recognize a Transcendent Self Individually analyzed to be not self
Arguments for No-self
The phenomenological argument that there is no separate "experiencer" Can you identify an "experiencer" beyond what is experienced? Descartes "I think, therefore I am" versus Humes radical empiricism: when he looked within, he only saw particular mental contents, each of them fleeting, and never an enduring substance underlies them
Arguments for No-self (continued)
The argument of no absolute control In what sense do we really control or possess anything? Our sense of possessions comes from our perception of control; "In its widest possible sense, however, a mans Self is the sum total of all that he can call his"--William James; examples Could there be absolute control? Could there be absolute control in either the controlled or that which is in control? Where is the boundary between "me" and "mine"? Is there a separate "controller/possessor" beyond what is experienced? "Control" and "possession" as cognitive models, which could lead to "views"
Arguments for No-self (continued)
The argument of impermanence; radical impermanence "The practice of Bare Attention, however, will bring it forcibly home that Change is always with us; that even in a minute fraction of time the frequency of occurring changes is beyond our ken. Probably for the first time it will strike us--not only intellectually but touching our whole being--in what kind of a world are actually living."--Bikkhu Nyanaponika Peoples evolutionary tendency to assume constancy: "It is convenient...to act as if most of our environment is not changing much from minute to minute. In practice, we do not actively make any such assumption; rather, we just do not bother to compute new values for anything in the field except our topic of interest, ignoring the background field or scanning it only for big changes."--William Waldron; permanence as a cognitive model which could lead to "views"
Arguments for No-self (continued)
The argument of conditionality The Buddhas explanation of "consciousness" not as an agent, but as an epiphenomenon of interacting conditions
The goal is not to "destroy the self"
"When Freudians spoke of the "Nirvana Drive,"meaning the drive to not exist, they were taking Nirvana in its commonly misunderstood sense of self-extinction. As a technical term in Buddhism, Nirvana means freedom from any sense of being driven. Buddhism explicitly states that the drive to not exist (abhavatrsna) is as much a hindrance to Nirvana as the drive to exist is. Taken in that Buddhist sense, the term "Nirvana Drive" is an oxymoron, a self contradictory expression, like saying wise fool."--Shinzen Young
Self as a cognitive model
From infancy to the present, biologically and psychologically different. So is there reasons to use "self" as a cognitive model? "It is widely persuasively argued that the capacity to fashion an internal representation of ones ,,self--of a continuous, predictable locus of experience by reference to which one could ,,map and order the physical and social universe and our own place in it"--Darwin J. Barkow
No-self as the Middle Path
To only see differences in different moments without seeing causal connection--seeing that two moments represent two "yous"--is annihilaionism; annihilationism is not just about disbelief in rebirth To see an underlying permanence beneath the experienced phenomena--seing that two moments represent one "you"--is eternalism; eternalism is not just about belief in an eternal soul
No-self as the Middle Path
King Milinda: "Nagasena: It is as if...someone were to light a lamp; would it shine all night [if given enough fuel]?" K: "Certainly, Venerable, it would shine all night." N: "Is the flame of the middle watch the same flame as the flame of the last watch?" K: "Indeed not, Venerable." N: "But then, your majesty, was there one light in the first watch, another light in the middle watch, and a third light in the last watch?" K: "Indeed not, sir. In dependence on that first flame there was one light that shone all night" N: "In exactly the same way, your majesty, is the series of psychophysical phenomena connected together: one [conglomeration of interacting] conditions perishes, another arises, seamlessly united as though without before and after. Therefore neither as the same nor as a distinct person does this latest aggregation of consciousness connect up with earlier consciousness."--Milinda's Questions
Problems
How do we account for enduring tendencies and memories in light of no-self? Rebirth in light of no-self? Karma in light of no-self?