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Why There Is No Self: A Buddhist View for the West

Rid yourself of the myths that you live by.

21st February 2018
| Visiting professor of Buddhist Philosophy at Harvard Divinity School, director of Smith College's Logic and Buddhist Studies programmes, author of Engaging Buddhism: Why it Matters to Philosophy
1,890 words
Read time: approx. 9 mins

Buddhism is famous for its doctrine of no-self (anātman).  Do Buddhists really believe that we have no self? Yes. Isn’t that crazy? No. Do you mean that none of us exist? No. But we don't exist as selves.  And to believe that you do exist as a self is a serious, albeit common, pathology. Let me explain.

The Buddhist doctrine of no-self is not a nihilistic denial of your reality, or that of your friends and relatives; instead, it is a middle way between such a nihilistic denial and a reification of the existence that you do have. That reification is instinctive, and then forms the basis for lots of bad religion and metaphysics, as well as for some really problematic ethical thought and conduct, all of which lead to a mass of suffering. Since Buddhism is all about the release from suffering (they call it nirvāṇa), and the belief in a self is regarded as a cause of suffering, extirpating that belief is a central project of Buddhist philosophy.

Let us begin by identifying the self whose existence is denied. It is the self that we instinctively regard as the core of our being.  It is the thing which continues as the same entity throughout our lifetime (and into the afterlife or next life if you believe in such things). It is the subject of our experience, the agent of our actions, the possessor of our body and mind, the bearer of our attributes and moral qualities, the ultimate referent of the word ‘I’.

Jay Garfield
21st February 2018

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menete menete 10 October 2023

Hi guys,

patrick rall 12 August 2022

Buddhism is a religion that has been practiced for over 2500 years. It is also the world’s fourth-largest religion, with approximately 449 million followers worldwide.

Buddhism is quite different from other religions because it does not believe in a supreme being. However, it does believe in reincarnation and karma. The purpose of Buddhist practice is to reach enlightenment and end suffering.

This article discusses the philosophy of Buddhism and how it can be applied to modern life in the west. It includes some of the basic tenets of Buddhism, as well as some practical applications that can help people live better lives.

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aric joshua 31 May 2021

Each place has different religions, and the West is more Christian than Buddhist cookie clicker.

Brian Steere 1 9 January 2020

Who says "there is no self?"
The self can prove itself illusory as the basis of the need to escape, overcome or release it.
But when illusion is recognised as not true - it is already released of the status of meaning from which to act from.

The extension of the recognition of Self is not the image of self as a thing or perceiver of things.
The first is the already movement or nature of being - for which we have no name - and for which we have all names.
But the true naming is in the giving. Self Awareness is receiving in the kind and nature of its giving.
Self-differentiation is necessary for relational experience.
Relational being is one in many and many in one - both. What 'self' could this be but the movement of relational expression or creation AS experience or resonant recognition?
The imaging of self or reality-experience (for these are not really two) is a reflective consciousness expressed given identification - and experiencing loss of identity as a result of identifying in imaged reality instead of receiving identification as the light of its illumination.
In simple metaphor it is to become invested in the movie to the forgetting of the projector and of the script being projected - be-living by reaction what is essentially a self-conditioning resulting from self-judgement that projects to cast out (script) and deny (forget) - which always selects to reject and is blind to the wholeness of its underlying sustenance.

The way out of an impossible situation is to recognise it is impossible and so you are not in it. Emotional reactivity - which can take any forms - will actively deny the capacity to question your reality - excepting in ways that allow it to persist as the 'seeking' of what is always kept apart. However, once you look upon emotional reactivity you will recognise it is not the true of you, but the story or script that is running as a previously automatic and invisible default. Recognition is of the awakening or reintegrative script - that is the true movement of being - regardless the storms on the surface of a mind in dramatic reaction. The recognition and release are one - the work being the willingness to accept what is truly given as the basis from which to live a conscious choice in place of an automatic reactivity takes as a substitution for relational innocence or honesty.
The substitution for reality by a narrative identity is all the power of energy and attention we give it.
The power to give or extend reality is not to make it - but to share in it's nature as our own appreciation and gratitude for existence.
That we can lose or cover the awareness of such a gift is the capacity to choose to effectively deny our own functional expression. This has been assigned an evil and oppositional self to be then (likewise) denied. Can you see how the false sense of choice brings a false sense of self struggle? Choosing NOT to persist in such thoughts, perceptions and responses is a matter of noticing and caring to honour the choice that is freely enacted through us when we simply make room for its movement to register as our awareness.
If we try all by our self to choose wholeness or peace, we are framed by the presumption of separated and conflicted 'self' - which really could be recognised as a self contradiction - and so we laugh in release of what cannot be from its seeming reality.
There is no 'all by itself' - but the fear of it gives it all the power it has to manifest in our experience. And such fear is hidden in the attempt to regain or restore what the trauma of separation-experience has set our identity in.
We are part of and one with Relational being as our true Inherence.
The self as a gift of Self is likewise creative as the unfolding of the Self-Recognition or resonant synchronicity of unified expression.
There is no self. There is only Self. These apparent polarities are beside the point.
As you give is the measure of your receiving and as you receive and accept by extension or giving, so you release what is not truly belonging or meaningful to align in a transparency of being no one else but the expression of giving and receiving as one.
Such a moment waits on willingness, not on time. To release the past to only a present blessing is to let presence expand as its freedom of unfolding. When we lose our awareness of connection, we see the mind has stepped in to 'control' a fear of loss of possession.
The grace of noticing is a simple intimacy of infinite embrace. We know by the fruits - for even a touch of such a quality shifts our day. Learning how not to get in our own way is of course this step now - and so one step at a time.
Gratitude for the comment box - and for your attention.

Yip Scott 8 May 2019

Perhaps you could take a look at the article "NIETZSCHE AND ZEN An Essay in Philosophical Theology" written by Stephen Priest, who has also addressed the question of self. Here is a short extract: "Nietzsche and the Zen Buddhists have not seen the question Why is this human being me? meaning, given that this human being exists, in every psycho-physical detail, Why is this human being me? Why am I co-extensive with it? Why is there such a thing as my viewing the world from it (here and now)?"

Mirek Forbes 8 March 2018

You do not want Stephen Hawking’s *mind* but his cognitive abilities, surely? Is the mind not the place where the character of thought sits, the result of the cognitive abilities combined with experience... and possibly the soul? Could it not be argued that the mind is where the physical and transcendent aspects of ourselves are held together?
I would argue that the mind refers to that beyond what we are able to put our fingers on, as it is not the frontal lobe of Stephen or the legs of Usain. The mind is held up by the frontal lobe and the legs, both dependent on those two parts yet beyond their functions. The self might not be ‘independent metaphysical entities’ but the combination of a metaphysical and a physical, only possibly in that combination.

Grasping the self I agree leads to selfishness and all the negative stuff you mentioned. Attempting domination over others and the world leads to negativity and bad things. But must we aim for annihilation of the self? Why not annihilation of selfishness?

Khris Loux 22 February 2018

Thank you for the indepth overview of Buddhist thinking on the Self.

There is a question that remains. If we strip away the belief that we are the body/mind/emotions then what remains to be sympathetic or loving?

Would it be truthful to say that what remains is the Self as consciousness or awareness?