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

Rid yourself of the myths that you live by.

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 nirvāa), 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’.

___

"There are perceptions, feelings, personality traits, physical parts, such as hands and a heart, but no self. These parts don't have a unity." 

___

Buddhists claim that there is no such thing.  The denial has two dimensions—the diachronic and the synchronic.That is, Buddhists deny that anything retains its identity over time (this is the doctrine of universal impermanence), and that even at a given moment, there is no unity to who we are, and nothing in us that answers to the object of our habitual self-grasping. 

Let us begin with the impossibility of anything retaining its identity over time - the diachronic dimension. To see this point, it is useful to distinguish between strict identity and mere similarity. When we say that x is strictly identical to y, we say that x and y share all properties, that they are one and the same thing, perhaps under two different descriptions. So, for instance, Her Majesty the Queen of England is identical to the world’s best known breeder of Welsh corgis in this strict sense. You can't  meet one without meeting the other; you can’t kick one without kicking the other. It is not just that they look so similar, and each wear the same kind of hat.There is only one thing, under two descriptions.

But Her Majesty the Queen now and the young girl who was crowned in 1952 are not strictly identical to one another. They are similar in certain respects, but different in many others. One is much older than the other. One is married to Phillip; one is not. We call them by the same name, but that is because of relationships of similarity and causal continuity, not strict identity.There is no strict identity over time, because any two stages of the same continuum are of different ages, if nothing else, and so do not share all properties, and so are not identical.The fact that we treat individuals as literally the same despite changes over time is a confusion of identity with similarity and causal continuity, not a recognition of an underlying reality. 

But, you might say, even if I have no identity over time, I have an identity right now, a synchronic identity. There is something that is me.And it is a single, unitary thing. Buddhists, however, deny this. They urge instead that while you believe that there is a single unitary you, if only for a moment, there is nothing but a set of causally interrelated psychophysical processes and events that are in turn causally related to prior and succeeding such collections. There are perceptions, feelings, personality traits, physical parts, such as hands and a heart, but no self. These parts don't have a unity. You can take some away and still be you. You can replace some, and still be you. You can add new ones, and still be you. And if you take them all away, one by one, until there is no body and no mind left, there is no you remaining.

___

"You imagine yourself not to be your body, but to have a body; not to be your mind, but to have a mind, not to be your experiences, but to have your experiences. That is, you imagine yourself to be some simple thing behind it all." 

___

That is to say, you are not identical with those parts; nor are you different from them.Nor are you their owner or possessor, or something dependent upon them. You are a fiction that you and those around you have created.You imagine yourself not to be your body, but to have a body; not to be your mind, but to have a mind, not to be your experiences, but to have your experiences. That is, you imagine yourself to be some simple thing behind it all.

But, you protest, I never had any such silly idea at all. Who would ever think that s/he is anything other than a set of psychophysical processes? You, answers the Buddhist. And here is an easy way to convince yourself that you do succumb to the self-reification instinct, even if you recognize that it is a metaphysical error. Think of somebody whose body you’d love to have, for whatever reason. I have always wanted to have Ussain Bolt’s body, at his peak, for just about 9.4 seconds.Just to see what it feels like to go that fast. You probably have other desires.

In any case, I don't want to be Ussain Bolt. That would do me no good. He is already Ussain Bolt. I want to be me with Ussain Bolt’s body. That shows that I do not take myself to be my body, but to possess that body, because I can imagine (whether coherently or not) being me with a different body.

But how about my mind? Same thing. Imagine somebody whose mind  you would like to have for a little while. I would like Stephen Hawking’s. Just for a bit. So that I could understand general relativity and quantum gravity. It would be so cool. Again, I don't want to be Stephen Hawking. He already is, and that does me no good. I want to be me with his mind. That shows that (whether coherently or incoherently) I don’t imagine myself to be my mind, but to be its possessor, which could be the same self with a different mind. (And, by the way, I can desire to have both Bolt’s body and Hawking’s mind at the same time, so that I can see what it is like to understand quantum gravity while running 100 meters in under 10 seconds.)

___

"Imagine somebody whose mind  you would like to have for a little while. I would like Stephen Hawking’s. I want to be me with his mind. That shows that I don’t imagine myself to be my mind, but to be its possessor." 

___

 

That self—the one that owns but is not identical to the body and mind—that subject of experience and agent of action, is the self that we all instinctively take ourselves to be, but which Buddhist philosophers argue does not exist. Take away the physical and the mental, and nothing remains. So, even at a given moment, I am not a self.

Does that mean that I am nothing?Not at all. And here another distinction is helpful, that between a self and a person.We have seen what a self is supposed to be—the simple, continuing thing with which I identify.But a person is a different kind of thing: a continuum of causally related psychophysical processes that plays a role in the world.In fact, the word person, in English, captures this perfectly. The word comes from persona, a mask, or a role in theatre.

Selves, if there were such things, would be independent metaphysically real entities.  Persons are constructed, or designated by our own psychological and social processes, and reflect the role that we play for each other as individuals in a collectively constituted world, a world constructed in our experience and mutual action in response to our psychological, perceptual and social natures. Persons are complex, interdependent and impermanent, constantly changing and causally enmeshed with their environments. We are persons who take ourselves to be selves; and that is the Buddhist diagnosis of the root of our psychological problems.The solution to those problems, in this view, is to be found in stopping that reification and self-grasping.

What’s wrong with self-grasping?  Well, it creates a distorted view of reality, with each of us as selves at the centre of their own universe, and everything else arrayed around us as our objects. That leads in turn to selfishness, a view that it is rational to act in our own narrow self-interests, and anxiety about the preservations of the integrity and the welfare of the self. All of this leads to greed, anger, fear, conflict and general unhappiness.

___

"The concept of the self creates a distorted view of reality, with each of us as selves at the centre of their own universe, and everything else arrayed around us as our objects." 

___

How all of this works is a long story — too long to summarize here — and it is the burden of much Buddhist ethical theory and moral psychology to tell that story. But the basic idea is this: once I take myself to be this special kind of entity, I have a relationship to that entity of identity that I have with nothing else, and so it seems rational to give it special priority, and so on for everyone and their self. And so we get this crazy competition of interests between beings whose lives and interests are in fact completely interdependent.

When we experience ourselves as decentered persons, however, we experience ourselves as part of a larger network of others, whose interests we share, and whose pains and pleasures we share as well. This allows the cultivation of the set of virtues known in the Buddhist tradition as the brahmavihāras, or divine states.They are benevolence, care, sympathetic joy and impartiality.

Each is understood as a kind of detached concern for others not with our own interests and desires in view, but with theirs as the object of our state.  So, attached love is different from benevolence, because I wish well for the beloved because I love her, as opposed to because she deserves happiness; sympathetic joy is different from shared joy, because I rejoice in her happiness, not in the happiness that brings me. This is a Buddhist view of rational moral commitment grounded in selflessness.

So, I conclude, the Buddhist no-self doctrine is not a strange mysticism or nihilism; it is just common sense. It does not undermine agency or morality; it explains why agency and morality are possible; it should not provoke despair; it should enable confidence.


 

Debate the biggest ideas of our times at the Institute of Art and Ideas' annual philosophy and music festival HowTheLightGetsIn. For more information and tickets, click here.

 

Latest Releases
Join the conversation

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.

patrick maina 26 May 2022

Here is my story. grateful
My wife was diagnosed with a cancer, ( before i learnt of Rick Simpsons oil
/ RSO ) the hospital said to do chemotherapy and radiotherapy.. she did..
and went through a lot.. but no cure, after a while the doctors said the
cancer was spreading and we could look for alternatives.. i searched the
internet and found out about the oil.. asked a lot of questions.. watched
the videos etc.. we made the oil our selves but it couldn't just work out
we were doing more harm than good and the cancer was still there spreading,
i searched more on the internet i found a testimony on how a lady got the
oil via a website: naturalricksimpsoncannabisoil. com
immediately copied the email address on the website: i wrote to the very email
on the website: naturalricksimpsoncannabisoil. com and in an hour later i
got a reply back asking me some few questions, and enlightened me on how to
get the oil in the next 48hours, i placed my order and in the next 48hours
the medication oil got to us. immediately my wife started using the oil, it
been two months now, since my wife has been using the medication oil and
the cancerous problems are gone this very fact was clarified by the doctor.

i put up this piece of testimony for the sake of those once who need this
oil to please don't die in silence their is a cure for your cancer today
website: naturalricksimpsoncannabisoil. com and get the oil.

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?