Understanding Anatta

Venerable Sayadaw U Silananda

The anatta (non-self) is one of the most important teachings of Buddhism. It is the most distinctive feature of Buddhism, for, as many scholars have recognized, it makes Buddhism different from all other religions. Scholars write that all other religions accept the existence of some kind of spiritual, metaphysical, or psychological entity or agent or being inside, and in some cases, simultaneously outside of sentient beings. That is, most religions accept the existence of a soul or self.

Donald Watson writes: "Of the world's major religions, only Buddhism denies or is agnostic about the existence of a soul." Another scholar, Richard Kennedy, writes: "According to Christainity, Islam, and Judaism, each soul will be judged at the end of the world....It is the soul which will determine whether the individual is punished by hell or rewarded by eternal life in heaven....Buddhism teaches that there is no such thing such as a soul, or true, permanent self. The Encylopedia Americana writes: "In Buddhism there is no perduring or surviving self such as the atman. Meditation leads to the awareness that the idea of self, or atman, is mere illusion." As we can see, Buddhism is the only major religion that denies the existence of a metaphysical entity which is usually called a self or soul.

Although the anatta doctrine is so important, so distinctive, and supposedly so universally accepted by Buddhists, it is still the most misunderstood, the most misinterpreted, and the most distorted of all the teachings of the Buddha. Some scholars who have written on Buddhism had a great respect for the Buddha, liked His Teachings, revered Him, and honored Him, but they could not imagine that such a profound thinker had actually denied the existence of a soul.

Consequently, they have tried to find apparent loopholes in the teachings through which they have tried to insert the affirmation of atta by the Buddha. For example, two modern scholars, Ananda K. Coomaraswamy and I. B. Horner, in their book, The Living Thoughts of Gotama the Buddha, have devoted much of the book to the idea that Buddha taught a doctrine of two selves, the great Self, spelled with an upper case 'S' to signify the spiritual self or soul, and a small self, the personal ego, spelled with a lower case 's'. They claim that Buddha denied only this personal self or ego when He spoke of anatta. These scholars had in fact based their ideas on mistranslations of Pali terms.

The controversy over the anatta doctrine seems to be based on a deep fear of the denial of the existence of a soul. People are often very attached to their lives, so they like to believe that there exists something everlasting, eternal and permanent inside them. When someone comes along and tells them that there is nothing permanent in them, nothing by which they will continue eternally, such as a soul, they may become frightened. They wonder what will become of them in the future - they have the fear of extinction.

Atta is the inner core of anything. The inner core of a tree is the hardest part and thus the core of something can imply permanency. The core may also imply the best part of something, the part which is the essence, the part which is pure, real, beautiful, and enduring. According to Buddhism, there is nothing we can call an inner core which is eternal and blissful. There is also nothing we can call upon to exercise authority over the nature of things. In Buddhism, there is no doer apart from doing, and no experiencer apart from the experiencing. There is nothing or no one which is omnipotent because everything is at the mercy of the constant creation and dissolution of conditioned things.

Buddha taught that there are only five aggregates (khandhas): (1) corporeality (material process, or form); (2) feelings; (3) perceptions; (4) mental formations; and (5) consciousness. Less specifically, we may say that there are only two groups of phenomena in this existence: mind and matter, nama and rupa. Apart from mind and matter, there exists nothing whatsoever that we can call atta. The only thing that exists outside of the realm of nama and rupa is the unconditioned Nibbana.

Buddha taught that, for us, there are only the five aggregates. We are a compound of five aggregates, and after we analyze and observe them one by one with the deep insight of meditation, we will realize that there remains nothing: no soul, no self, apart from the aggregates. The combination of the five aggregates is what we call a person, a being, a man or a woman. There is nothing apart from the five aggregates - corporeality, feelings, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness - which are interacting and dependent upon each other. No director, no doer, no experiencer, and no essence can be found. Atta is merely an idea which has no corresponding reality whatsoever.

According to Buddha, there exist only the five aggregates, the five khandhas, and these are not atta because they are subject to the laws of impermanence, suffering, and no-soul. Rupa (material form) is not atta; it is not master and ruler of itself, and it is subject to affliction. The other khandhas - feelings, perception, mental formationns, and consciousness - are also subject to the same laws. Nama (mind) is not atta for the same reasons that rupa is not atta: nama is equally subject to the laws of impermanence, suffering and no-soul. Buddha treats nama and rupa equally, and they are mutually dependent upon each other:

"Just as a wooden puppet, though unsubstantial, lifeless, and inactive,

may by means of pulling strings to be made to move about, stand up,

and appear full of life and activity; just so are mind and body, as such,

something empty, lifeless and inactive; but by means of their mutual

working together, this mental and bodily combination may move about,

stand up, and appear full of life and activity.

Furthermore, we must remember that nama-rupa or khandhas are merely abstract classifications made by the Buddha, and, as such, they have no real existence as groups. That is, there is never the functioning of an entire entity or group known as corporeality or feeling or perception or mental formations or consciousness, but only the functioning of individual representatives of these groups. There are no integrally functioning groups which can be called a self or a mind.

About the Venerable

Venerable Sayadaw U Silananda is the Abbot of the Dhammananda Vihara, Half Moon Bay, California, and the Spiritual Director of Dhammachakka Meditation Center, Theravada Buddhist Society of America and Tathagata Meditation Center, having been chosen by the renowned Burmese meditation master, the Most Venerable Mahasi Sayadaw, to teach in America and spread the Dhamma in the West.

Sayadaw has been a Buddhist monk since 1947. He holds two Dhammacariya (Master of Dhamma) degrees and has taught at the Atithokdayone Pali University and was an External Examiner at the Department of Oriental Studies, University of Art and Sciences, Mandalay, Myanmar. Sayadaw was the chief complier of the comprehensive Tipitaka Pali-Burmese Dictionary and one of the final editors of the Pali Texts, Commentaries, and Sub-Commentaries at the Sixth Buddhist Council, held in 1954.