Why is 'unborn' not the self?

Question

the unborn, is described by Buddha:

The born, become, produced, made, fabricated, impermanent, fabricated of aging & death, a nest of illnesses, perishing, come-into-being through nourishment and the guide [that is craving] — is unfit for delight. The escape from that is calm, permanent, a sphere beyond conjecture, unborn, unproduced, the sorrowless, stainless state, the cessation of stressful qualities, stilling-of-fabrications bliss.

Doesn't this describe nirvna? Can the description infer us to a true-self (atta), not-self (anatta), or anything else other than what is listed? Can you infer emptiness? As I was saying to other, losing with a self is so bad, I couldn't justify calling this so-called unborn a self, and it wouldn't be me or mine unfortunately. Regardless, this text says permanent, and what is the harm in selfing this permanence? What is the harm? What was permanent is no longer mine?

It doesn't say 'end of defilements', 'end of existence', but perhaps you can infer that. How do you infer it?

Answer 1

Doesn't this describe nirvana?

"Unborn" is a reference to Nirvana, the whole part in bold is a reference to it.

Can the description infer us to a true-self (atta), not-self (anatta), or anything else other than what is listed?

Nirvana requires dropping the clinging to any self-view.

True-self (atta) and no-self (anatta?) are views. Both can be useful. Truth is beyond both. If you want a quote from that, you can check this article in Wikipedia for example: The unanswerable questions

what is the harm in selfing this permanence? What is the harm? The permanent is not-permanent, but so what?

Not-self taken literally, as in "there is no self that can be affected or take control", is a nihilistic view that leads to immorality. You indulge in pleasures believing that it doesn't have consequences to the self.

The problem with selfing (as in atta teachings) is that it leads to suffering too. If I consider my knowledge to be permanent or the self, I'll get desperate to learn more about anything.

If I believe I'm Nirvana and only Nirvana, but I'm not the one that does actions, practically we are back at nihilism. Eating in excess or lying would have no consequences to the self.

It doesn't say 'end of defilements', 'end of existence', but perhaps you can infer that. How do you infer it?

I don't infer "end of defilements" from that phrase though. But it's explicitly stated everywhere in the suttas. You can't infer the entirety of the Dharma from a single sentence, at least not in any intellectual way.

"End of existence" is wrong view. Equivalent to nihilism too.

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Hope that helps.

Answer 2

The suttas say self is something 'born':

Assumes... to be the self. That assumption is a fabrication. Now what is the cause, what is the origination, what is the birth, what is the coming-into-existence of that fabrication? To an uninstructed, run-of-the-mill person, touched by that which is felt born of contact with ignorance, craving arises. That fabrication is born of that.

SN 22.81

Therefore, the Unborn cannot be any type of self.

Answer 3

The "unborn" in Ud 8.3 refers to Nirvana.

Nirvana is that which is experienced by the mind when it is completely free of all defilements and fetters.

Nirvana is not any self. The "unborn" is not any self.

There is no eternal self or true self that is permanent and eternal, like there is in some schools of Hinduism. This view is considered to be eternalism.

There is also no "no self at all". This view is considered to be annihilationism.

Instead the Buddha teaches the middle way of a dependently originated self, that is impermanent.

"Not self" (anatta) and not "no self", refers to all things, including Nirvana, as being not self. Here the Buddha does not want us to associate any of the five aggregates with the self.

The self cannot be found anywhere, except as being artificially and impermanently constructed by the mind. It's a mental idea, the idea of identity and individuality.

Answer 4

I expect the harm is that you would be continuing to reinforce the sense of self, just with a different kind of self view.

It’s easy to misunderstand buddhanature if we don’t understand the essential point of selflessness. It is possible to start to think of buddhanature as some kind of eternal super-self, and when we become attached to that concept, it’s quite hard to let go of it. We could easily shift the self-clinging we have to our ordinary identity — to that sense of “I” or “me” — to a fixation on some kind of nicer or more elevated identity called buddhanature. Who am I? I am buddhanature.
 
As long as we have that kind of self-fixation, no matter what its basis or how we define it, it is still fixation. It is still clinging. It’s not going to lead us out of samsara. That’s the danger. On the other hand, there’s not much danger in becoming too attached to emptiness...
-"Pointing Out Ordinary Mind", Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche, lionsroar
 
...someone does not have this view: 'The universe is the Self. That I shall be after death; permanent, stable, eternal, immutable; eternally the same shall I abide in that very condition.'
He then hears a Perfect One expounding the Teaching for the removal of all grounds for views, of all prejudices, obsessions, dogmas and biases; for the stilling of all (kamma-) processes, for the relinquishing of all substrata (of existence), for the extirpation of craving, for dispassion, cessation, Nibbaana.
He then does not think: 'I shall be annihilated, I shall be destroyed! No longer shall I exist!' Hence he does not grieve, is not depressed, does not lament; he does not beat his breast nor does he weep, and no dejection befalls him. -MN 22
 
'I am' is a construing. 'I am this' is a construing. 'I shall be' is a construing. 'I shall not be' is a construing. ... Construing is a disease, construing is a cancer, construing is an arrow. Therefore, monks, you should train yourselves: 'We will dwell with an awareness free of construings.' -SN 35.207

The teachings on emptiness warn against thinking of things as either totally existent or non existent. Buddhism is also known as the Middle Way, between eternalism and nihilism; neither extreme is said to be applicable to how things really are. So it doesn't sound like you would want to infer the end of existence from descriptions of the Unborn, because that would be annihilation view.

By & large, Kaccayana, this world is supported by (takes as its object) a polarity, that of existence & non-existence. But when one sees the origination of the world as it actually is with right discernment, 'non-existence' with reference to the world does not occur to one. When one sees the cessation of the world as it actually is with right discernment, 'existence' with reference to the world does not occur to one. ...one such as this does not get involved with or cling to these attachments, clingings, fixations of awareness, biases, or obsessions; nor is he resolved on 'my self.' -SN 12.15