Is there a real difference between "not-self" and "no self", and if so, which one is correct?

Question

Just in case someone is interested, this is a question based on this thread, but it's not necessary to read such discussion to understand and answer this question.

I'd like to know about the differences (if there is any) between the next statements, and to know which one is correct from the perspective of Early Buddhism:

"There is no self to be found"

"All phenomena are not-self"

So, basically, is there any difference between "no self" and "not-self"? And which one corresponds to "anattā"?

I'd appreciate any help.

Kind regards!

Answer 1

I can't easily tell a difference between "no self" and "not self" in English -- and if there is a difference (if you can construct a distinction in meaning) I think it's too fine a difference to be significant -- like if someone tells you something is "a mile away" and you get out your micrometer.

I mean, the "a" prefix in Pali is a negator, which appears on all sorts of words:

• kalika ("time"), akalika ... how do you translate akalika? I say "timeless" because I think that happens to be a felicitous word in English, but equally be "without time, "outside time", "not subject to time" or "not controlled by time" or "nothing to do with time"
• verena ("hatred"), averena ... how do you translate averena? I say ""non-hatred" (because I hope that's the most literal translation even if it isn't idiomatic English) but some translations say "loving-kindness" -- i.e. not just an absence of hatred, they substitute one of its "polar opposites"

Maybe "selfless" could be a translation, however in English that's an adjective used to describe "altruistic" behaviour (so that's not an appropriate translation).

anatta is grammatically a noun. I don't, I wouldn't, normally equate two nouns -- "a dog is a cat" for example doesn't make sense. So I usually read anatta as if it were an adjective ("a dog is hairy"), i.e. as if "form is anatta" is describing a property or characteristic of form. And lakkhaṇa (translated "characteristic") in Anattalakkhaṇasutta suggests that seeing anatta as a characteristic -- an adjective not a noun -- isn't bad.

One time is it appropriate to equate two nouns is when you're talking about categories -- "a dog is an animal". Perhaps anatta can be seen as a category of things, especially in phrases like Sabbe sankhara anatta.

I think of "self" as a verb in that kind of context ...

Calvin and Hobbes - Verbing Weirds Language - by Bill Watterson for January 25, 1993

... i.e. "selfing" is an action, it's something you do to things -- you "take as 'self'" or "perceive as self" or "attach to as if it were self" -- and an anatta thing is something which you shouldn't "self" in that way, something which isn't fit to be selved.

Perhaps you can see that the Anattalakkhaṇasutta is about the five aggregates. The Dhammacakkappavattanasutta mentions aggregates too:

Rebirth is suffering; old age is suffering; illness is suffering; death is suffering; association with the disliked is suffering; separation from the liked is suffering; not getting what you wish for is suffering. In brief, the five grasping aggregates are suffering.

jātipi dukkhā, jarāpi dukkhā, byādhipi dukkho, maraṇampi dukkhaṃ, appiyehi sampayogo dukkho, piyehi vippayogo dukkho, yampicchaṃ na labhati tampi dukkhaṃ—saṃkhittena pañcupādānakkhandhā dukkhā.

So I think of "selfing" as "grasping" or "attaching" (especially to aggregates).

I think that colloquially the word atta had two meanings:

• atta -- me, myself
• Atta -- my Soul, the Soul -- see Ātman (Hinduism)

I think that informs the meaning too -- to say that the aggregates are anatta is to say that they shouldn't be regarded as "soul" or "permanent self", which fits in with such things being anicca (impermanent).

Since you're asking I don't think it goes so far as to say "there is no soul" or "there is no self" -- instead see e.g. How is it wrong to believe that a self exists, or that it doesn't? -- that would belong to the "thicket of wrong views" cited here.

Answer 2

The difference is significant.

To say: "This is not the self", is to point to some existing thing and having examined it with the criteria for what is worthy to consider the self (that is, that it is something that is under one's control) and finding it out of one's control, the statement is simply the expression of an observable, provable fact.

To say: "There is no self." is to express an opinion (point of view, diṭṭhi) as to all things throughout time and space, past, future, present. This is something that is beyond possibility, as even for Buddhas, for 'Incalculable is the beginning, brethren, of this faring on."

SN 2.15.9 http://buddhadust.net/dhamma-vinaya/pts/sn/02_nv/sn02.15.009.rhyc.pts.htm#p1

In other words, if it cannot be seen and proved, it is just an opinion.

The Dhamma is clear on the practice: opinions are something to be let go; identification with that which is not the self is something to be given up.

Answer 3

The concept is the unreality (Paññatti).

The unreality neither arise&vanish (Saṅkhata;Khandha) nor be the opposite of arising&vanishing (Asaṅkhata;Ṅibbāna).

The Self (attā) is a subset of the concept. It is an unreality.

the no-self, non-self is the opposite of concept. Saṅkhata and Asaṅkhata are the opposite of Attā-Paññatti (self).

The concept is imagined by thinking of the reality. There are 2 type of concepts:

1. Name-let people know something.
2. Imagination-imagined by people.

The imagination has many various subset such as home, time, direction, tall, big, etc.

Self is in a set called illusion of compactness (Ghana-Paññatti).

Another, someone may confused by Anattā in AnattaLakkhaṇaSutta, then say Nibbāna and Pañnatti is Attā, or neither attā nor anattā. That is just logic, mistaken logic exactly. AnattaLakkhaṇaSutta is for unloosing from Khandha, not for describing everything. As I describe above that if you describe Nibbāna as attā, nibbāna will be unreality. and if you describe Nibbāna as neither attā nor anattā, nibbāna will be neither reality nor unreality. **Then people who already enlighten Nibbāna must completely disagree your conclusion surely.

Answer 4

The statement sabbe dhamma anatta (Dhp 279) means all phenomena is not self or everything is not self. A phenomena or thing (dhamma) refers to anything - the five aggregates, the body, the mind, nibbana, the teachings, the Buddha, thoughts etc.

It also means that there is no self in all phenomena or that there is no self in all things. We can also say that all phenomena is empty of a self - from Empty Sutta.

This means that when you dig deeper into anything, you won't be able to find anything like a self.

But this doesn't mean that there is no self at all, as the Buddha himself said in the Self-Doer Sutta. The self is a thought in the mind that emerges when the five aggregates work together, according to dependent origination. But if you break down the five aggregates into its constituent parts, you cannot find the self anywhere.

This is similar to how a lute (a musical instrument) works. When different parts of the lute work together, they produce music. But if you break the lute down to its constituent components, you cannot find music. This is taught in the Lute Sutta.

That the self is a mental idea, a thought in the mind, is taught in the Quickly Sutta referring to the "I am the thinker" mental idea.

Answer 5

The way I understand the Pali term "Anatta" is translated as no-self or notself by some. There is a great debate about whether Anatta means notself or no-self. The only way you can get an answer to this question is only by realising Anatta or at least by eliminating Sakkaya Ditthi. (personality belief)

Answer 6

As I view this concept: "Not self", you are focusing on things other than "self", thus you are assuming "self" exists.

However, "no self" is something else. You conceptually recognize that "self" is fake. And you escaped from the "self" cage. Thus "no self" or "'Keine' self", you set the "self" variable as 0.

Hope it helps!

Answer 7

No-Self is one extreme.

Quoted below is from Chandrakirti Commentary.

so too, the buddhas have taught, “There is neither the Self nor the Selfless at all.”

Just as the view that there is a Self is not ultimately true (atattva), so too its opposite—the view that there is no Self—is also not ultimately true. In this way, they taught that there is neither any Self, nor any non-Self whatsoever. This is as it says in the Āryaratnakūṭa:

Kāśyapa, “Self” is one extreme, and “Selflessness” is a second extreme. The middle that is between these two extremes is cannot be indicated (arūpya), it cannot be shown. It has neither location nor appearance. It cannot be represented, it cannot be marked. Kāśyapa, it is called the middle way, the true discernment of things.

Some thinkers such as the Sāṃkhyas perceive that, in the case that karmic imprints (saṃskāra) go out of existence every moment, there is no relation between karmic acts and their results. Perceiving this, these thinkers posit a Self [so as to provide some basis for that relation].

The Lokāyatas, on the other hand, through their reasoning see no-Self that would be an agent of continuity [from one life to the next]. Hence, they assert that there is no Self. They do so with statements such as, There is a person just to the extent that there is an object of the senses. Oh Bhadrā, this is what the learned say, and it is a jackal’s foot.

But just as those without cataracts do not at all see the hairs, flies and so on that are perceived by those with cataracts, so too the buddhas do not at all see any real entity (vastusvarūpa) such as a “self,” or a “non-self” that is imagined by childish persons. Not seeing such things, .. the buddhas have taught, “There is neither the Self nor the Selfless at all.”

Answer 8

Whichever way you say it 'no-self' or 'non-self' the wisdom from the epoch of Greek philosophy will ask you what is that self you predicate while claiming its non-existance?
Parmenides will rear out his head saying:

The only roads of inquiry there are to think of: one, that it is and that it is not possible for it not to be, this is the path of persuasion (for truth is its companion); the other, that it is not and that it must not be — this I say to you is a path wholly unknowable.

Me think only those who know the end which "is" can know the meaning of anattā