| | RE: Imagine Answer 7/26/09 10:07 AM as a reply to Daniel M. Ingram. Gozen and Yabaxoule:
Please consider the following perspective:
An unenlightened person experiences the five aggregates, and infers (either consciously or subconsciously) that there is an enduring entity (the "self") which exists *in addition* to the these and experiences them.
An enlightened person sees only the five aggregates (and their conditioned nature), and says that no additional entity exists which experiences them.
However, the enlightened person could, instead of denying the existence of the self, merely re-define it as being identical with the five aggregates. Then these terms, "I", "you", "me", "self", etc., can be used in the same way, only he understands them to refer to the five aggregates, and not to an entity which exists in addition to them. Agreeing upon such a definition, we can avoid any disagreements about the use of such words.
Incidentally, it would probably be useful to have two separate words for these. The self-as-separate-entity, i.e. the opposite of anatta, could be referred to as the spirit, say, and the self-as-five-aggregates could be referred to as the "conditioned self" or the "conditioned being". The meaning of the word "self" would have to just be taken from context, since we'd never be able to get people in general to agree on using it only with one of the two specific definitions in mind (confusion would certainly ensue). |