Mark:
...it was the not so subtle difference between "no permanent self" and "no self" that got me thinking.
See, here is where people's minds and attitudes become influenced by what some misunderstanding contemporary or other has written about the meaning and definition of a word rather than going back to see what the horse's mouth had to say. You first must comprehend and understand the definition of the terms as they are being used in context and what they originally referred to before you can reasonably make any sense of what it is said that a person (in this case, Gotama) said about a matter.
The term
anatta literally means "without self." The prefix "an" means "without" or "not having," and is similar in usage to the prefix "un-" in English, as in unconcerned or "not concerned." And of course "atta" refers to the English word we use for "self." Understanding this term in this way (as "without self") was what began to open up the doors of perception for me in terms of what Gotama was referring to when he talked about this concept in the discourses. The traditionally used term "not self" comes closer to this meaning than the term "no self" which can begin to conjure many misconceptions in the mind .
If you read the two Vacchagotta suttas (MN 71 & 72) in the Majjhima Nikaya in conjunction with one in the Samyutta Nikaya (SN 44.10), you quickly come to see that Gotama has never posited that he taught the existence of a permanent self nor did he posit that a self did not exist. He left those two questions to themselves, putting them aside because he had seen, with clarity, "things as they actually are."
MN 72, translated by Bhk. Nanamoli:
"Vacha, 'speculative view' is something that the Tathagata has put away. For the Tathagata, Vaccha, has seen this: 'Such is material form, such its origin, such its disappearance; such is feeling, such its origin, such its disappearance; such is perception, such its origin, such its disappearance; such are formations , such their origin, such their disappearance; such is consciousness, such its origin, such its disappearance.' Therefore, I say, with the destruction, fading away, cessation, giving up, and relinquishing of all conceivings, all excogitations, all I-making, mine-making, and the underlying tendency to conceit, the Tathagata is liberated through not clinging."
SN 44.10, translated by Bhikkhu Bodhi:
"How is it now, Master Gotama, is there a self?"
When this was said, the Blessed One was silent.
"Then, Master Gotama, is there no self?"
A second time the Blessed One was silent.
Then the wanderer Vacchagotta rose from his seat and departed.
Then, not long after the wanderer Vacchagotta had left, the Venerable Ananda said to the Blessed One: "Why is it, venerable sir, that when the Blessed One was questioned by the wanderer Vacchagotta, he did not answer?"
"If, Ananda, when I was asked by the wanderer Vacchagotta, 'Is there a self?' I had answered, 'There is a self,' this would have been siding with those ascetics and brahmins who are eternalists. And if, when I was asked by him, 'Is there no self?' I had answered, 'There is no self,' this would have been siding with those ascetics and brahmins who are annihilationists.
"If, Ananda, when I was asked by the wanderer Vacchagotta, 'Is there a self?' I had answered, 'There is a self,' would this have been consistent on my part with the arising of the knowledge that all phenomena are without self'?"
"No, venerable sir."
"And if, when I was asked by him, 'Is there no self?' I had answered, 'There is no self,' the wanderer Vacchagotta, already confused, would have fallen into even greater confusion, thinking, 'It seems that the self I formerly had does not exist now.' "[385]
Footnote:
[385] Probably this means that Vacchagotta would have interpreted the Buddha's denial as a rejection of his empirical personality, which (on account of his inclination towards views of self) he would have been identifying as a self. We should carefully heed the two reasons the Buddha does not declare, "There is no self": not because he recognizes a transcendent self of some kind (as some interpretaters allege), or because he is concerned only with delineating "a strategy of perception" devoid of ontological implications (as others hold), but (i) because such a mode of expression was used by the annihilationists, and the Buddha wanted to avoid aligning his teaching with theirs; and (ii) because he wished to avoid causing confusion in those already attached to the idea of self. The Buddha declares that "all phenomena are not-self" (sabbe dhamma anatta), which means that if one seeks a self anywhere one will not find one. Since "all phenomena" includes both the conditioned and the unconditioned, this precludes an utterly transcendent, ineffable self.
Mark:
I don't have a good enough handle on the suttas but the impression I have is that the buddha is often describing what we refer to as a "process" and I wonder whether that concept exists in Pali as I don't see it used in the translations. I'm certainly not certain ;)
If you cannot see that concept in the above quotation from the
Aggivacchagotta Sutta (MN 72), To Vacchagotta on Fire, then you have some work to do in your contemplations. This is why I continue to implore those who wish to study the Dhamma to read the suttas in order to work their own salvation out themselves.
For example reinforcing the illusion of a permanent self is unlikely to be skillful practise. Likewise the illusion of no self might be unskillful. I had Shinzen's Apprciate, Transcend, Improve in mind and I wonder if the Improve bit gets inconvieniently dropped through certain techniques.
