No Separate Self

In the Samyutta Nikaya, the Linked Discourses of the Buddha, we meet the awakened nun Venerable Vajira. One afternoon, she went to the Dark Forest to meditate, and there she was approached by the trickster Mara, the personification of all the obstacles to enlightenment, who wanted to disturb her peace. 

“Who created this sentient being?” he asked.

Vajira knew this was Mara the Wicked up to his usual antics and rebuffed him outright. She replied: “Why do you believe there’s such a thing as a ‘sentient being’? Mara, is this your theory? This is just a pile of conditions. You won’t find a sentient being here.”

This exchange touches a question that has preoccupied human thought since the beginning: What is the nature of being and self? 

In the ancient time of Venerable Vajira, there were various theories about the nature of the self. Some posited that a permanent self endured across lifetimes. Others claimed the self would die at the end of this life. Still others argued that the self and the body were the same, or that the self inhabited the body, or that the body inhabited the self.

Such theorizing continues today, especially as we’re faced more and more with the instability brought on by media, advanced technology, and constant global exchange. It’s no surprise we often ask ourselves, Where is the self? Who am I, really? What is all this?

Vajira responds plainly: This is just a pile of conditions. The self is a fiction.

That might not feel comforting, especially if we’ve spent much time and effort building up the person we are today. And yet we would be in good company with Siddhartha, the not-yet-awakened Buddha-to-be, who also found himself insecure about the nature of self. It was this very anxiety that set him on his journey to find an end to suffering. What he discovered was that understanding no-self is crucial to unraveling the knot of suffering. If we wish to be free, that is the puzzle we need to solve.

What people often mistake for the self, the Buddha taught, are the five aggregates (khandhas in the Pali language). These are the “piles of conditions” the nun Vajira was referring to: form, feeling, perception, mental formations, and consciousness. We cling to and identify with these five aggregates as a self. The Buddha identified this attachment as the cause of suffering. 

In the early Buddhist discourses, we often see the Buddha asking his audiences to reflect on the burden of clinging to any theory of self. Where, after all, can we find something everlasting to call our “self,” something totally within our control? If whatever we attach to is perishable, like the five aggregates, isn’t it painful to identify with something so impermanent and unruly?

The Buddha advised that since no separate, stable self can be found anywhere, we must let go of theorizing and of clinging. That letting go, he said, would be for our “welfare and happiness.” That’s the kind of ease the Buddha was after. It is freedom from suffering.

It’s useful, then, to take a closer look at the aggregates and see how they lend themselves to our construction of a self.

Form 

Form, rupa in Pali, includes the body, physical substance, matter. It’s fitting that this is the first khandha in the schema, because we tend to cling strongly to physicality. Perhaps we believe our true self is this body. However, the Buddha likened the body to a building: “When a space is enclosed by sticks, creepers, grass, and mud, it becomes known as a ‘building.’ In the same way, when a space is enclosed by bones, sinews, flesh, and skin, it becomes known as a ‘form.’” 

The Buddha encouraged us to hold a certain distance from the body itself so that we can see that this body cannot be who we are. And why can’t it be? Because it is perishable and because it lies beyond our total control. 

It’s true, we may find our beauty or that of others pleasing. We’re happy to stay attached to our youthful skin or athletic strength and even take credit for them. But what about when the body “misbehaves”? With age, our hair begins to fall out, and we become more accident prone and slow to heal. We are easily upset when this happens, yet the body is of the nature to swing between ability and disability and then eventually pass away.

There’s also external form, such as our possessions. We often define ourselves by what we have, whether it’s a home, car, or money. But these forms also come and go. Is it fitting to consider these our self? The Buddha said, “Give up what is not yours. And what is not yours? Form is not yours.”

Practice

Visualize yourself when you were a five-year-old child. Are you one and the same as that person? Are you completely different? Can you apply what the Venerable Vajira said about being a “pile of conditions” to your own experience?

Feeling

Feeling, vedana, can be thought of as the pleasant, unpleasant, and neither-pleasant-nor-unpleasant sensations that arise when we encounter various phenomena. When we taste food we enjoy, we’re happy. When we burn our fingers, we recoil. Thoughts and ideas bring us joy or sadness. 

We might not think we cling strongly to feelings, but consider what happens when we encounter something pleasant. We don’t want it to go away, we are saddened when it does, and we try our hardest to get it back. A life in constant pursuit of pleasure is one of attachment—of defining ourselves by our preferences and fleeing from pain.

Practice

Watch what happens the next time you encounter something pleasant. Can you identify when pleasure comes about, as well as your reaction to that pleasure? Try not wishing for it to stay. The same with unpleasant feelings. Can you sit with discomfort instead of wishing it away?

Perception

Perception, sanna, is the way we recognize sensory input. We label what we take in by way of the eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind. We might see a winged organism flit by and label it a bird, based on past experience. Upon further inspection, we note it’s not just a bird, but a pigeon. Cute and loveable, or dirty and displeasing—it depends on how we see it.

That’s a relatively harmless example, but don’t we do the same for people? Based on how we perceive their gender, class, ethnicity, and so on, we form judgments and believe they must be right. Yet so many of our perceptions are based on past experience, cultural norms, and ever-changing inclinations. 

Practice

Catch a moment of perception and ask yourself, Where did this judgment arise from—your upbringing, your education, the media? How much of your judgment is based on prior experience rather than what is happening in the present? When we see how even our perceptions 

are created from conditions, it helps loosen our grasp on them—and their grasp on us.

Mental Formations

Mental formations, sankhara, are even subtler. These are actions or choices of body, speech, and mind. We might 

assume that the things we say and do are under our control, solid enough to consider part of our self. If we look closely, though, is that true?

At one point or another we have all said, done, or thought something we regretted. Sometimes thoughts seem to rush into our minds from nowhere. Sometimes we say things out of anger we would never have said with a level head, or we get triggered by an unexpected sight or sound. So, are these things who we really are?

Remember, when it comes to the five aggregates, the Buddha encouraged us to loosen our grip on them, not to search anywhere for something to attach to. He said, “An accomplished practitioner truly sees any kind of form, feeling, perception, mental formations, or consciousness at all—past, future, or present; internal or external; solid or subtle; inferior or superior; far or near; all form, all feeling, all perception, all mental formations, and all consciousness—with right understanding: ‘This is not mine, I am not this, this is not my self.’”

Practice

Informally note all the times in a given week you do, say, or think something you don’t mean to. This will help you see how many choices you make that don’t actually come from your own conscious intentions.

Consciousness

Because of consciousness, vinnana, we are aware of all manner of sensory input, including awareness of the mind itself.

This consciousness can be expanded or contracted, bright or cloudy. Yet even consciousness floats in and out of our grasp, no matter how much we try. Some days it is easy to sit in meditation. Others, the mind can’t settle down for even a second.

Through meditation, it’s possible to access deeper states of consciousness, modes that are truly peaceful. It would be tempting to identify one of these as our true self, but even they, no matter how refined, are impermanent and therefore ultimately unsatisfying. It is the letting go of all attachments that the Buddha calls the end of suffering.

Practice

Make a note your state of mind first thing in the morning. How would you describe it? Make another note in the middle of the day, then again a couple hours before bedtime. Do this over the span of a week and see what similarities and differences you find. How do changing external stimuli affect you in your day-to-day?

In his book Rethinking Meditation, David L. McMahan says, “If the bad news for the modern autonomous self is that it was a fiction to begin with—something that philosophy, psychology, neuroscience, and social science increasingly agree on—the good news is that a rich, meaningful, and ethical life is available in its absence.”

The Buddha might have said that that’s the kind of life one can find by pursuing the noble eightfold path to enlightenment, the way out of suffering. By aligning our thoughts and actions with goodness and peace, we can be happy. 

Never mind our conventional use of the word “self.” If what you’re truly after is freedom, then let go of the five aggregates and the illusion of a self they create. It’s as the Thai forest master Ajahn Chah once said: “If you let go a little, you will have a little peace. If you let go a lot, you will have a lot of peace. If you let go completely, you will have complete peace.”

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