Compassion and the Not-self Teaching

In Mahāyāna ethics by the time of Śāntideva there is a striving to recognise that not only is there no difference between self and others (BCA 8:136) but there is an exchange between the two to the point where they become indistinguishable. If the insight of the interchangeability of self and others (ibid., 8:120) is achieved then the idea of self-interest motivated by egoism becomes impossible. Egoism is, then, transcended completely as a result of the teaching that an individual self is illusory and as such is not to be clung to but to be let go of in the light of the greater truth of the inseparability of ‘self’ and others.

However, it is difficult to give a convincing explanation of the not-self teaching whilst at the same time believing in rebirth, if the assumption is that not-self is equal to some kind of non-existence which would result in there being nothing to be reborn. There are some who take this view and argue that a belief in rebirth is not necessary in order to consider oneself a Buddhist (see Schmidt-Leukel 2006a, p. 150 and n.25). However, there is only a point to their objection if we take the term ‘self’ as referring to any sort of individual continuity and this is not what the not-self teaching says. It says we should not consider anything as our possession nor identify ourselves with the eternal ātman of the Brahmanists. (See MN 22 –

especially 22:15 and 22:22-29.) The Buddha explains that nothing is permanent, whether it be possessions or the possessor, and in that sense it is only those who are misled or do not understand the Buddha’s teachings who identify with concepts such as ‘mine’, ‘my’, ‘I’ and to ‘their’ possessions. The concept ‘I’ or

‘me’ refers to a collection of five aggregates (skandhas)¹⁰² and he explains that even they are not to be clung to if one wishes to be enlightened:

a well-taught noble disciple becomes disenchanted with material form, disenchanted with feeling, disenchanted with perception, disenchanted with formations, disenchanted with consciousness…Being disenchanted, he becomes dispassionate. Through dispassion [his mind¹⁰³] is liberated. When it is liberated…He understands: ‘Birth is destroyed, the holy life has been lived, what had to be done has been done, there is no more coming to any state of being.’

(MN 22:29, Ñāňamoli and Bodhi, pp. 232-3) Elsewhere, when directly asked by the wanderer Vacchagotta if there was a self, the Buddha was silent and remained so when directly asked if there was no self.

He says he did this since he did not want to give the impression that he agreed with either eternalists or nihilists (SN 44:10). His refusal to give an answer either way is confirmed by Nāgārjuna: ‘neither ‘individual self’ nor ‘non-individual self’

whatever has been taught by the Buddhas.’ (MMK 18:6; Streng, 1967, p. 204).

The Buddha was not only silent about the concept of self, but also about the concept of existence after enlightenment which refers to the ‘selfhood’ of a

Tathāgata¹⁰⁴ (MN 63). This (and his silence on the im/permanence of the world) is revisited by King Milinda in his conversation with the monk Nāgasena.¹⁰⁵ In this conversation Nāgasena explains that the reason the Buddha did not answer the question was because ‘there is no reason or object for answering such questions’

(Mhp 4:2:4-5, Rhys Davids vol. I, pp. 204-6) and that such questions should be

‘laid to one side’ – i.e. not answered: an idea Wittgenstein was later to employ.

Earlier in the discussion he had explained that ‘Nāgasena’ was nothing but a label or ‘designation in common use’ which stood for the five skandhas but that no permanent core of his being could be found (ibid., 2:1:1, pp. 40-5). However, the Buddha appears to have been less forthcoming about the nature of self.

As we have seen, in Theravāda Buddhism what appears as phenomena (and what we might then take to be a ‘self’) is nothing but consecutive dharmas. However, this is precisely where the Mādhyamika radicalises not-self into śūnyatā

(emptiness or voidness) by arguing that a dharma cannot be analysed since it cannot be reduced or dissected into any final essence. In fact, they argue, even if it had an identifiable beginning middle and end and we took one section of it to examine, we would find yet another beginning middle and end to examine ad infinitum. The Mādhyamaka conclusion is that there is no way of explaining continuity if all we find in ever smaller moments are more sub-moments which never lead us to the shortest moment. This renders the so-called shortest moment

102 Which are (1) material form (rūpa), (2) feeling (vedanā), (3) perception (sañña), (4) mental volitions or formations, (saģkhāra) and (5) consciousness (viññaňa).

103 Translator’s square brackets.

104 A fully liberated or enlightened one.

105 Although not originally a Mahāyāna text it is accepted by the Mahāyāna.

empty; there is no origination or decay, no object and in fact nothing describably concrete whatever. Not only is there no stable self in this example but nothing has a stable self, not a single dharma exists with svabhāva (essence), as a mental or bodily dharma according to this theory. Śūnyatā, therefore, is the radicalisation of the not-self doctrine into the theory that no dharma whatsoever has any sort of self-nature and if that is the case then there are no processes, since they cannot exist, and there is nothing to be processed.

This leaves us with a kind of answer to the question of anātman and rebirth, which is that the Buddha was not talking about self as complete non-existence, and for the Mādhyamaka he was not talking about it as existence either, nor as both nor neither. The problem only arises if the assumption is that the Buddha had taught that not-self means nothing (which he expressly refused to say) and it is not at all clear that this is what is meant by the anātman doctrine.

There is more to be said on Śāntideva’s specific treatment of the not-self teaching in relation to the śūnyatā teaching and this will be covered in the next chapter.