Not taking into account

The view of pop Buddhists and Theravada monks is that the Buddha taught there is no self.  Part of this view rests on the assumption that the self is like horns on a hare or a barren woman's child.  In other words, self is an illusion—a mere fiction.  The other part, rests on the assumption that the Five Aggregates of form, feeling, perception, predispositions and consciousness are the standard on which a judgment may be based for determining whether or not a self or attâ/âtman is real.  Such views are all wrong.

In many of the Buddha's discourses he asks us to reflect that the conditioned world is impermanent, suffering and not self or anattâ.   Interestingly, what is impermanent, suffering, and no self or anattâ is also regarded by the Buddha to be the Five Aggregates.  As reason tells us, they cannot be a standard for judging anything about self.  If someone believes the self is an illusion, there is no basis for judging such.  The guess is capricious.

In one particular discourse (S. iii. 33-4), the Buddha asks us to abandon what is not ours, namely, the Five Aggregates.  So, evidently, the abandoner of the aggregates is real who is not the conditioned Five Aggregates.  Heretofore, I was clinging to the aggregates in the belief that they were my self.  I believed I was form, feeling, etc.  In short, I believed I was this psychophysical person.  Now I know that the one who abandons or rejects the aggregates is me.  This first-person is like an island and a refuge along with the Dharma (S. iii. 42).  It alone knows what is true and what is false (A. i. 149).

The view of pop Buddhists and Theravada monks, that the Buddha denied the self, is not taking any account of the many discourses in the Buddhist canon in which we are taught by the Buddha not to identify with the Five Aggregates for various reasons.  These discourses are being addressed to the first-person, that is, the self or attâ—not the anattâ.

 

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