No self, No Agent, No Doer
ever Existed:
A Self exists Not
... !
Question: Who are you ?
Answer: Something Else !
King
Milinda (Menander
I) around 100 BC asked The Awakened Arahant
Nāgasena Thera:
Who or what is the "Person"?
Nāgasena Thera then asnwered:
"Na ca so, na ca añño"
= Neither the same, nor another!
Source: King
Milinda's Questions. Milindapanhā.
There is no Self
as the agent of any action..
There is no Self as the feeler of any sensation..
There is no Self as the experiencer of any perception..
There is no Definable Entity transmigrating at
Rebirth..
There is no Self in or outside any constructed
intention..
There is no Self in or outside any bony frame of
a body..
There is no Self in or outside any shortly sensed feeling..
There is no Self in or outside any experienced
perception..
There is no "Person" in or outside any narrated
biography..
There is no "I-Me-identity" in or outside any
Individuality..
There is no Self in or outside any momentary
consciousness..
There is no Self in or outside any remembered
past memory..
There is no Doer experiencing any Kammic effect
of any action..
There is no
'The Same' Stable Identity lasting even for a moment..
There is no Owner of anything anywhere, whether material or mental..
There is no Identity neither inside, nor apart from the
5 clusters of
Clinging!
Feeling itself
feels... There is no feeler other than the process of feeling itself!
The state of knowledge itself knows. There is no
other knower!
The conditioned activity of action itself acts. There is no actor!
THERE IS ACTUALLY NOT
ANY "Self", "I-ME-Mine", "Personality", "I-dentity"!
Yet beings, since an endless beginning, passionately maintains this mere
IDEA
of a stably enduring, yet invisible entity, supposed to be the "Self, I, Ego,
Me,
Identity or Personality", with which they fall deeply and dramatically in love...
Assuming such an IDEA, constructing such an Imagination, Defining such an
Invention is more than FATAL, as it cause the constructer to come back to
birth, ageing, decay and death, and thereby suffering again
and again for aeons ...
This personality-belief, this Ego-assuming, this Self-imagination, this
Me-invention,
is the first hindrance, the first fetter, the first mental chain to break,
when
progressing towards Freedom, towards Peace, towards Bliss, towards
Nibbāna...
Here is only Change, Flux, Transience, Impermanence, Passing, Dissolution
and
Disintegration.
Here is only Pain, Suffering, Dissatisfaction, Disappointment, Danger,
Frustration and Misery.
Here is only Impersonality, Egolessness, Selflessness, and Ownerlessness
lacking any Core.
No Self is found neither here, nor there...
There is Action, yet no-one is known doing it.
There is a Noble Way, yet no-one is seen travelling it.
There is a
Nibbāna..., yet no-one appears to enter it.
These are the Facts.
No constructed identification is worth Clinging to.
Let it all go, Give it Up ! Relinquish it ! Release it !
That is: Not Agreeable, yet quite Advantageous!
This is: Not Pleasurable, yet quite Liberating!
Such is: Not Enjoyable, yet absolute and Deathless...
Difficult and counterintuitive is this No-Self issue! But
ultimately Rewarding!
The best
way to comprehend No-Self (anatta) is to begin with
observing
and reflecting on
Impermanence (anicca) and Suffering (dukkha).
Then eventually one comes to understand:
Whatever is always
otherwise
and never the same, never identical, cannot ever be an identity,
a self...
Whatever is always ultimately suffering cannot be under the
control of a self,
since if
it were, then this autonomic self would
naturally change it
into something
pleasant and happy.
But no self can do that, since it is not in
full control.
If a self is not in control of even itself
(=fully autonomic) it
cannot be a true self,
but just conditions that plays out their cause and
spurious effects...
