Thusness recommended this article to me and said it is well
written on the aspect of appearances and awareness and Dependent
Origination.
http://www.sacred-texts.com/bud/tib/singer.htm
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The `No-Self' Nature of People and Things
by Charlie Singer
AUTHOR'S COLOPHON: This small book was completed in
Kingston,
Pennsylvania on the new moon day of the first month of the Tibetan
Iron
Horse year (March 16, 1990). It was written for purposes of
the author's own
edification, with the wish that it might somehow be of benefit to
other people
who might read it in the future.
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: This edition of "The `No-Self' Nature of
People
and Things" has been transcribed from the RIGDEN PUBLICATIONS
edition, which ran 308 copies. Charlie Singer has given the
Tiger Team
Buddhist Information Network express permission to transcribe this
work.
-- Gary Ray
Copyright c. 1990 Charles M. Singer
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Charlie Singer was born in Brussells, Belgium,
in
1952. he received a B.A. degree in General Arts and Sciences
from Penn
State University in 1973, and from 1976-1978 was a student in the
Tibetan
Studies Program at the Nyingma Institute in Berkeley,
California. Since
1980, he has been studying Tibetan Buddhism at the Yeshe Nyingpo
Center
in New York City, the seat in North America of the late H.H.
Dudjom
Rinpoche, Supreme Hoead of the Nyingmapa lineage of Tibetan
Buddhism.
Dedicated to:
The Late H.H. Dudjom Rinpoche
H.E. Shenpen Dawa Rinpoche
Ven. Tarthang Tulku Rinpoche
Ven. Ngor Thartse Khen Rinpoche
Ven. Khenpo Paiden Sherab Rinpoche
Ven. Khenpo Tsewang Dongyal Rinpoche
to my late Father, Samuel Singer,
and to my Mother, Paulette;
and Jeanine N. and Tina F.
In the history of ideas, there is perhaps
no idea more unusual than the
Buddhist concept of anatman, or `no-self'. This idea of
anatman, or `no-self',
was taught by the historical Buddha, Buddha Sakyamuni, as being one
of the
"three marks of existence", along with duhkha, or dissatisfaction,
and anitya,
or impermanence. These "three marks of existence" are
regarded in Buddhist
thought as being the three fundamental conditions which pervade the
human
condition. The latter two "marks of existence", of
dissatisfaction and
impermanence, have been much written about in the Buddhist
literature now
available in the English language, but the notion of anatman, or
`no-self' has
been little understood, and represents one of the most unusual, and
yet
important, ideas to arise in the history of ideas.
Common to all schools or forms of
Buddhism, is the idea of anatman or
`no-self' nature of the individual or person (or actually of all
beings endowed
with consciousness). The Buddha was born into the Hindu
religious culture,
and one of the fundamental tenets of the Hindu religion has always
been that
all beings are endowed with the nature of (having an) atman, or
`soul' or
actually a `self', which is ultimately identical with, or actually
partakes of, the
nature of Brahman, or the creator aspect of God, in Hindu
tradition.
Although the Buddha never explicitly affirmed or denied the
existence of
God, encouraging his disciples to study and practice his teachings
until they
themselves had attained the level of a perfectly enlightened being,
or a
Buddha, at which point they would have a direct understanding of
this and
other such metaphysical questions, the Buddha made it quite clear
in one of
his first teachings, that in regard to the notion that beings are
endowed with
an atman, or permanent `self', that this notion is ultimately
erroneous, and that
in fact, the condition of having `no-self' is an underlying
"fact-of-life" or
principle of existence.
This idea of there being `no-self' can be
analyzed in different ways, but
from one point of view, we might say that the idea of `no-self'
means that
when investigate the nature of the individual or person, if we
investigate what
is involved carefully enough, we would find that ultimately, there
isn't
actually a `self', or the one we refer to as `I' or `me', as a
truly-existing `being'
who `inhabits' our body and mind, in a concrete, ongoing, and
permanent
way. In common sense thinking, and even in traditional
philosophies and
religious and scientific thinking, there is a sense in which people
have always
accepted the belief that there is, in fact, a `self' who inhabits
our body and
mind, who is the one we refer to as `I' or `me'.
This attitude, or underlying
presupposition or existence, can well be
summed up by the statement of the French philosopher, Descartes,
that "I
think, therefore I am". From the point of view of Buddhist
philosophy,
however, this sort of statement partakes of the nature of
delusion. We might
*assume* that there is a `self' who `inhabits' our body and mind,
and is "the
one who does our thinking", but if we were to investigate this
state of affairs,
we would find, according to Buddhist philosophy, that this is, in
fact, not the
case. Our thoughts and thinking processes might *seem* as if
there is an
actual `I' who is generating or thinking our thoughts, saying and
hearing the
thoughts that arise in `our minds', but if we were to investigate
what is
actually involved, we might find that, in fact, this notion of an
ongoing `self'
or `I' is only an erroneous assumption. This idea of there
being a `self' is so
deep-seated, that it may seem completely unquestionable, and a
`given' factor
of experience and existence, but ultimately, according to
Buddhist
philosophy, the belief in a `self' or `I', but ultimately, there is
a sense in which
"there may not be anybody there!" What is involved might be
said to be like a
case of "the talk in our heads" *pretending to be" a "somebody who
is having
thoughts". Although the common sense belief may be that "I am
the one who
creates the thoughts", it may be, in fact, that our thinking our
thoughts
actually help to create the belief that there is a `self' or an `I'
who truly exists
as `the one who does our thinking!'
Although it is possible to `unravel' what
is involved in regard to the
nature of the `thinker' and the `thoughts' through practicing
different kinds of
Buddhist meditation, such as meditation in which we attend to the
nature of
our thoughts and how they arise in our mind, developing calmness,
and direct
insight into what is actually involved, it will not be the purpose
of this book to
discuss the subject of formal meditation, as this is a complicated
subject, and
because formal meditation is best learned from a qualified
meditation teacher.
Rather, we will next focus on the notion
of `no-self' as it relates to our
sense-perceptions. It is said in Buddhist tradition, that the
sense of hearing is
the easiest of our sense-perceptions by which we can come to
an
understanding of the nature of `no-self', and in fact it is said
that the
Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara, the personification of the compassion
of all the
Buddhas (the reader is reminded that in Buddhist tradition, anyone
who has
attained the level of a completely enlightened being, or Buddha, is
designated
as being a Buddha, and so there have actually been many Buddhas),
attained
the enlightenment by following the advice of Manjushri, the
personification of
the wisdom of all the Buddhas, and attending to the true nature of
the
sensation of hearing, or sound. If we consider the nature of
an ongoing
sound, such as a waterfall, or even any sounds such as music, we
can ask
ourselves - which part of this sound, or audial presentation, is
the actual
sound, and which part is the `self' or `I' who is the one who is
`doing the
hearing'? More specifically, where do we `cut-up' this
audial-sensation into
the separate components of the one who `hears' and `that which is
being
heard'? It may be, as with our act of thinking, that we have
wrongly assumed
the idea of a solid, permanent `self' who acts as an agent or
subject,
interacting with our sense-perceptions, here being our perception
of sound.
That is, we regard our `selves' as being a separate subject which
interacts with
sensations we regard as being truly-existing and separate from
`us', in a way
that the sensation is regarded as a separate and independent
object.
As the reader may have noticed, it is very
difficult to speak of the non-
existent nature of a `self' without discussing the nature of our
world of `things'
and sensations. Although the idea of the ultimate
non-existence of the `self' is
a central idea in all forms of Buddhism, of the divisions of
Hinayana,
Mahayana, and Vajrayana Buddhism, in the latter two forms of
Buddhism,
along with the idea of the ultimate non-existence of the `self',
there is also the
idea that in addition to the non-existence of a `self', that what
we regard as
being the world of `things' and sensations, also partakes of the
nature of
`anatman' or `no-self'.
As we have seen in the analysis of sound,
such as a waterfall or of
music, it is very difficult to separate the sensations into a
separate subject who
is having or experiencing the sensation, and a separate object,
that is, the
sound being heard. In the literature of the Abhidharma,
rather than accepting
the common sense notion that there is a `self' who is a concrete,
permanent,
truly-existing agent which acts as the subject of our sensations,
such as seeing
and hearing, sensations were analyzed or `broken-down' into their
apparent
component parts. For example, rather than saying that "I see
a thing", in the
Abhidharma analysis, it would be stated that in the act of visual
sensation, it
is necessary to have three separate components: an agent of seeing,
visual
consciousness, and an object of sight.
Whether we analyze `things' and sensations
as being sensed or
perceived by a central `self' who perceives all the various
sensations of the
different senses, or analyze them according to the Abhidharma
view,
according to the view of the philosophical school of Madhyamika,
a
Mahayana Buddhist school founded by the second-century
philosopher,
Nagarjuna, which was based upon the Prajnaparamita Sutras of the
Buddha,
the `things' and sensations in our world also partake of the nature
of `anatman'
or `no-self', in the same way that persons or individuals partake
of the `no-self'
nature.
As we have said, the nature of the hearing
sensation may be the easiest
means by which to understand the relationship between a perceiving
subject
and the object of perception, or actually, to recognize that they
are both
equally non-existent, ultimately. Rather than being the case
that a subject (or
a specific variety of sense consciousness, according to the
Abhidharma)
interacts with and senses (or "grasps", as it is said in the
Buddhist
philosophical literature) an object of perception, it may be that
sensations
arise in a way that there is ultimately no subjective pole of
experience
interacting with a separate objective pole. Because
sensations arise beyond
the realm of an independent or separate subjective pole and an
independent or
separate objective pole, and thus without any interaction between a
subjective
and an objective pole or dimension, all our sensations, according
to the view
of Madhyamika philosophy, partakes of the anatman or `no-self'
nature. The
technical term used in the Madhyamika literature, is that all our
sensations,
visual, audial, and all others, are "shunya" or "empty", or that
they partake of
the nature of "shunyata" or "emptiness". In the interest of
being fair to the
Madhyamika system, however, it must be pointed out that the
philosophy of
Madhyamika is so adamant in not taking any position in regard to
"the way
things really are", that even the position that things and
sensations partake of
the nature of anatman, or `no-self', is not beyond critique.
Yet there is a sense
in which in the traditional parlance of the nature of anatman, or
`no-self', as
referring to the same truth of `things' and sensations as being
"shunya" or
"empty". What they are `empty of', is the status of
being inherently or `truly-
existing'. We might say that although in perceptual
situations we are faced
with some kind of an epistemological-object, or an apparent object
of
knowledge or perception, `its' status as an ontological-object, or
as a `truly-
existing object' is that it is "empty" of an ontological status, or
of the nature of
having the nature of being an inherently and `truly-existing'
object.
This is true of the objects of all our
sensations, but it is the visual
sensation and the `object of sight' that we need to analyze in more
detail
because although all the senses taken together and our thinking
work together
to enforce or create the view of a separate `self' interacting with
a world of
`truly-existing things', in a sense it is our sense of sight, among
all our senses,
which is perhaps the most important sense used in analyzing or
understanding
our world, along with, of course, our thinking, which in Buddhist
philosophy
is regarded as being a separate type of consciousness.
We are confronted with all kinds of
different `objects' or `things' in our
world everyday. There are `objects' of all different sizes,
shapes, and colors,
in natural settings and in rooms which are in buildings, which are
themselves
a type of object, and also other beings such as animals and other
human
beings, which in a sense are another type of object which we as an
apparent
subject or `self' can interact with.
It may be possible to establish through
some kind of logic, the non-
existence of a solid, permanent `self' who acts as the agent of our
visual
sensation. For example, we can try to posit the existence of
such a `self' by
referring to "the one who sees". But by further stating that
"the one who sees,
sees", it would be like establishing an agent with a double action,
as we have
already `accounted for' the act of seeing in the statement of "the
one who
sees". And as it is not possible to have an agent with a
double action, the
statement of "the one who sees, sees", would not be logically
coherent. But
the use of some kind of logic may not be very useful in trying to
understand
directly the non-existence of a `self' who acts as an agent in
regard to the
visual sensation (as well as the other sensations), as it is
necessary to develop
a more experiential understanding of what may actually be
involved.
In regard to the so-called
subjective-pole, or the `self' dimension in
visual sensation, we might say that there is a deep seated tendency
to believe
that there is `someone inside us' looking out onto the world of
`things' and
appearances from a stable vantage point `in our head' and `behind
our
eyeballs'. We believe that there is an ongoing-individual or
`self' who `looks-
out' from the stable vantage point, such that there is a concrete
and solid
subject who looks out at all the various appearances, or `things'
or `objects' in
our world. But this is regarded in Buddhist philosophy to be
an erroneous
presupposition, or a deluded view.
