Introduction

The Buddha first gave his not-self teaching to a group of his followers called the five brethren. They had already listened to his teachings on the four noble truths and had seen that those truths really were true: When you follow the noble eightfold path, you put an end to craving and clinging at least temporarily, and you glimpse the end of suffering. So when the Buddha gave them the not-self teaching, they knew what to do with it. They used it to put a total end to craving and clinging, and to gain total release.

In the centuries since, though, people have used the not-self teaching for many other purposes, often turning it into a no-self teaching to answer metaphysical questions about the nature and existence of a self. This raised a further question: no self in what sense? Is there no self at all? Is there a cosmic, interconnected self but no individual, independent self? A temporary self but no permanent self? A self in the conventional sense but not in an ultimate sense? The debates over these issues have never come to an end. And they don’t put an end to clinging.

It’s no wonder, then, that many people coming to Buddhism find the not-self teaching confusing. What follows is an attempt to get back as close as possible to what the Buddha himself taught about not-self in the oldest extant record of his teachings, the discourses in the Pāli Canon. There are sixteen questions and answers related to the topic of not-self, followed by readings from the Canon on which the answers are based.

I hope that this book will help clear up at least some of the confusion.