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2023-03-04 Thanissaro Bhikkhu (Ajaan Geoff) - Selves and Not Self: Morning Talk / Q&A | Otter.ai

2023-03-04 Thanissaro Bhikkhu (Ajaan Geoff) - Selves and Not Self: Morning Talk / Q&A

Rob Hammond1h 10min

Ajaan Thanissaro

00:06

There's a passage in the canon where some monks are leaving to go to a far distant country where people don't know much about Buddhism. So they go to say goodbye to the Buddha. And he says, Have you paid your respects to Śāriputra?" They said, "Well, no, we haven't." Pay respects to him. So they do. Then he asks them "People in that far distant land are known to be wise, and if they ask you "What does your teacher teach?" What are you going to tell them?" They might say "Well, we want to come a long ways to hear what you would tell them." So very first thing that Sariputta says is "Our teacher teaches the ending of passion." No mention of the Four Noble Truths, no mention of the three characteristics; the ending of passion- because that's the goal of practice. It's through the ending of clinging, ending of craving, ending of passion that the end of suffering is brought about. And it's good to keep that in mind; that all the teachings the Buddha gave are for the sake of ending clinging, ending passion. And so when we think about the topic of not-self, which is the topic for today, the question is how best to approach this topic and how best to use it in a way that leads to the ending of clinging.

Ajaan Thanissaro

01:30

Right up front I want to say, in case zoom goes down and you wanted the take away right away, the takeaway is that when the Buddha is talking about not-self, he's not saying there is no self. The idea, of course is that there is a self. It basically comes down to saying what you are is not the problem, the problem is clinging to your ideas of what you are. And so the not-self teaching is best meant as a tool to approach that issue of clinging and what's interesting about it, even though your ideas about what you are a part of the problem leading to suffering; we're going to be using your ideas of what you are as part of the solution. So when the Buddha was asked, is there a self, is there no self? He didn't answer.

Ajaan Thanissaro

02:30

There are two passages that are relevant here. One is when the wanderer named Vacchagotta came to the Buddha and asked him that question point blank. Another is where the Buddha is actually talking to the monks as a large group. But Vacchagotta the wanderer he asked the question, the Buddha remained silent, so Vacchagotta got upset and left. Ananda, who was sitting by, asked him, "Well, why didn't you answer him?" The Buddha gives four answers to Ananda. One of which is that "If I'd have said, yes, there is a self, I'd be siding with the eternalists. If I said there was no self, I'd be siding with the annihilationists. Now those are two groups of people who the Buddha said had extreme wrong views. He went on to say "If I said there is a self, would that be in line with the teaching that all dhammas are not self? No. And if I said there is no self, this poor wanderer would have been confused; "does the self I used to have no longer exist?" So the Buddha doesn't give any explanation more than that. It is interesting, though that he doesn't say either way that there is a self or there is no self. He's basically saying, no matter how you define yourself, no matter what you say about whether there is or is not a self, it's going to lead to problems, it's going to lead to wrong view. We'll get into a little bit later what some of these issues are.

Ajaan Thanissaro

04:17

The other instance where the Buddha was talking about the issue, this time he was talking not just to the wanderer, he was talking to the monks at large. He was basically saying there are certain questions that are simply not worth paying attention to. And among the questions that are not worth paying attention to are the questions like do I exist? Do I not exist? What am I, How am I? The Buddha says you try to answer these questions you end up either with a view that you have a self, or that you don't have a self; which he calls a tangle of views and a wilderness of views, a writhing of views. And you get entangled with these views and you're not set free. So the whole purpose of the teaching has to be something else besides just coming down to the question of whether there is or is not a self. It's good to look at some of the consequences though of saying, yes, there is a self or no there is no self, why the Buddha would want to avoid answering those questions. Basically, when you say yes, there is a self, whatever you say it is- whether it's permanent or impermanent, form or formless- it's going to become an object of attachment.

Ajaan Thanissaro

05:27

There's a passage and Digha Nikaya 15 where the Buddha lists the various ways in which self can be defined; either as having a form and finite, having a form and infinite, formless and finite, formless and infinite, that pretty much covers all the ground. So each of those cases, you can say either the self already is that way, or it can be made to be that way, or it will naturally become that way, say when you go to sleep, or when you when you die. So those three modes times four types of self gives you 12 self views that you can go for, and the Buddha puts them all aside. He says that when you look at the way they define the self and none of them are really worth going with. Now notice that it's a value judgment he's making here. I want to make this point again and again throughout the day. That the Buddha is less interested in talking about what you are- but talking about the value of judgment of whether something is worth claiming to be self or not self. So the consequences of saying no, there is no self winding around up with a question about; "Well, who's doing the practice, then, and who are we doing this for?" There was a study made years back of infant behavior. And the psychologist noticed that one of the things that makes children the happiest, especially little tiny children, is when they figure out they can do something, and they get a result. And they do it again, and they get the same result. And this is why children start banging away on something drives you crazy. But for them, it's not just the sound. It's the fact that they've learned something about causality, they've learned something that they have some power to have an influence on their environment. And this is the main source of delight for infants. We'll see that this sense of agency is going to be important for doing the path. Because as the Buddha said, you want to be able to delight in abandoning unskillful qualities and to delight in developing skillful qualities. This quality delight does not happen when you feel that you are powerless to make a difference. In fact, if you feel like you're powerless, you cannot make a difference through your choices, it leads to depression. Whereas the Buddhist making this sense that the path to the end of suffering has to be a path that you delight in.

Ajaan Thanissaro

07:55

So that's the first consequence of saying there is no self it calls into question the whole question of who's doing the practice? Who's going to benefit from it? Secondly, if you had the view, there is no self, what do you do with it? It's kind of a view that you set forth. And then you take on all comers you argue with other people, and then you have to get attached to it. And another consequence of calling into question of who is acting and who's going to receive a result of the action is that it becomes a license for irresponsibility. There was a case in Majjhima 109, where the Buddha is talking about how the aggregates are not-self. And a monk comes up with this question; "If the the aggregates are not-self, then what self is going to be affected by the actions done by what is not-self? In other words there's no agent and there's going to be nobody receiving it, you can do what you want. So to say there is no self can also be used as an excuse for irresponsibility. We also have the practical problem, is that when people meditate and they arrive at a blank state, they convince themselves that they've achieved awakening with the idea that once you see there is no self that is awakening. Then they get stuck at that level. There's also the problem of people saying that, believing that, if you arrive at the view that there is no self then you are awakened. And the Buddha never talks about views as being what you arrive at, even right view is a means to; part of that raft that goes across the river. That has to be abandoned when you get to the other side.

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