The Buddhist View of the Self
In order to aid in the nonconceptual realization of truths, Ancient Buddhist scholars categorized our daily conscious experience into five aggregates that, together, constitute the phenomena we conceptualize as a self. The five aggregates, or skandhas (Sanskrit) or khandas (Pali), include form, feelings, perception, mental formations, and our sensory consciousness (The Five Aggregates: A Study Guide By Thanissaro Bhikkhu). According to the teachings found in the Abhidharma literature, it is through our experience of these simultaneous moments of our experiences, and subsequent clinging to these aspects, that we formulate the concept of a self. The concept of the five aggregates is meant to act as an aid in realizing nonconceptual, experiential wisdom through meditation practice (Indestructible Truth: The Living Spirituality of Tibetan Buddhism by Reginald A. Ray).
So what is the truth that these concepts point towards? Buddhism describes the concept of “I” or the self as essentially illusory because, if you really sit down and focus on what is happening, what we experience is really just a “continuous stream of constantly changing moments” (p. 369 Indestructible Truth: The Living Spirituality of Tibetan Buddhism by Reginald A. Ray). Living your life based on the false notion of some essential quality like a self would be like seeing your reflection in a bubble, thinking the reflection is the wholeness of your being, and feeling absolutely devastated when that bubble eventually pops. Thus, the Buddhist view of the self is that the singular, static, independent self that we call “I” is not accurate to how we actually experience life moment to moment.
Please note that Buddhism also values compassion to the utmost degree, so this view of the self is not an excuse to not care about your own or other peoples’ wellbeing.
The self is like foam, bubbles, or an illusory mirage that feels real only because we cling so tightly to the aggregates of the self (The Five Aggregates: A Study Guide By Thanissaro Bhikkhu). Impermanent moments combine in our experience of that thing we call “me.”
“All compounded things are impermanent” (p. 3 What Makes You Not a Buddhist by Dongsar Jamyang Kyentse Rinpoche). This is the first of the four seals of Buddhism. Any archaeologist, in addition to any practicing Buddhist, knows this to be true. From our cookware to our physical bodies, very little surviving material evidence could prove our existence on the timescale of the Earth’s physical ecological processes. Millions of years in the future, it would take an expert and a lot of luck to prove with material evidence that I or you once lived in the 21st century. What might be more profound, however, is that your experience of this subjective moment is unique. And now that you're reading this next sentence, this moment is somehow different from when you were reading the last sentence. How crazy is that?! This is my understanding of impermanence: basically, the only constant is change.
The 12 Links of Interdependent Origination
According to these ideas, our ignorance of these processes leads to suffering in endless cycles. Let’s try to understand the effects of our ignorance and karmic formations so we can eventually figure out how to stop the wheel!
(picture from p. 369 Indestructible Truth: The Living Spirituality of Tibetan Buddhism by Reginald A. Ray).
With the context of the impermanence of the nonexistent self as a foundation, let's return to the five skandhas. The five aggregates of the self are set within the 3rd through 7th links of the 12 links of interdependent origination (Sanskrit: nidanas). These 12 links explain how we stay wandering in the wheel of birth, death, and rebirth called samsara through causes and effects (Sanskrit: karma). Though these ideas are far too complex for me to present or know in totality, here I will lay out the basics of what the 3rd through 9th links might mean for us based on my understanding of a chapter from Indestructible Truth: The Living Spirituality of Tibetan Buddhism by Reginald A. Ray.
Once a cause occurs, an effect will ultimately come to pass. Basic ignorance and the potential energy of karmic foundations cause the effects of consciousness, name and form, the six senses, contact between the previous links, and reactions to arise in one’s experience of life. Within the 3rd link, consciousness, are the six sense consciousnesses corresponding to the six sense objects of the 4th link, name and form. These sense consciousnesses and sense objects also correspond to the six sense faculties of the 5th link. The 6th link, contact, describes the tripartite experience of sight, sound, touch, taste, smell, and mind from the combination of the 3rd through 5th links. In the 7th link, we respond to the stimuli received from our senses in a flash moment of positive, negative, or neutral reaction.
Though these links of interdependent origination happen sequentially from the initial causes of ignorance and built up karmic energy to the positive, negative, or neutral reaction to sensory stimuli, we experience them almost simultaneously. This wheel spins at imperceptibly large and small scales in fractal dimensionality. To watch their expression in our everyday lives takes an altered state of awareness trained in meditation which, please note, I have not achieved. However, our scholar of the 12 links, Ray, tells us that just after our base reaction to stimuli, there is a moment before we move to the 8th and 9th links. The 8th and 9th links, thirst and grasping, represent the desire that produces the false concept of the self and leads to suffering. Desire/greed, un-desire/hate, and ignorance are the three poisons that tether us to the suffering within the samsaric cycle of birth, sickness, and death. If we can notice the momentary gap between our initial positive, negative, or neutral reaction, we can choose to simply watch this moment pass. Training our awareness to watch that gap can help us avoid the habitual choice to grasp for positives and push away negatives. Dwelling on that moment between the 7th and 8th links exhausts previous karma without creating new karma, helping one to progress on the path towards liberation from suffering.
So what does all of this mean for understanding the self? The 5 aggregates of form, feeling, perception, mental formations, and sensory consciousness, which we call our self, are part of the unavoidable effects of previous causes and conditions. We perceive these combined factors as a dualistic self, separating “I” from “other,” subject from object. The concept of self arises when we desire for more or less of something within our self-experience and then cling to that impermanent phenomena as if it were a defining factor of our identity.
But, if we practice awareness, we can choose to break the wheel of suffering! We can identify with the nondual awareness that is beyond conceptual description or understanding. Again, I am not there, but, surely, it is right here.
In the next section, I bring these philosophical concepts into the real world of concrete examples. To learn more about Buddhism, check out my sources as well as others.