Chapter Eight

Nonself versus "I think, therefore I am."

Buddhists grow up with the concept of nonself despise its ambiguity. If we were to ask people how much they understand about the meaning of nonself, I am quite sure that the majority of Buddhists could not answer the question. It is very intriguing that someone could even suggest such a word which goes against the powerful instinct of self-centredness in man. What exactly does nonself mean ? If there is really no self, what on earth are we ? What can we call all these human creatures around the world ! To most of us, the Buddha's concept of nonself just doesn't make any sense at all, does it ? To the western mind, this is simply a crazy idea. On the contrary, we can easily agree and identify with what the French philosopher, Rene Descartes, suggested, the idea I think therefore I am. It is because we have thoughts that we exist as people. This is a much more straightforward concept about ourselves and we can all feel so.

If the concept of nonself came from a philosopher and we didn't agree with it, we could easily dismiss it totally. But when it comes from the Buddha, we cannot afford to do so. We have to spend a bit more time to investigate and find out the reason why the fully enlightened one said this.

First of all, let's investigate the meaning of "self" and see what we can find. If there isn't a self anywhere as the Buddha claimed, we are bound to face a fundamental problem. One of our basic human instincts is having a sense of self-centredness or mental-self. If we observe very carefully, we find that we simply assume that "self" means the combination of a physical body, thoughts and feelings blended in together. All these ingredients are made up into a self. This fundamental understanding is also a very strong one despise its ambiguity. We can see that whatever activities we do in our lives, they all gear up either to feed, defend, protect, enhance and above all to confirm the very essence of "self". Humankind has a very long history of struggling for survival both on the physical and the mental level. We get up every morning and go out to work so that we can feed this physical self. Our whole system of medical research and technology is based on maintaining this precious self. Furthermore we struggle for a better status in society in all sorts of ways and that is undoubtedly to enhance and glorify our mental-self (ego). What are all these for if they are not for the maintenance of this self ?

The enlightenment of the Buddha meant that he had obviously seen the state of nonself. This must be one of the most difficult issues he had to deal with when it came down to teaching people. In the end, the Buddha had to do it very bluntly by announcing the contradictory state of non-self , in trying to annihilate the misconception of the self and to get rid of this deeply rooted delusion in man. Obviously, this is the kind of knowledge which does not come naturally to man; this knowledge we cannot possibly work out by reasoning or using mathematics.

Where exactly is the self ? In trying to prove that there is not one, the Buddha began, first of all, to analyse the physical body. He pointed out that this body is made up of different parts and organs. In detailed analysis, the Buddha described 32 different parts that make up a physical body. In Thailand, this has become one of the daily chanting topics in all temples. They are used as objects for contemplation for samatha-vipassana bhavana. It is as follows:

This body consists of: hair, bodily hair, nails, teeth, skin, flesh, tendons, bones, bone marrow, kidneys, heart, liver, membranes, spleen, lungs, intestines, anus, food in the stomach, stool, bile, flame, pus, blood, sweat, grease, tears, slime, saliva, nasal mucus, brain membrane.

The outer boundaries are made up of hair, bodily hair, nails, teeth and skin. In monkhood ordination, the teacher (upashaya) will lead the monk-to-be in repeating these few words back and forth in their correct order. This is a gesture showing that the teacher has passed down the Buddha's teaching by giving the novice the objects of contemplation.

Basically, those 32 parts can be grouped into four fundamental elements which are earth, water, wind and fire. These four elements are the basic combinations which construct the existence of a physical body. The physical body will last only when there are appropriate factors, such as: right temperature, right combination of air, right vegetation, right environment, etc. While the factors that make this aggregation continue, the physical body exists. If the factors are off balance, the whole structure of our physical self is affected and illnesses occur. And when the four elements decide to go their own ways, the body ceases to exist. All the earth elements group together and eventually turn into dust and so do the water, wind and fire elements. In the end, what makes up our physical body is in fact the same combinations which make up the rest of the universe. If there really is an end to the universe, there will only be these four elements left. We can begin to realise how profound the Buddha's insight is.

As far as the Buddha is concerned, the reason for pointing out the detailed dissection of the body and the grouping of the four fundamental elements is to prove that there are not any parts of this body which can be called a self. The Buddha went even further by telling people to look at this body as impurity by suggesting that everything which comes out from the body, ears, eyes, nostrils, mouth, skin and lower passages, is dirty and that nothing is sweet, beautiful or pleasant. This is certainly true and is the reason why we have to use so much perfume, deodorant and so on, to conceal all our unpleasant outputs.

If any of the Buddha's disciples had the habit of clinging to beauty, he would let them contemplate corpses with the ten different stages of decay as the focus point of samatha-vipassana bhavana. This is called Asubha, meaning ten kinds of foulness. It begins from looking at 1) a swollen-up corpse 2) a discoloured corpse 3) a festering corpse 4) a split or disjointed corpse 5) a gnawed corpse ; being eaten by animals 6) a scattered corpse 7) a mutilated and mangled corpse 8) a bleeding corpse 9) a worm-infested corpse 10) a skeleton.

In conjunction with the Asubha contemplation, the Buddha once tried to help his cousin to be enlightened. Her name was Princess Rohini, the daughter of the Buddha's paternal uncle. He knew that princess Rohini was obsessed with beauty especially her own. Indeed, she was beautiful like a full moon reflected on a still lake at midnight. Her cheeks were as smooth as rose petals and her eyes sparkled like gems. Being a princess, she was surrounded by elaborate wealth, beautiful clothing and jewels. At one stage, she refused to be near her holy cousin and had no wish to see him as she had heard that the Buddha did not speak well of physical beauty. She knew that she would definitely be converted and that she would have to give up all her magnificent clothes, shave her silky and scented hair off and follow her exalted cousin like some of her close relatives did. She wasn't prepared to give up all these precious values yet, so she had been avoiding her noble cousin by not going to listen to his teachings when he was visiting the kingdom. It had reached a time when she couldn't escape her cousin any longer. In the end, she was accompanied by a group of her servants to pay respect to the Buddha and listen to his teachings. The princess did her best to hide behind the crowd and far away from her sublime cousin. The Buddha knew all along what had been going on in the princess's mind. He also knew that the princess's karma had riped and that now she would be able to understand the essence of dhamma (the teaching of the Buddha) and be enlightened as Sotapanna-one who has attained the first stage of holiness.

Knowing how much the princess clung to her own beauty, the Buddha used his psychic power merely to create understanding and to make wisdom arise. He magically created an image of a much more stunning and gorgeous young lady in her teenage years, fanning him by his side. It was only the Buddha and the princess who saw this hologram of the pretty maid. This most attractive and radiant lady was seen clearly by the princess as though they were facing each other. The princess gasped in wonder at her beauty and rolled her eyes in admiration for her. The Buddha didn't pay any special attention to the princess hiding in the back of the congregation. Instead, he went on with his talk as usual.

It was his created hologram which aimed to teach the beauty- obsessed princess. It worked splendidly. Princess Rohini could not take her eyes off the much prettier and younger lady tending to her holy cousin. She stared at and admired the young lady's finely shaped nose, mouth, arms and fingers, her perfect complexion, long dark silky hair and most of all her well-polished and elegant character. Princess Rohini thought that the young lady was far more beautiful than anyone she had ever seen and above all far more beautiful than she was. The princess couldn't help feeling envious. She couldn't hear a single word her noble cousin was saying. The Buddha waited until he was certain the princess had been totally taken over by the young lady's exceptional beauty, then, the crucial teaching began.

Suddenly, appearing only to the beautiful princess, the appearance of the tending maid began to change slowly. She changed from a young lady to a woman of the same age as the princess, still very attractive and to a matured elegant woman of thirty, forty, fifty and so on. Her dark silky hair was gradually mixed with stripes of white rugged ones. The creases around the eyes and neck began to fold in and become more and more apparent. The once smooth, delicate, fine and firm skin was slowly turning into rough, uneven and unattractive old skin. The limbs that were slender and strong became thin and feeble. Soon there wasn't a trace of beauty left in that mass of wrinkles, bumps and creases anymore. Instead, it had become a crooked, bent and deformed body which could not even sit up. The fan had long since slipped from her hand and fallen on the floor. From a beautiful young lady, this image had changed into a hundred year old woman who was rolling on the floor in pain and her life slipped away. The fresh corpse too began its gradual changing process. It went through being a bloated, discoloured, festering, split, gnawed, scattered, mutilated, blood-stained, worm-infested corpse, a skeleton and into a pile of dust in the end.

Princess Rohini was shocked, distorted and changed by what she had seen. Without listening to a word the Buddha had said, her delusion was removed by having witnessed what had happened to the beautiful lady she was admiring a little while ago. She realised that she too would grow old and die just like the image she had just seen. The attachment to her own beauty was taken away. Before the end of the Buddha's sermon, princess Rohini was enlightened and became a Sotapanna. She also attained the Arahantship (the state of fully enlightenment) later on in life.

In some temples in Thailand, pictures of a bloated, dissected body would be framed and put up in the shrine room, sometimes, a whole corpse was placed in a coffin to remind people of the impermanence of this physical body and that we should not be attached to it. The non-Buddhist who doesn't understand the purpose behind this teaching will find it rather offensive and revolting. Especially in western society where there are different values and beliefs, such practices can be considered an indignity and even taboo. This part of Buddhism has to be carefully explained to avoid any misunderstanding. However, the Buddha didn't recommend the Asubha contemplation to everyone.

In fact, we can see that the anatomic analysis is totally scientific based. It is not over-exaggerated. The Buddha was literally talking about the fundamental facts of metaphysics. The only reason behind this teaching is to try to destroy the deeply rooted delusion of a self, the fundamental ignorance which bars people from seeing the real truth. A full comprehension can lead to self-detachment and letting go of all things which is the key practice of Buddhism.

Despite the graphic detail of how to view the constant change of our physical body, there are further difficulties to be tackled and that is the mental-self or self-centredness. How can we even begin to feel contradictory to what we actually feel ? Where exactly can we find the feeling of non-self ? I think it will be easier to find an answer if we ask the opposite question first. That is: where exactly is our mental-self ? Because if we cannot find our mental-self, what is left over has to be the non-self. Now that we have abolished the theory that the self might be hidden in a physical body, we can begin to search for a mental-self instead. Is it in our brain, our heart, behind our chest, in the feelings, etc. ?

Scientists consider the brain to be responsible for the production of thoughts. Neurologists or brain experts have subsequently been spending the past century trying to find out where exactly the self actually is. Scientists have also dissected the brain of some leading figures in the past like Stalin and tried to study how and why such and such behaviour was created. Were there any differences in their brains ? Is it true that scientists have been cornered by the fact that there isn't a specific location of a self anywhere in the brain but a mass of grey matter hidden in the skull ? Once a chest is opened up, they can only find a mass of flesh, blood and different organs. Or is it just the feelings which come and go that make up the self ? Again, there is no concrete answer. Along the way of this study, scientists tend to get lost in their own knowledge. In the end, we are cornered even further to admit that we don't know anything about the self at all. Not until we begin to investigate and explore deeper into this matter, can we realise how obscure and remote we are in knowing about our own self. Is it true that there is no substantial element that we can claim as a self anywhere whatsoever ? There is definitely no concrete substance or matter which can be pinned down as a self, is there ? I personally think that we can learn very little or nothing at all about ourselves from the lumps of grey matter in our skulls. No matter whether it is the brain of an intellectual genius, a leading state man, a holy person or a mass murderer, fundamentally all their brains are made up of tissue membrane all the same. Are they not ? The different behavior of those people has to stem from their mental states, the dynamic nature which scientists cannot tackle yet. As a matter of fact, the Buddha has been trying to tell us all along that there isn't a self anywhere. Unfortunately the ability to create a mental-self happens to be our fundamental instinct. Therefore, one of the great difficulties in striking the core practice of Buddhism is that we have to go against that very basic instinct.

What causes the sense of self is , in fact, exactly what Rene Descartes described. It is the thought and the feeling which causes the sense of I and subsequently the sense of belonging or my. I am having the thought and I am bearing the feeling of joy or misery. This is my body, my feeling, my children, my money, my status and so on. Therefore, the sense of I am comes after the thought and feeling, certainly not before. Now, what Descartes did not know is that our abstract nature of thoughts and feelings are not there all the time. Thoughts and feelings are dynamic, not static. They are only guests who pay a visit into our host mind. They come and go. When we go into a deep sleep, the host mind is totally free from its guests. So, we can say that when there is no thought, there is no I or my either. We can even work this out by reasoning, can't we ? When the host mind is free from traces of thought or feeling, it is that very moment that life is free from the sense of I am and my this and my that.

In trying to simplify the Buddha's teaching of viewing the non-self, we have to make use of modern language and examples. What we experience as a self is simply a reflection like a mirage, rainbow or hologram. A reflection is not a real thing but it can be real enough while it lasts. We cannot say that rainbows and mirages do not exist. They are real enough at that moment while the factors which create them still last. When thoughts and feelings come into our host mind for a visit, they create a mental hologram or a reflection of I am. This is how life is made up; this is what life is about. Thoughts and feelings flash in and out of our minds (from head to heart) and create a reflection of a self. This is the way our mental- nature is operated. In that working process, a mental-self is being created on and off, according to the causes and factors but that self is merely a reflection, a mental-hologram. While the mental-hologram lasts, we do feel like having a self but when the computer exits the program (law of change, impermanence), our mental-holodeck along with our mental-self vanishes too. The point is that because the sense of I am is merely a reflection, therefore, there is no substantial element and no real essence in it whatsoever, just like a mirage, a rainbow and a hologram. That's why scientists cannot find the entity of a self anywhere. It is very much like a "living dream". We cannot say that a dream is real but it can be real enough to make us cry, laugh and sweat with fear when we are in the dream. People who know nothing about the host mind and its visitors will certainly become the victims of their own guests. These people are more or less in a living dream. Every time the host mind is taken over by either thought or feeling, a mental self is created. But because thoughts and feelings run in and out at such a staggering speed, we are bound to feel that the sense of self or I am is there all the time. And this is what Rene Descartes felt too. They have no idea that the sense of self happens momentarily and therefore there is no real entity of self or I am anywhere. There isn't one right from the start. And this is what the Buddha wanted to convey to all of us, humankind. We can see that it isn't easy to talk about at all. It cannot be understood through literal meaning but through the actual practice only.

The sense of self changes from one thing to another according to the situations and circumstances we are in. When a woman is with her husband, she will feel like a wife. When she deals with her children, she will feel like a mother. When she deals with her boss, she feels like a secretary or whatever job she is in. When she sits in front of a doctor, she feels like a patient and so on.

The sense of self gets stronger and more complicated when society gives more value to the assumed status. Those who live in the jungle and have a primitive life would have less sense of self because their roles are less and simpler. A simple social order does not create many mental reflections. For example, when society was less complex, men had to play only the roles of a father and husband or son and women played roles of mothers and wives or daughters. Each person had his or her distinctive tasks to do according to the role he or she played. Men had to hunt and protect the weak of the family. Women had to cook, tend to the young and look after the household. Only one or two men might have to play more than the simple roles and that is to be the chief of the group or to be a medicine man.

When society became more complex, the individual got more roles to play. A man is not only a father, husband and a son anymore, he is also a doctor, an engineer, a lawyer, a priest, a factory worker, a cleaner, etc. according to what job or career he has. He also has to be a boss, an employee, a neighbour, a tax- payer, a church-goer, a lover (if that's the case), a patient, a citizen of a country, etc. Women's roles are equally complex. One person has to play so many different roles at the same time and some roles are extremely complex such as being a president or a prime minister of a country, a congress man or an MP or a minister. Apart from those straight forward roles, we also have indirect roles like belonging to some ethnic community which has a different race, colour of skin from the majority of society and we also have people who are gays, lesbians, HIV positive and are either open or conceal themselves which makes the matter even more complex. Every role requires different tasks, deals with different problems and of course burdens with different feelings and emotions. The more value society gives to any assumed status, the more mental pressure people have to carry. We expect educated people in different professions such as: teachers, politicians, priests, doctors, judges, etc. to be good, caring people with high moral standards. We can't help thinking all convicts are bad people and so on.

We can see that the complexity of our society puts pressure on people to boost this basic instinct for reflecting their mental-self even further. Instead of dealing with just one or two simple reflections of our mental-self, we reflect more. Each mental hologram we build has its own problems and turmoil. When politicians or priests cannot keep up to their moral standards, we criticise them. Basically, no matter what role we are playing in society right now, no one is safe from being criticised one way or the other. In the end we are trapped in a very tight mental net from which we cannot get out.

When a prime minister, a judge, a teacher, a doctor, an actor, or a waiter, a dustbin collector, etc. comes home to his wife and children, his professional status or job title is switched off and the man simply has a reflection of being a husband and a father in his home.

The complications occur when people or the owners of the life cannot switch off some mental reflections and begin to grab onto the reflection and think that it is real. This is the beginning of many problems. When we look at ourselves in a mirror and see the reflection of ourselves, as long as we can understand that the person in the mirror is not real, just a reflection, an image, we should be all right. But it will certainly be a problem when we do not understand the truth of the likeness in the mirror and begin to cling onto that image as a real person. Likewise, when we hold tightly onto our assumed social status which is merely a reflection and are not willing to let go, we will have even more serious problems. This will explain why some famous people cannot cope with their lives. Most famous people especially those in the entertaining business enjoy the glory of their fame. There will always be a time when the fame reaches its peak and the famous ones have to descend from cloud nine. The higher one has gone up the scale of emotion, the lower one has to fall down. Falling down from an emotional ladder is not as fun as climbing up. That's why famous people get hurt very easily. The extreme ones chose to kill themselves just to get away from the misery and mental pain. People who become famous at a very young age are most vulnerable and dangerous. Their mental state is not mature enough to cope with the extreme of different emotions. They don't know how to switch off their mental reflections.

Of course, a real life reflection of our mental-self is certainly not as simple as talking about the reflection in the mirror. It is far more complex and difficult and besides it is something that we have to go against our natural instinct to understand. No ordinary people can easily penetrate this knowledge. This is why we need to rely on the profound insight of the Buddha to guide us through.

According to the Buddha, this is what spiritual ignorance is all about. It is indeed the lack of understanding about the truth of non-self. The truth is, we all born into this world with the possession of our spiritual ignorance. We all grab the image in the mirror as a self- our self. Then, we build everything around that self. If this imaginary self is a pole to begin with, this single pole has been extended and assembled into a house where we can live. But because this pole is only an imaginary one since day one, everything which attaches to it cannot be real either. From the reflection of our mental-self, we have indeed built our whole civilisation upon this shakeable sand bank where there is no substantial foundation whatsoever. How can we not expect disasters to happen ? Of course, disaster is imminent and we can all see it. Everyday, we hear of people being stressed, depressed, having breakdowns or even killing themselves because they have lost something they love or cannot have what they wish. What they have actually lost are the reflections and everything that associates with that reflection. They cannot understand that it is impossible to keep or hold on to a reflection and not expect it to be disappear at one stage or another.

Indeed, the misunderstanding about the non-self is the only fundamental problem we need to tackle. If this seed is left unchanged, it will certainly grow into various problems, heartaches and turmoil and cause endless suffering to mankind.

Vipassana-bhavana is the only way that we can come near to knowing this essential truth about our lives, about the reflection of mental-self, our mental-hologram and how to get out of it. Vipassana-bahvana will enable us to experience the innocent perception where the concept of non-self can be clearly seen. We will subsequently learn how to let go of all things. We can only let go when we can truly understand about the reflections of self and all mental hologram. It is impossible to work this out by using our brain or intellect. Vipassana-bhavana is the only way that allows us to piece all the scattered parts of the puzzles together and begin to make some sense out of this life. Maybe life is far more simple than we try to make out. Maybe we expect too much out of life. We try to answer all the demands echoing in our heads. The demands which tell us to do this and do that, have this and have that. To begin with, we all expect to have a comfortable life with very little struggle, then, we expect to be a bit more successful in our job or career, then we expect to be a bit richer and probably be famous. Women nowadays want to be successful both in their careers and family lives. They leave their babies in the hands of total strangers. When things go terribly wrong, who should have the blame, the parents or the carers? Our whole way of life become more and more complicated in trying to answer to our mental demands. I personally think that life is too short to pursue everything. Therefore, we must pursue only the priority.

The scale of the problems we are facing in the world right now is far too huge to solve them one by one. The problems have tangled up into a gigantic ball of cotton. Vipassana-bhavana is like finding the beginning of the ball of cotton. We need to just push the first domino, the rest will collapse accordingly. Likewise, vipassana-bhavana may not give us the answer of how to run a country successfully or how to solve our contaminated environment or how to cure terminal illness and so on, but it is a key to create real quality human-beings. Man is the most important variable which makes anything possible. If only we had real quality human resources (people who know life's map), all the problems we are facing right now from petty theft, to violent crime to war will collapse accordingly. We can easily build a society and a civilisation where people can feel more secure and live in peace. As far as the Buddha is concerned, vipassana-bhavana is the priority we must pursue.

During the Buddha's time, a man came to the Buddha and asked him about life after death. He was rather desperate to know the answer. The Buddha calmly asked the man to sit down and that he would sit right opposite him. The Buddha then said "Now, what we really should talk about is suffering and how to end suffering and certainly not life after death."

The most important factor to begin this crucial learning is that we mustn't be too arrogant and shut ourselves in our own mental-hologram. The Buddha said that the initial factor is having Kalyanamittata, good friends who can guide us onto the trail of practice. We must let the one who knows the truth, take this wrong seedling out of our hearts so that we can begin our spiritual journey.