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"The concept of anatta has, from early times, been controversial amongst Buddhists and non-Buddhists alike and remains so to this day. [1]"
According to Harvey, Perez-Ramon's personal interpretation is problematic. Now does the quote mean to convey the controversy among first and second generation Buddhologists as Harvey does in the linked page? If so that doesn't warrant presence in the intro. If "controversial" means that some Mahayanists use the word "atman" in a different way, then that should be stated a different way. What is it? What is the full quote from the source? Mitsube ( talk) 04:13, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
Please provide the full context of the quote beyond what can be found at a certain polemical website. This is an extreme minority view in the Buddhist studies community. Mitsube ( talk) 06:05, 4 October 2008 (UTC)
Not. Sabbe sankhara anicca dukkha and anatta are recognized by every single one of the Buddhists schools, no exceptions. So it's not a recognization of "some kind of..."; it is just very hard to understand/explain. It's easier to just ommit that part in this article and try to ask different Lamas and Ngakpas of the visions of this problematic... and western philosophers. See: Mhulamadhyamikakarikas by Nagarjuna, that's the philosophical basis for all Mahayana, how could it be then Atman or whatsoever? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.246.107.238 ( talk) 01:18, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
I would like it if someone could include any or all of this quote from bhikku bodhi in his book, 'In the Buddha's Words'. It is about dependent origination, but it pertains to this same self vs. not-self argument:
'Several suttas hold up dependent origination as a "teaching by the middle". It is a "teaching by the middle" because it transcends two extreme views that polarize philosophical reflection on the human condition. One extreme, the meta-physical thesis of eternalism, asserts that the core of human identity is an indestructible and eternal self, whether individual or universal. It also asserts that the world is created and maintained by a permanent entity, a God or some other metaphysical reality. The other extreme, annihilationism, holds that at death the person is utterly annihilated. There is no spiritual dimension to human existence and thus no personal survival of any sort. For the Buddha, both extremes pose insuperable problems. Eternalism encourages an obstinate clinging to the five aggregates(skhandas), which are really impermanent and devoid of a substantial self; annihilationism threatens to undermine ethics and to make suffering the product of chance.
Dependent origination offers a radically different perspective that transcends the two extremes. It shows that individual existence is constituted by a current of conditioned phenomena devoid of a metaphysical self yet continuing on from birth to birth as long as the causes that sustain it remain effective. Dependent origination thereby offers a cogent explanation of the problem of suffering that on the one hand avoids the philosophical dilemmas posed by the hypothesis of a permanent self, and on the other avoids the dangers of ethical anarchy to which annihilationism eventually leads.' --Bhikku Bodhi
If someone could include some or all of this, if they feel it is pertinent, that would be a great help, as i do not feel yet comfortable editing articles. -- 24.12.229.163 ( talk) 20:21, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
The paragraph starting: At the time of the Buddha some philosophers and meditators posited a "root".... is just copied and pasted. I was unsure what to do about it.
Thomas B. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Duckbeach ( talk • contribs) 01:11, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
Word Sutta and Sutra(Pali and Sanskrit word for same thing) are both used in the article in different places. This might cause confusion and there should only be one or the other word used consistently. Somekind of compromise is also possible, e.g. Sutta(Sutra). Also, if someone should choose to use, let's say Sutta(which is Pali), then all the similar cases in article should use the pali word and not mix the languages. This is not problem only in this article, but also in other articles concerning Buddhism in Wikipedia.
In my experience, Sanskrit words are more common in western literature, but many Buddhist texts seem to use Pali.
Aperculum ( talk) 18:17, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
Suttas and Sutras are not the same thing, so it would be a step backwards to use just one word throughout the article. When referring to a Pali sutta or suttas, the word should be 'sutta' or 'suttas'. When referring to Sanskrit Sutra or Sutras, the word should be 'Sutra' or 'Sutras'. In an article which covers the ground of both suttas and sutras, this distinction actually helps to clarify rather than cause confusion because the reader will know "the suttas say" might be contradicted in what certain "sutras say" owing to legitimate doctrinal differences between, for example, Mahayana Sutras and the Pali suttas. Another look could be taken to be sure this is being followed correctly in the article, but a quick skim indicated to me that it was (it didn't appear to me they were being used interchangeably: 'sutta' references tied back to the Pali Nikayas, especially via Paul Harvey, and 'Sutra' references went to sutras), although there is some ambiguity in how freely the Pali version of the term anatta is used in context where it should be anatman. This is somewhat less of a problem than between sutta/sutra, but still an issue.-- Vacchagotta ( talk) 21:20, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
On 05:55, 23 August 2010 Tengu800 removed the entire Madhyamaka section claiming that it was "improperly referenced material from ancient primary sources. Instead brought in modern Mahayana commentary on the main matter of interpreting Anatta."
Actually, the material is well referenced from modern translations; it belongs to a large and living tradition which relies upon a long commentarial tradition (not that such a thing makes it a requirement for WP). None of the material that was referenced is from primary sources - the material is (admittedly old) academic commentarial work from Nalanda University, with further commentaries made by Tsongkhapa who was another famous academic commentator. There are plenty of far more modern academic works that talk about these things - see the texts written by Sprung, Garfield, Williams, Inada, Streng, Napper, etc. etc. In fact Napper ( ISBN 0861710576, pp67-142) summarises and distinguishes an entire host of modern academic commentators and their views on anatta and the middle way philosophy.
The commentary that replaced it concerns the views of just one person, which certainly does not adequately typify the views of Anatta from the Mahayana perspective.
There are many different views of Anatta within various Mahayana schools. It is easy enough to find references to demonstrate that. I have restored the Madhyamaka text and contextualised the Chán text.. ( 20040302 ( talk) 08:03, 5 May 2011 (UTC))
“One uses 'not-Self', then, as a reason to let go of things, not to 'prove' that there is no Self.” This quote of Peter Harvey is indicative of the problem of specious scholarship which opines that the Buddha used anatta as a mere ‘strategy’ for release, and never denied the Brahman Absolute. This entire section on ‘Anatta in the Nikāyas’ should be reworked. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.250.187.46 ( talk) 13:55, 12 September 2011 (UTC)
I disagree with the start of the article, that is certainly not how I read the texts. However, linking that concept concerning the 5 senses with the concept of Anatman in Advaita Vedanta is incorrect because it fails to acknowledge the positioning of Tat Tvam Asi - 'you are that'. Instead, I read anatta and anatman from both advaita vedanta and through buddhism as being an acknowledgement that all we sense (hear and see etc.) is constructed through ourselves but the concept of self is also constructed. The world only exists because of how we interpret our senses through our mind - hence everything is an illusion - as demonstrated by Shankara's example of the rope and snake (so the old saying about a tree falling - it makes no sound because nobody is there to hear it because sound is a construct of how the mind interprets vibrations via the ear drum, but even if someone was there to interpret the vibrations as sound, that person is not really there because there is no essence that can be pinpointed as being - as in the old story about where is the cart?) . The key to anatman can be found most clearly when Ramakrishna came out of his trance and acknowledged that if the world is an illusion of our senses then we ourselves are part of that same illusion. The key to anatta and anatman is realising that yes, the world is an illusion of the senses but there can be no self because we too are part of the world and hence part of the illusion. The mind is a construct of the mind and therefore does not truly exist. In Buddhism the self does not exist through several demonstrations - Nagarjuna's demonstration that mirrors the older Greek demonstration of a river and time. There can be no-self because the second it comes into being it ceases to be. The 'me' of today is not the same as the 'me' when I was a baby, and similarly, the 'me' of this exact moment, is different to a mili-second ago. There is therefore no tangible self beyond that which the mind constructs - but the mind itself changes constantly and the mind of now is not the same as before I started writing this blurb. This has nothing to do with the senses at all. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.27.37.82 ( talk) 22:36, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
High, the only difference that has been noted in these two quite long paragraphs is that some interpret no self to mean it should be neither affirmed or denied, and others say that it just doesn't exist. Who is the first group - it's not something I've encountered before? I can think of the pudgalavadins who say that the self exists and is neither the same nor different to the aggregates, but that's not what was said. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.202.174.43 ( talk) 02:14, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
I organized the section "Anatta in the Nikayas" with subcategories for the ways in which anatta are presented in the nikayas. I did this mainly to get rid of some of the rambling, thinking I'd be able to place everything in a relevant scriptual category somewhere, but was unable to find a place for these two paragraphs. Instead of removing them completely I've put them here as parts may be useful to the article. In particular, some of the sources I think would be a good place to get more information.
I also ran into two problems dealing with citations. SN 4.400 for example doesn't appear to exist. Moreover, none of the suttas in samyutta 4 appear to deal with the relevant passage about the soul, eternalism, or annihilationism. Possibly it refers to a different naming scheme, like "S IV 400". The statements are factual and are found elsewhere in the suttas, so I've left it and added a hidden note. I did the same thing regarding this later quote, “Both formerly and now, I’ve never been a nihilist (vinayika), never been one who teaches the annihilation of a being, rather taught only the source of suffering, and its ending.”. I'm not sure if it's found in the Mahayana (Sanskrit or Chinese) versions of the sutra, or the related commentaries, but it is not found anywhere in the pali version. All results on google point to books and websites citing other books and websites.
One last note is the wording for the sutta regarding Radha. If we are to follow the pattern found in the other suttas, the wording here is non-standard and most likely incorrect. It's usually not stated "form is not the self" but instead "form is not self" or "form is not-self". "Not the self" carries a different meaning than what's found in the nikayas and I don't know of a single translator that has ever adopted this wording. Sense I do not own a copy of the Majjhima Nikaya to correct the wording, I have left it as is (this is another passage that seems to have been pulled from a website or possibly a book someplace, and not directly from the nikayas, although I don't doubt the actual sutta exists). There are other suttas that could be replaced here, indeed a far more complete sutta is found at SN 18.22 (some teachings are shortened from longer versions, 18.22 appears to be a longer, more complete version, although perhaps the shorter version is what we'd actually want to quote). 75.108.157.56 ( talk) 16:42, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
I've removed the section on eternalism and annihilationism because, as mentioned, it's extremely poorly sourced. Likewise, the identification of nihilist with 'vinayika' is suspect, and P. Harvey's text is already way oversubscribed to. I'm not really sure that i would call it a particularly WP:RS, in that Harvey has no hesitation with including his own theories, without any demarcation. If my edit is considered too severe, I am willing to discuss further, or come to a compromise. ( 20040302 ( talk))
I'm cleaning up the WP:OR of a certain (blocked) editor over a range of articles. This one's next. Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 13:47, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
The Western philosophy section is all original research based on primary sources. VictoriaGrayson ( talk) 15:56, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
Interesting. Ramana Maharshi and Nisargadattah Maharaj follow the same reasoning: the sense of "I am" is the Self. This always seemed to contradict basic Buddhist notions, using the "wrong" ontological notions. This "confirms" it, at least for me. Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 04:33, 18 July 2014 (UTC)
The following pargraph, which I removed from the lead, is WP:OR:
<ref>
tags on this page without content in them (see the
help page). In Mahayana however, this view and the explicit denial of self are found."Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 08:23, 19 August 2014 (UTC)
I don't know what happened, but the article looks horrible now. All these recent additions read like a personal narrative or opinion. Lets leave out all the meta commentary about what Buddhism "is" or "isn't", or how Buddhism or anatta is "misunderstood". It simply adds fluff to the article. I could remove entire sections that have absolutely nothing to do with the topic. My suggestion is to summarize and condense the article. Like most forms of writing, the key to a good article is knowing when to leave things out. 75.108.159.239 ( talk) 02:14, 7 September 2014 (UTC)
This section used to be a lot better. Instead of fixing it, I just removed it. There's no reason for it to be more than a couple sentences long. Nobody cares about different Buddhist philosophers and their personal disagreements with each other. I recommend a simple summary of the two or three viewpoints present here, without reference to any of these disputes between academics, or any argument whatsoever for why one view is better than the other.
Remember that there are multiple viewpoints, and that they all need to be given equal weight in the article. Do not list two contrasting opinions and then present an argument for why your opinion is better than the other. 75.108.159.239 ( talk) 13:10, 7 September 2014 (UTC)
Again a long post by @ ScientificQuest:. I don't think it's nonsense what you write, but it reads like a personal analysis, from a Theravada point of view. Why don't you start a blog or so? This is the third time. Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 04:43, 19 January 2015 (UTC)
Hi Joshua: This is not my personal opinion. I have cited articles, translated works, and if you want I can provide you actual quotes by eminent Buddhist scholars in the western world such as Thanissaro Bhikkhu, Bhikkhu Bodhi. and Gil Fronsdal. Yes, of course it is a Theravada perspective - but:
If this were indeed my own personal opinion, I would have surely written a blog. But this is not my opinion. I am quoting actual scholars. Indeed I did include more citations from Thanissaro Bhikkhu and Bhikkhu Bodhi, but that is a matter of finding appropriate reference documents from the literature. I am already attending a masters in Buddhist studies program where Gil Fronsdal is the dean, and I have clearly heard this repeated several times by many sources, and this perspective is seemingly present in most of the Theravada world in the 21st century. It is agreed that before the late 19th century the Theravada world was NOT united in their opinion on this matter and debates raged on this matter. But the scholarly record clearly shows that since 1940s there has been a greater consensus. In fact those that do NOT take this view on Anatta have now become the fringe minority! And I can cite sources for even this claim from peer reviewed articles from the Journal of Royal Asiatic Society and the Journal of the Pali Text Society.
Finally, none of this is my original research. This is the commonly held opinion as seen in peer reviewed journal papers. That being so, is it not a Wikipedia value and goal to present the generally accepted scholarly perspective?
Please enlighten me. I don't know much about the specifics of the Wikipedia rules. ScientificQuest ( talk) — Preceding undated comment added 20:01, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
He's been reverted two times before, with the support of Jim and Vic. SQ can reinsert his info any time, with sources. I'm looking forward to it, because I've good hopes that he's a valuable editor, who's able to use the sources he's been reading in a useful way. And now please stop here. Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 11:43, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
SQ, you have written: "Finally, none of this is my original research. This is the commonly held opinion as seen in peer reviewed journal papers." Please cite these peer reviewed journal papers. Using sutras as primary sources without referring to secondary sources that critically analyze them is considered bad practice. Please help improve this article by adding references to reliable secondary sources, with multiple points of view.
"(...) Scholarly record clearly shows that since 1940s there has been a greater consensus. In fact those that do NOT take this view on Anatta have now become the fringe minority! And I can cite sources for even this claim from peer reviewed articles from the Journal of Royal Asiatic Society and the Journal of the Pali Text Society." Please present the evidencence , it would be very useful! JimRenge ( talk) 16:57, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
The section Relation to Vedic and Hindu philosophy talks about the "Pre Buddhist Upanishads" and then goes on to mention the Chandogya Upanishad, which current scholarship seems to date to around 500 BCE - about the same time as the Buddha. Is this work then strictly speaking "Pre-Buddhist"? Chris Fynn ( talk) 12:30, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
Copied from User talk:Joshua Jonathan#About Reliable Sources for Articles on Religion
I am amazed at your claim that Bhikkhu Bodhi would not qualify as a reliable source. Bodhi is the President of the Buddhist Publication Society, Kandy Sri Lanka. He is the author of several of the most highly cited (Springer Citation index says it is more than 100, Google scholar says more than 115) translations of the various Nikayas of the Pali Canon. Citations of Bodhi include people like Richard Gombrich, D J Kalupahana and many others. Bhikkhu Bodhi's student Bhikkhu Analayo is a professor at the Center of Buddhist Studies at the University of Hamburg.
I have a MS in Electrical Engineering and also MS in Physics from University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, have a full-time job in the electronics industry, and am now also doing a MBS program from UC Berkeley, and an MA in Sanskrit (distance-learning program) from Benares Hindu University. So I know very well about citing sources in academic articles. But the criteria you mention (rejecting widely read scholars on Buddhism) is nowhere understood in academia and in fact goes completely against good academic policy. In religion, those that practice the religion know much more than those who just publish to increase their h-index.
A Wikipedia article is NOT an academic Journal paper and the standards of such papers cannot be applied here. It is meant to present a neutral position of various sources, not synthesizing new material from the sources themselves.
Hence I argue that Bhikkhu Bodhi, Bhikkhu Analayo, or Thanissaro Bhikkhu (and any other scholar monk - which by the way itself is a very stringent criterion) would qualify as far better sources for articles on religious doctrines. University Professors may or may not have the maturity required to understand a religious doctrine. And as is the commonly acceptable criterion for religious knowledge, when there is a dissonance between a university professor or an academic (even if it is me) and a reputed scholar monk, the words of the reputed scholar monk override those of the academic. ScientificQuest ( talk)
@ ScientificQuest: Sure if an article is about Einstein or his theories you can directly quote Einstein, and if the article is about Bhikkhu Bodhi you can quote him. It is easy to verify what either wrote - and where they wrote in English, it should need little or no interpretation. As far as what the Buddha taught or said we don't have anything we actually know he said ~ or even what language he used. We just have compilations of texts representing what different groups claim or believed he said. On any subject like Annata, based on what they believe the Buddha said, there will also be many different interpretations amongst Buddhists of just what Buddha meant when he purportedly talked about Annata. Then different scholars of Buddhism will likely have different views of what these different (contemporary and historical) groups of Buddhists actually believe or understand on the subject Annata. Chris Fynn ( talk) 09:20, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
Alright! Here are some of the sources that I shall be using. I shall mention them here so you can examine them right-away. When I do use them, I request the following:
Now some of the sources (this is not all, but since I'm not editing the article right now, I'm picking these off-hand):
ScientificQuest ( talk) — Preceding undated comment added 07:46, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
@ ScientificQuest: A better way to proceed - particularly if your edits are likely to be challenged by other editors of this article - might be to make a copy of this article in your own userspace and make the changes you want to there. Then, on this talk page, you can invite other editors to look at those proposed changes or additions and comment. Once there is some sort of consensus that your changes or additions should be included in the article you can migrate those changes here. This way avoids confrontations and edit wars. Chris Fynn ( talk) 08:02, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
Chris - that's a totally unreasonable request and also counter to the Wikipedia advice on forking articles. By the time his version is ready the mainspace version is likely to have changed - and then you have the problem of the history trail. Robert Walker ( talk) 13:54, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
User:ScientificQuest and User:Joshua Jonathan - this came up in a facebook discussion of this debate and thought it would be helpful. Of course a translation of the sutras is a primary source. But SQ's citation wasn't to any of the translations, but to the introduction' to the translations.
His cite says: "See Introduction of The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha, by Bhikkhu Ñānamoli and Bhikkhu Bodhi, Wisdom Publications".
For the introduction, see The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha.
An introduction to a book of translations by a famous translator is of course an excellent secondary source. Another example of an excellent secondary source in a discussion of a particular sutra would be a footnote to a translation of that sutra by an expert scholar translator. Robert Walker ( talk) 10:55, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
Hi SQ. I'll try to give some constructive comments to your last series of edits, which I reverted:
I hope this helps. Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 09:27, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
Please bear in mind - that he had had only one day to work on it. When content is first added to a wikipedia article it typically does have many errors. So - it's not a reason to revert all his edits that you found a few issues in them. And what's more this is just one wikipedia editor finding issues in another editor's content. With no particular reason to suppose that you are better qualified than him, except that you are more experienced at editing wikipedia.
And you have many errors in your early drafts of your articles also. I discussed a few of them in Talk:Karma in Buddhism and then gave up when it was clear you weren't going to roll back. But your writing on Buddhist topics is certainly not error free when you first post, and often these errors persist right to the present. So it seems rather a case of the pot calling the kettle black to me. Robert Walker ( talk) 14:00, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
Hi Joshua, Chris, Victoria, and Robert. Please don't mind my personal note - since I made some bad personal remarks here earlier, I figure it is only right for me to write a personal apology. And again, instead of writing on your individual talk pages, I decided to own it up in public.
Joshua, thanks a lot for your very constructive feedback. I really appreciate this line-by-line feedback of exactly what went wrong in my post. It keeps it to facts, and states exactly what the problem is with the style. Coming from a background of writing for academic Journals, I can see my tendency to write original research - because arguably that's what academics do (unless perhaps they're editing Wikipedia pages). So I acknowledge your criticism and I stand corrected. When I first saw you roll back my edits, I did not get a detailed line-by-line analysis of my post or a clear explanation for why it was reverted so drastically. Instead I got short a message on my talk page saying "I have reverted your changes...this is the third time...blah blah..." This led me to believe that I was being victimized. And I also believed that someone had started believing that the Anatta page on Wikipedia belonged to them. In my own little story you were the villain and I was the victim and I therefore may have said personal things about you. (I hope I got the facts so far.) I apologize for using dismissive words or perhaps even getting a little indignant. But I appreciate the criticism - especially because it is fact-based and says exactly what you find is wrong with each part of it.
Since you took the pains to do this for my write-up, I will respond back and write a short set of edits and propose them on the main Anatta page. Feel free to correct the language and style if you want - I might be new to that. So please, let us make this a collaborative effort. I really feel that this page needs some edits, and they can really make the page constructive in the long run. But I am not an expert at editing Wikipedia and will need your help here in ensuring the wording is good. I agree to try and keep my statements unbiased - but if you spot something wrong, please point it out on my talk page (with exact line and citing what exactly you find wrong with it) and we can work on it together.
Is that agreed? Shall we all start afresh and forgive our excesses? If I have hurt anyone else, please accept my sincere apologies.
All that said, I would like to still record my disagreement with some of you on one matter. I do NOT think that authors of peer-reviewed Journal papers would necessarily have a good understanding on matters of religious doctrine. I can say this being a person in the field, and being an academic myself. There are a lot of quacks out there in academia and it is not worth the time and energy of a serious researcher to rebut the poorly researched Journal articles of some other quack. And if a good researcher does write a rebuttal, his rebuttal would be published as citing the first crappy article!! This is not the case in the sciences - there if an experimental result is not verifiable, a Journal can retract a paper. But in areas like philosophy, where each philosopher is himself/herself allowed to interpret another philosophy, it is next to impossible to get papers retracted. Instead, both the poorly researched paper and the good paper get published as two different points of view! I know this first-hand because I have to sift through the crap for my master's thesis.
But more importantly, when we talk of doctrinal matters, we are talking about what people in the religious community actually believe - not the history or socio-political context of the scriptures or anything. For the latter, I agree that peer-reviewed Journal papers would be better to cite. But for an encyclopedia to present a truthful unbiased fact on matters of religious doctrine, it should take into account what the practicing religious community actually thinks about that doctrine, rather than solely relying on academic quacks who don't really practice the religion. And Anatta is a matter of doctrine - not history or science.
I agree that sources like Bhikkhu X or Bhikkhu Y shouldn't be used exclusively, that is, I believe they can be used, along with other secondary sources if available - but if not available, then used along with other primary sources to get a proportionate balance of views in the article. But I feel that their scholarship does have an overriding effect on doctrinal matters - not on historical or socio-political matters. This is especially because they're world-wide reputed, cited widely by other scholars, and their written works are actually used as textbooks in universities - now that fact alone potentially qualifies such a source as a secondary source by own standards. I know that Chris asked me to cite those that cite Bhikkhu X and Bhikkhu Y. But many of them cite them in a way that doesn't represent the actual religious idea, but proposes some of their own novel ideas which the religious community at large doesn't believe! Not all secondary sources are like that, some are good - and that's why I have agreed to produce secondary sources too.
However, if it is a matter of the history of a religion, or the history of a religious text, then I fully agree that peer-reviewed Journal papers are more reliable on the average.
ScientificQuest ( talk) — Preceding undated comment added 07:54, 28 January 2015 (UTC)
I note that today the entire contribution to the Madhyamaka section was deleted for being a primary source. https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Anatta&oldid=645294568
I'm not impressed. Secondary sources are better sources that Primary sources, but something is better than nothing. Moreover, there is a very rich commentarial tradition within the Himalayan tradition, with established monastic universities following academic rigour and peer review that matches current western scholarship. The conclusions of this analysis has been repeated by many modern sources. cf. Jay Garfield, and others.
If you do not like to see primary sources, then do something about it, rather than just delete. ( 20040302 ( talk) 11:59, 2 February 2015 (UTC))
Hello, The comment I would make is that Anatta is the 'enlightenment moment', that nearly everyone who discusses Anatta start with the Buddha's comment that his great insight was that we have no seperate soul, then invariable people say 'but', or 'however' etc. Stop! The message is quite clear if somewhat challenging, if people have not experienced or grasped the depth or meaning of Anatta can they leave the discussion. Western thought and philosophy are so tangled with the duality proposed by Christianity that its almost impossible to imagine a singularity where everything is of this demension. Anatta is misunderstood, it stands alone and does contradict other teachings, especially Karma. So be it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.255.45.20 ( talk) 06:15, 11 June 2015 (UTC)
Anatta nowhere in the Nikayas is used as a denial of the Atman (skt: atman, pali: attan), as such:
I don't think the doctrine is the point, the term is pretty simply, its no soul, or no separate soul! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.255.45.20 ( talk) 05:40, 28 October 2015 (UTC)
[SN 3.196] At one time in Savatthi, the venerable Radha seated himself and asked of the Blessed Lord Buddha: “Anatta, anatta I hear said venerable. What pray tell does Anatta mean?” “Just this Radha, form is not the Soul, sensations are not the Soul, perceptions are not the Soul, assemblages are not the Soul, consciousness is not the Soul. Seeing thusly, this is the end of birth, the Brahman life has been fulfilled, what must be done has been done.”
Anatta is never used in standalone anywhere in doctrine. All 662 occurrences of the term are qualifiers of phenomena as being "na me so atta" (not my soul). As such the personal conjecture of religious Buddhism is often wholly contradictory to doctrine.
The Buddhist term Anatman (Sanskrit), or Anatta (Pali) is an adjective in sutra used to refer to the nature of phenomena as being devoid of the Soul, that being the ontological and uncompounded subjective Self (atman) which is the “light (dipam), and only refuge” [DN 2.100]. Of the 662 occurrences of the term Anatta in the Nikayas, its usage is restricted to referring to 22 nouns (forms, feelings, perception, experiences, consciousness, the eye, eye-consciousness, desires, mentation, mental formations, ear, nose, tongue, body, lusts, things unreal, etc.), all phenomenal, as being Selfless (anatta). Contrary to countless many popular (=profane, or = consensus, from which the truth can ‘never be gathered’) books (as Buddhologist C.A.F. Davids has deemed them ‘miserable little books’) written outside the scope of Buddhist doctrine, there is no “Doctrine of anatta/anatman” mentioned anywhere in the sutras, rather anatta is used only to refer to impermanent things/phenomena as other than the Soul, to be anatta, or Self-less (an-atta).
Specifically in sutra, anatta is used to describe the temporal and unreal (metaphysically so) nature of any and all composite, consubstantial, phenomenal, and temporal things, from macrocosmic to microcosmic, be it matter as pertains the physical body, the cosmos at large, including any and all mental machinations which are of the nature of arising and passing. Anatta in sutra is synonymous and interchangeable with the terms dukkha (suffering) and anicca (impermanent); all three terms are often used in triplet in making a blanket statement as regards any and all phenomena. Such as: “All these aggregates are anicca, dukkha, and anatta.” It should be further noted that, in doctrine, that the only noun which is branded permanent (nicca), is obviously and logically so, the noun attan [Skt. Atman], such as passage (SN 1.169).
Anatta refers specifically and only to the absence of the permanent soul as pertains any or all of the psycho-physical (namo-rupa) attributes, or khandhas (skandhas, aggregates). Anatta/Anatman in the earliest existing Buddhist texts, the Nikayas, is an adjective, (A is anatta, B is anatta, C is anatta). The commonly (=profane, consensus, herd-views) held belief to wit that: “Anatta means no-soul, therefore Buddhism taught that there was no soul” is an irrational absurdity which cannot be found or doctrinally substantiated by means of the Nikayas, the suttas (Skt. Sutras), of Buddhism.
The Pali compound term and noun for “no soul” is natthatta (literally “there is not/no[nattha]+atta’[Soul]), not the term anatta, and is mentioned at Samyutta Nikaya 4.400, where Gotama was asked if there “was no- soul (natthatta)”, to which Gotama equated this position to be a Nihilistic heresy (ucchedavada). Common throughout Buddhist sutra (and Vedanta as well) is the denial of psycho-physical attributes of the mere empirical self to be the Soul, or confused with same. The Buddhist paradigm (and the most common repeating passage in sutta) as regards phenomena is “Na me so atta” (this/these are not my soul), this most common utterance of Gotama the Buddha in the Nikayas, where “na me so atta” = Anatta/Anatman. In sutta, to hold the view that there was “no-Soul” (natthatta) is = natthika (nihilist). Buddhism differs from the “nothing-morist” (Skt. Nastika, Pali natthika) in affirming a spiritual nature that is not in any wise, but immeasurable, inconnumerable, infinite, and inaccessible to observation; and of which, therefore, empirical science can neither affirm nor deny the reality thereof of him who has ‘Gone to That[Brahman]” (tathatta). It is to the Spirit (Skt. Atman, Pali attan) as distinguished from oneself (namo-rupa/ or khandhas, mere self as = anatta) i.e., whatever is phenomenal and formal (Skt. and Pali nama-rupa, and savinnana-kaya) “name and appearance”, and the “body with its consciousness”. [SN 2.17] ‘Nonbeing (asat, natthiti [views of either sabbamnatthi ‘the all is ultimately not’ (atomism), and sabbam puthuttan ‘the all is merely composite’ [SN 2.77] both of this positions are existential antinomies, and heresies of annihilationism])’”. In contrast it has been incorrectly asserted that affirmation of the atman is = sassatavada (conventionally deemed ‘eternalism’). However the Pali term sasastavada is never associated with the atman, but that the atman was an agent (karmin) in and of samsara which is subject to the whims of becoming (bhava), or which is meant kammavada (karma-ism, or merit agencyship); such as sassatavada in sutta = “atta ca so loka ca” (the atman and the world [are one]), or: ‘Being (sat, atthiti [views of either sabbamatthi ‘the all is entirety’, and sabbamekattan ‘the all is one’s Soul’ [SN 2.77] both are heresies of perpetualism]). Sasastavada is the wrong conception that one is perpetually (sassata) bound within samsara and that merit is the highest attainment for either this life or for the next. The heretical antinomy to nihilism (vibhava, or = ucchedavada) is not, nor in sutta, the atman, but bhava (becoming, agencyship). Forever, or eternal becoming is nowhere in sutta identified with the atman, which is “never an agent (karmin)”, and “has never become anything” (=bhava). These antinomies of bhava (sassatavada) and vibhava (ucchedavada) both entail illogical positions untenable to the Vedantic or Buddhist atman; however the concept of “eternalism” as = atman has been the fallacious secondary crutch for supporting the no-atman commentarialists position on anatta implying = there is no atman.
There is a problem with Buddhism and Anatta, Budhism splits over the concept of a reincarnate soul and impermanence. Karma is dependent on a reincarnate soul, the ego is dependent on a reincarnate soul. Maybe the truth is that there is no reincarnate soul. This is the point of the discussion, if you wish to fantasize that you have a reincarnate soul, that you are an 'old' soul or that you are 'nearing' enlightenment then you may wish to be brave enough to accept the possibility that you have no separate 'soul'. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.255.45.20 ( talk) 01:42, 5 September 2015 (UTC) So we are back with the Karma thingo again,. Look I'm not the Western Australia Monk, I'm not going to tell you who I am as the 'authority of the person is not important,. You keep referring to the Buddist teachings etc, that's all well and good but this is a page about Anatta, and by any measure its being bent by the demand that it fits into your Karma understanding and the duality of the soul, transcendental nature etc. I find it quite bizarre,. its like someone writing on the 'Black' wiki page that its more like white than black. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.255.45.20 ( talk) 06:28, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
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@ Ms Sarah Welch: Bronkhorst (1993), The Two Traditions, p.99, note 12: "It is possible that original Buddhism did not deny the existence of the soul (Frauwallner 1953: 217-53; Schmithausen 1969: 160-61; Bhattacharya, 1973)". See also Pre-sectarian Buddhism#Schayer - Precanonical Buddhism. Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 06:57, 16 May 2016 (UTC)
@ Joshua Jonathan:, @ 20040302: Agreed. Bronkhorst is speculative, with "it is possible", and after checking all the references @JJ mentions, Bronkhorst evidence is indeed sparse (not just on soul, but also on karma/rebirth doctrines). Yet, the Bronkhorst hypothesis is interesting, notable and I will add it to the article for NPOV. The article already states that "[Early Buddhist] texts do not admit the premise "Self does not exist" either because ...", which parallels Bronkhorst:2009's conclusion in the last lines of page 24. Avidya indeed is associated with Atman in Buddhist texts, an idea that is quite different than the non-Buddhist Indian traditions ( Bronkhorst:2009's page 25). One significant unknown for all ancient Buddhist, Hindu, Jaina texts is the date when they were written down, and how well they preserved or modified the original ideas; for that reason, Bronkhorst hypothesis is worth a mention in this article. Ms Sarah Welch ( talk) 12:33, 16 May 2016 (UTC)
I propose to merge this page with the page Atman (Buddhism). Though both pages obviously deal with opposites, the information on the two pages is similar, and the quality of the two pages could be improved if they would be integrated. After all, atta and anatta are antonyms and cannot be explained separately. S Khemadhammo ( talk) 11:08, 20 August 2016 (UTC)
"The Theravada tradition has long considered the understanding and application of the Anatta doctrine to be something possible for the practicing monk, and not for the lay Buddhists because it is a psychologically difficult doctrine and requires the destruction of "I am" tendencies. "
I know of no canonical evidence to support this statement. Perhaps the author is confusing wrong personality view (sakaya ditthi; the first of the defilements/fetters) with the higher fetter of conceit (mano/mana). The Pāli Nikāyas cite hundreds of lay followers gaining stream entry which is characterised in part with the abandoning of wrong identity/personality view. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2605:E000:2510:8C00:E8A6:DF48:67E5:9CD5 ( talk) 07:12, 25 November 2017 (UTC)
Joseph Walser: I have reverted your edits per WP:COI and out of caution whether the added content is due, WP:Primary and not mainstream yet. Is there a link where you can share a copy of your paper with JJ, me and other editors who watch this article? Or you can wiki-email the link to one of us. We can review it and see what/how best to summarize anything from it in this article. Ms Sarah Welch ( talk) 19:20, 18 September 2018 (UTC)
One more observation that ought to be addressed on this page (I will not edit it myself): this page asserts that the doctrine of anatta is both the central doctrine of Buddhism and that it was formulated to oppose Hindu ideas of atman. This opinion does show up in sources like Harvey and Collins and has achieved a kind of consensus in the literature. But facts matter. There are no suttas in the Pali canon in which the Buddha discusses the doctrine of anatman with a representative of the Brahmanical tradition. The Buddha has a lot of discussions with Brahmins (and uber Brahmins/Mahasalabrahmanas), but anatman is not mentioned in any of those discussions. If anything, it appears that the doctrine of anatman was more for non-Brahmanical communities. Brahmin enthusiasts of Buddhism in the Pali canon usually are taught the dhyanas with no mention of anatman. We can speculate why this is the case, but we can't present the Buddha's teaching here as arguing against the Vedic tradition on this point if there are in fact no suttas that do so. Nor can we present the Vedic tradition as being monolithic on the issue of atman. The Samaveda branches were adamant that the atman was "existence" (sat). But when they did so, they were arguing against the Taittiriyas and the Maitrayaniyas whose upanishads argue that atman/brahman was "non-existence" or "emptiness" respectively. I am not sure exactly what the difference would be between the Buddhist anatman and saying that the atman is non-existence or between Nagarjuna arguing that the atman is emptiness and the Maitrayaniyas saying that the atman/brahman is, well... empty. To pit Buddhism against Hinduism paints with too broad a brush, even for Wikipedia. Finally, I challenge anyone to find a scholar other that Potter who thinks that Mahayana begins at the time of Ashoka or that it ends 100 years before Xuanzang comes to Nalanda in the 7th century. Someone should also add that currently there are more scholars who think it started in Gandhara than who think it started in Andhra Pradesh. The latter is based on very old scholarship. Joseph Walser 13:49, 20 September 2018 (UTC)Joseph Walser
Joseph Walser 13:42, 20 September 2018 (UTC) Joseph Walser — Preceding unsigned comment added by Joseph Walser ( talk • contribs)
Looks like someone took out the phrase "The ancient Buddhist texts present an extensive discussion and rejection of the Vedic concept of Attā (soul, self)" which is what I was objecting to. Though you claim that the article is not making any statements concerning why it was formulated, the section on Anatta being the difference between Hinduism and Buddhism, again, is misleading. It states that "Anatta is a central doctrine of Buddhism, and marks one of the major differences between Buddhism and Hinduism." That is a bold statement and should be qualified. It was and is the central doctrine for some Buddhists, but I have run into Buddhists who have never heard of it. There are also Brahmanical texts (as I indicated above) that appear to come very close to Buddhist anatta texts. In other words, anatta is the dividing line between Hinduism and Buddhism for folks like Vasubandhu and Ratnakirti, but not for everybody. This Wikipedia section makes it sound like the categories of "Hinduism" and "Buddhism" stand in opposition like "even numbers" and "odd numbers." Religions don't work that way. Joseph Walser 14:55, 20 September 2018 (UTC)Joseph Walser — Preceding unsigned comment added by Joseph Walser ( talk • contribs)
In other words, the article should describe an entity called "Buddhism", even if (for the sake of argument) there were no Buddhists who would recognize it. I see that you have added to the number of scholars who claim anatta to be the central doctrine of Buddhism. Fair enough. And there are plenty more such references to be found. It just seems to me that the assertions of all of these scholars are normative instead of prescriptive. It is like saying "Christianity teaches the doctrine of pre-destination" or "divine kenosis." In a certain light, and with certain qualifications this is true. But most folks in church on Sunday won't have the foggiest idea of what you are talking about. Do they, then, not fit into the category or has the category not been nuanced enough to include them? I have to move on, but this is something to think about. Joseph Walser 16:52, 20 September 2018 (UTC)Joseph Walser — Preceding unsigned comment added by Joseph Walser ( talk • contribs)
Let's keep away from ad hominum arguments, they tend to be irrelevant. Joshua may have studied with Bozo the clown, but this would have no bearing on whether or not his assertion is true about Buddhism or not. It either is or is not, regardless of whom he studied with (and I happen to think that he is on to something here). Let's stay focused. Peer reviewed scholarship has come down on both sides of whether anatta is the central doctrine of Buddhism. For those who argue that the suttas do not deny a self, we find C. A. F. Rhys Davids 1941, 656–57; Frauwallner 1953, I. 224ff; Schmithausen 1969, 160 (citing Frauwallner); Pérez Remón 1980; Oetke 1988, 153; and more recently Bronkhorst 2009, 21ff., and a nuanced argument in Wynne 2011. On the opposite end of the debate we find Collins 1982, 250–71; Gombrich 1988, 21 and 63; and Harvey 1995. Most of these sources are cited in Bronkhorst 2009, 23, notes 42–43. Pretty much every scholar acknowledges at some point that the Buddha never says (in the early canon) that there is no soul/self. Some Buddhist philosophers, centuries later, are adamant that the soul does not exist and Naiyayika and Vedantin philosophers are responding to them. If WE assert that the soul's nonexistence is the central tenet of the Buddha, we are putting words in his mouth. We can report what the Buddha said. We can report what Buddhist scholars or pre-modern Buddhist philosophers said. But we run into trouble if we say that "this is what the Buddha would have said if only he were as smart as we are." Better to accurately ascribe who holds these doctrines and move on. If we continue with the assertion that anatta is a central tenet "of Buddhism" or even "of the Buddha" and then go on to acknowledge that the doctrine is hardly central for many Buddhists, then we are picking up where Henry Steel Olcott left off and we might as well go on a tour of Buddhist countries in order to deliver this new "Buddhist Catechism" to the Buddhists ignorant of the "central doctrine". Might I suggest that this would be as presumptuous today as it was in 1881. Moving on. There are a few references to scholars who depict the Maitri Upanisad as "Post-Buddhist." This is weird. I think they must mean "Post-Buddha" since Buddhism is not dead yet. In any case, there are also scholars who assign an early date to the Maitri. Max Mueller was one (Deussen was arguing against him when he called it post-Buddhist). Hopkins notes that it is quoted in a reasonably early part of the Mahabharata and Filliozat notes what appears to be a reference to it in the works of Hyppolytus (2nd century). By all accounts it is a composite text. Some sections of it do appear to be quite late, but not all of them. I think that Signe Cohen (Early Upanisads) does a nice job summarizing the issues concerning the dating of this text (as she does with all the Upanishads) and adding her own linguistic dating of it. Apparently disturbed by the reference to Brahman as niratman and shunyam, the scholars who argue for its posteriority to "Buddhism" want to explain these anomalies as a kind of Buddhist influence. I don't buy it, but that argument is out there. Joseph Walser 17:18, 21 September 2018 (UTC)Joseph Walser — Preceding unsigned comment added by Joseph Walser ( talk • contribs)
Thanks. Obviously, given my self-cite gaffe, I am new to this. As for the Maitri chronology, I mention Mueller, Hopkins and Filliozat just to add the the bibliography on the date of the upanisad. I will give full sources and page numbers (they are all in the article, whose reference I deleted from the main page) when I get a few moments to my self (probably next week). Ok, now let me try it... Joseph Walser 18:50, 21 September 2018 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Joseph Walser ( talk • contribs)
The denial that a human being possesses a “self” or “soul” is probably the most famous Buddhist teaching. It is certainly its most distinct, as has been pointed out by G. P. Malalasekera: “In its denial of any real permanent Soul or Self, Buddhism stands alone.” A similar modern Sinhalese perspective has been expressed by Walpola Rahula: “Buddhism stands unique in the history of human thought in denying the existence of such a Soul, Self or Ātman.” The “No Self” or “no soul” doctrine (Sanskrit: anātman; Pāli: anattan) is particularly notable for its widespread acceptance and historical endurance. It was a standard belief of virtually all the ancient schools of Indian Buddhism (the notable exception being the Pudgalavādins), and has persisted without change into the modern era. [...] both views are mirrored by the modern Theravādin perspective of Mahasi Sayadaw that “there is no person or soul” and the modern Mahāyāna view of the fourteenth Dalai Lama that “[t]he Buddha taught that … our belief in an independent self is the root cause of all suffering".
– Alexander Wynne (2011), The atman and its negation, Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies.
(bold emphasis is mine, see discussion above - MSW)
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"The concept of anatta has, from early times, been controversial amongst Buddhists and non-Buddhists alike and remains so to this day. [1]"
According to Harvey, Perez-Ramon's personal interpretation is problematic. Now does the quote mean to convey the controversy among first and second generation Buddhologists as Harvey does in the linked page? If so that doesn't warrant presence in the intro. If "controversial" means that some Mahayanists use the word "atman" in a different way, then that should be stated a different way. What is it? What is the full quote from the source? Mitsube ( talk) 04:13, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
Please provide the full context of the quote beyond what can be found at a certain polemical website. This is an extreme minority view in the Buddhist studies community. Mitsube ( talk) 06:05, 4 October 2008 (UTC)
Not. Sabbe sankhara anicca dukkha and anatta are recognized by every single one of the Buddhists schools, no exceptions. So it's not a recognization of "some kind of..."; it is just very hard to understand/explain. It's easier to just ommit that part in this article and try to ask different Lamas and Ngakpas of the visions of this problematic... and western philosophers. See: Mhulamadhyamikakarikas by Nagarjuna, that's the philosophical basis for all Mahayana, how could it be then Atman or whatsoever? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.246.107.238 ( talk) 01:18, 16 April 2009 (UTC)
I would like it if someone could include any or all of this quote from bhikku bodhi in his book, 'In the Buddha's Words'. It is about dependent origination, but it pertains to this same self vs. not-self argument:
'Several suttas hold up dependent origination as a "teaching by the middle". It is a "teaching by the middle" because it transcends two extreme views that polarize philosophical reflection on the human condition. One extreme, the meta-physical thesis of eternalism, asserts that the core of human identity is an indestructible and eternal self, whether individual or universal. It also asserts that the world is created and maintained by a permanent entity, a God or some other metaphysical reality. The other extreme, annihilationism, holds that at death the person is utterly annihilated. There is no spiritual dimension to human existence and thus no personal survival of any sort. For the Buddha, both extremes pose insuperable problems. Eternalism encourages an obstinate clinging to the five aggregates(skhandas), which are really impermanent and devoid of a substantial self; annihilationism threatens to undermine ethics and to make suffering the product of chance.
Dependent origination offers a radically different perspective that transcends the two extremes. It shows that individual existence is constituted by a current of conditioned phenomena devoid of a metaphysical self yet continuing on from birth to birth as long as the causes that sustain it remain effective. Dependent origination thereby offers a cogent explanation of the problem of suffering that on the one hand avoids the philosophical dilemmas posed by the hypothesis of a permanent self, and on the other avoids the dangers of ethical anarchy to which annihilationism eventually leads.' --Bhikku Bodhi
If someone could include some or all of this, if they feel it is pertinent, that would be a great help, as i do not feel yet comfortable editing articles. -- 24.12.229.163 ( talk) 20:21, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
The paragraph starting: At the time of the Buddha some philosophers and meditators posited a "root".... is just copied and pasted. I was unsure what to do about it.
Thomas B. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Duckbeach ( talk • contribs) 01:11, 22 October 2009 (UTC)
Word Sutta and Sutra(Pali and Sanskrit word for same thing) are both used in the article in different places. This might cause confusion and there should only be one or the other word used consistently. Somekind of compromise is also possible, e.g. Sutta(Sutra). Also, if someone should choose to use, let's say Sutta(which is Pali), then all the similar cases in article should use the pali word and not mix the languages. This is not problem only in this article, but also in other articles concerning Buddhism in Wikipedia.
In my experience, Sanskrit words are more common in western literature, but many Buddhist texts seem to use Pali.
Aperculum ( talk) 18:17, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
Suttas and Sutras are not the same thing, so it would be a step backwards to use just one word throughout the article. When referring to a Pali sutta or suttas, the word should be 'sutta' or 'suttas'. When referring to Sanskrit Sutra or Sutras, the word should be 'Sutra' or 'Sutras'. In an article which covers the ground of both suttas and sutras, this distinction actually helps to clarify rather than cause confusion because the reader will know "the suttas say" might be contradicted in what certain "sutras say" owing to legitimate doctrinal differences between, for example, Mahayana Sutras and the Pali suttas. Another look could be taken to be sure this is being followed correctly in the article, but a quick skim indicated to me that it was (it didn't appear to me they were being used interchangeably: 'sutta' references tied back to the Pali Nikayas, especially via Paul Harvey, and 'Sutra' references went to sutras), although there is some ambiguity in how freely the Pali version of the term anatta is used in context where it should be anatman. This is somewhat less of a problem than between sutta/sutra, but still an issue.-- Vacchagotta ( talk) 21:20, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
On 05:55, 23 August 2010 Tengu800 removed the entire Madhyamaka section claiming that it was "improperly referenced material from ancient primary sources. Instead brought in modern Mahayana commentary on the main matter of interpreting Anatta."
Actually, the material is well referenced from modern translations; it belongs to a large and living tradition which relies upon a long commentarial tradition (not that such a thing makes it a requirement for WP). None of the material that was referenced is from primary sources - the material is (admittedly old) academic commentarial work from Nalanda University, with further commentaries made by Tsongkhapa who was another famous academic commentator. There are plenty of far more modern academic works that talk about these things - see the texts written by Sprung, Garfield, Williams, Inada, Streng, Napper, etc. etc. In fact Napper ( ISBN 0861710576, pp67-142) summarises and distinguishes an entire host of modern academic commentators and their views on anatta and the middle way philosophy.
The commentary that replaced it concerns the views of just one person, which certainly does not adequately typify the views of Anatta from the Mahayana perspective.
There are many different views of Anatta within various Mahayana schools. It is easy enough to find references to demonstrate that. I have restored the Madhyamaka text and contextualised the Chán text.. ( 20040302 ( talk) 08:03, 5 May 2011 (UTC))
“One uses 'not-Self', then, as a reason to let go of things, not to 'prove' that there is no Self.” This quote of Peter Harvey is indicative of the problem of specious scholarship which opines that the Buddha used anatta as a mere ‘strategy’ for release, and never denied the Brahman Absolute. This entire section on ‘Anatta in the Nikāyas’ should be reworked. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.250.187.46 ( talk) 13:55, 12 September 2011 (UTC)
I disagree with the start of the article, that is certainly not how I read the texts. However, linking that concept concerning the 5 senses with the concept of Anatman in Advaita Vedanta is incorrect because it fails to acknowledge the positioning of Tat Tvam Asi - 'you are that'. Instead, I read anatta and anatman from both advaita vedanta and through buddhism as being an acknowledgement that all we sense (hear and see etc.) is constructed through ourselves but the concept of self is also constructed. The world only exists because of how we interpret our senses through our mind - hence everything is an illusion - as demonstrated by Shankara's example of the rope and snake (so the old saying about a tree falling - it makes no sound because nobody is there to hear it because sound is a construct of how the mind interprets vibrations via the ear drum, but even if someone was there to interpret the vibrations as sound, that person is not really there because there is no essence that can be pinpointed as being - as in the old story about where is the cart?) . The key to anatman can be found most clearly when Ramakrishna came out of his trance and acknowledged that if the world is an illusion of our senses then we ourselves are part of that same illusion. The key to anatta and anatman is realising that yes, the world is an illusion of the senses but there can be no self because we too are part of the world and hence part of the illusion. The mind is a construct of the mind and therefore does not truly exist. In Buddhism the self does not exist through several demonstrations - Nagarjuna's demonstration that mirrors the older Greek demonstration of a river and time. There can be no-self because the second it comes into being it ceases to be. The 'me' of today is not the same as the 'me' when I was a baby, and similarly, the 'me' of this exact moment, is different to a mili-second ago. There is therefore no tangible self beyond that which the mind constructs - but the mind itself changes constantly and the mind of now is not the same as before I started writing this blurb. This has nothing to do with the senses at all. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.27.37.82 ( talk) 22:36, 30 November 2011 (UTC)
High, the only difference that has been noted in these two quite long paragraphs is that some interpret no self to mean it should be neither affirmed or denied, and others say that it just doesn't exist. Who is the first group - it's not something I've encountered before? I can think of the pudgalavadins who say that the self exists and is neither the same nor different to the aggregates, but that's not what was said. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.202.174.43 ( talk) 02:14, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
I organized the section "Anatta in the Nikayas" with subcategories for the ways in which anatta are presented in the nikayas. I did this mainly to get rid of some of the rambling, thinking I'd be able to place everything in a relevant scriptual category somewhere, but was unable to find a place for these two paragraphs. Instead of removing them completely I've put them here as parts may be useful to the article. In particular, some of the sources I think would be a good place to get more information.
I also ran into two problems dealing with citations. SN 4.400 for example doesn't appear to exist. Moreover, none of the suttas in samyutta 4 appear to deal with the relevant passage about the soul, eternalism, or annihilationism. Possibly it refers to a different naming scheme, like "S IV 400". The statements are factual and are found elsewhere in the suttas, so I've left it and added a hidden note. I did the same thing regarding this later quote, “Both formerly and now, I’ve never been a nihilist (vinayika), never been one who teaches the annihilation of a being, rather taught only the source of suffering, and its ending.”. I'm not sure if it's found in the Mahayana (Sanskrit or Chinese) versions of the sutra, or the related commentaries, but it is not found anywhere in the pali version. All results on google point to books and websites citing other books and websites.
One last note is the wording for the sutta regarding Radha. If we are to follow the pattern found in the other suttas, the wording here is non-standard and most likely incorrect. It's usually not stated "form is not the self" but instead "form is not self" or "form is not-self". "Not the self" carries a different meaning than what's found in the nikayas and I don't know of a single translator that has ever adopted this wording. Sense I do not own a copy of the Majjhima Nikaya to correct the wording, I have left it as is (this is another passage that seems to have been pulled from a website or possibly a book someplace, and not directly from the nikayas, although I don't doubt the actual sutta exists). There are other suttas that could be replaced here, indeed a far more complete sutta is found at SN 18.22 (some teachings are shortened from longer versions, 18.22 appears to be a longer, more complete version, although perhaps the shorter version is what we'd actually want to quote). 75.108.157.56 ( talk) 16:42, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
I've removed the section on eternalism and annihilationism because, as mentioned, it's extremely poorly sourced. Likewise, the identification of nihilist with 'vinayika' is suspect, and P. Harvey's text is already way oversubscribed to. I'm not really sure that i would call it a particularly WP:RS, in that Harvey has no hesitation with including his own theories, without any demarcation. If my edit is considered too severe, I am willing to discuss further, or come to a compromise. ( 20040302 ( talk))
I'm cleaning up the WP:OR of a certain (blocked) editor over a range of articles. This one's next. Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 13:47, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
The Western philosophy section is all original research based on primary sources. VictoriaGrayson ( talk) 15:56, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
Interesting. Ramana Maharshi and Nisargadattah Maharaj follow the same reasoning: the sense of "I am" is the Self. This always seemed to contradict basic Buddhist notions, using the "wrong" ontological notions. This "confirms" it, at least for me. Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 04:33, 18 July 2014 (UTC)
The following pargraph, which I removed from the lead, is WP:OR:
<ref>
tags on this page without content in them (see the
help page). In Mahayana however, this view and the explicit denial of self are found."Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 08:23, 19 August 2014 (UTC)
I don't know what happened, but the article looks horrible now. All these recent additions read like a personal narrative or opinion. Lets leave out all the meta commentary about what Buddhism "is" or "isn't", or how Buddhism or anatta is "misunderstood". It simply adds fluff to the article. I could remove entire sections that have absolutely nothing to do with the topic. My suggestion is to summarize and condense the article. Like most forms of writing, the key to a good article is knowing when to leave things out. 75.108.159.239 ( talk) 02:14, 7 September 2014 (UTC)
This section used to be a lot better. Instead of fixing it, I just removed it. There's no reason for it to be more than a couple sentences long. Nobody cares about different Buddhist philosophers and their personal disagreements with each other. I recommend a simple summary of the two or three viewpoints present here, without reference to any of these disputes between academics, or any argument whatsoever for why one view is better than the other.
Remember that there are multiple viewpoints, and that they all need to be given equal weight in the article. Do not list two contrasting opinions and then present an argument for why your opinion is better than the other. 75.108.159.239 ( talk) 13:10, 7 September 2014 (UTC)
Again a long post by @ ScientificQuest:. I don't think it's nonsense what you write, but it reads like a personal analysis, from a Theravada point of view. Why don't you start a blog or so? This is the third time. Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 04:43, 19 January 2015 (UTC)
Hi Joshua: This is not my personal opinion. I have cited articles, translated works, and if you want I can provide you actual quotes by eminent Buddhist scholars in the western world such as Thanissaro Bhikkhu, Bhikkhu Bodhi. and Gil Fronsdal. Yes, of course it is a Theravada perspective - but:
If this were indeed my own personal opinion, I would have surely written a blog. But this is not my opinion. I am quoting actual scholars. Indeed I did include more citations from Thanissaro Bhikkhu and Bhikkhu Bodhi, but that is a matter of finding appropriate reference documents from the literature. I am already attending a masters in Buddhist studies program where Gil Fronsdal is the dean, and I have clearly heard this repeated several times by many sources, and this perspective is seemingly present in most of the Theravada world in the 21st century. It is agreed that before the late 19th century the Theravada world was NOT united in their opinion on this matter and debates raged on this matter. But the scholarly record clearly shows that since 1940s there has been a greater consensus. In fact those that do NOT take this view on Anatta have now become the fringe minority! And I can cite sources for even this claim from peer reviewed articles from the Journal of Royal Asiatic Society and the Journal of the Pali Text Society.
Finally, none of this is my original research. This is the commonly held opinion as seen in peer reviewed journal papers. That being so, is it not a Wikipedia value and goal to present the generally accepted scholarly perspective?
Please enlighten me. I don't know much about the specifics of the Wikipedia rules. ScientificQuest ( talk) — Preceding undated comment added 20:01, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
He's been reverted two times before, with the support of Jim and Vic. SQ can reinsert his info any time, with sources. I'm looking forward to it, because I've good hopes that he's a valuable editor, who's able to use the sources he's been reading in a useful way. And now please stop here. Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 11:43, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
SQ, you have written: "Finally, none of this is my original research. This is the commonly held opinion as seen in peer reviewed journal papers." Please cite these peer reviewed journal papers. Using sutras as primary sources without referring to secondary sources that critically analyze them is considered bad practice. Please help improve this article by adding references to reliable secondary sources, with multiple points of view.
"(...) Scholarly record clearly shows that since 1940s there has been a greater consensus. In fact those that do NOT take this view on Anatta have now become the fringe minority! And I can cite sources for even this claim from peer reviewed articles from the Journal of Royal Asiatic Society and the Journal of the Pali Text Society." Please present the evidencence , it would be very useful! JimRenge ( talk) 16:57, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
The section Relation to Vedic and Hindu philosophy talks about the "Pre Buddhist Upanishads" and then goes on to mention the Chandogya Upanishad, which current scholarship seems to date to around 500 BCE - about the same time as the Buddha. Is this work then strictly speaking "Pre-Buddhist"? Chris Fynn ( talk) 12:30, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
Copied from User talk:Joshua Jonathan#About Reliable Sources for Articles on Religion
I am amazed at your claim that Bhikkhu Bodhi would not qualify as a reliable source. Bodhi is the President of the Buddhist Publication Society, Kandy Sri Lanka. He is the author of several of the most highly cited (Springer Citation index says it is more than 100, Google scholar says more than 115) translations of the various Nikayas of the Pali Canon. Citations of Bodhi include people like Richard Gombrich, D J Kalupahana and many others. Bhikkhu Bodhi's student Bhikkhu Analayo is a professor at the Center of Buddhist Studies at the University of Hamburg.
I have a MS in Electrical Engineering and also MS in Physics from University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, have a full-time job in the electronics industry, and am now also doing a MBS program from UC Berkeley, and an MA in Sanskrit (distance-learning program) from Benares Hindu University. So I know very well about citing sources in academic articles. But the criteria you mention (rejecting widely read scholars on Buddhism) is nowhere understood in academia and in fact goes completely against good academic policy. In religion, those that practice the religion know much more than those who just publish to increase their h-index.
A Wikipedia article is NOT an academic Journal paper and the standards of such papers cannot be applied here. It is meant to present a neutral position of various sources, not synthesizing new material from the sources themselves.
Hence I argue that Bhikkhu Bodhi, Bhikkhu Analayo, or Thanissaro Bhikkhu (and any other scholar monk - which by the way itself is a very stringent criterion) would qualify as far better sources for articles on religious doctrines. University Professors may or may not have the maturity required to understand a religious doctrine. And as is the commonly acceptable criterion for religious knowledge, when there is a dissonance between a university professor or an academic (even if it is me) and a reputed scholar monk, the words of the reputed scholar monk override those of the academic. ScientificQuest ( talk)
@ ScientificQuest: Sure if an article is about Einstein or his theories you can directly quote Einstein, and if the article is about Bhikkhu Bodhi you can quote him. It is easy to verify what either wrote - and where they wrote in English, it should need little or no interpretation. As far as what the Buddha taught or said we don't have anything we actually know he said ~ or even what language he used. We just have compilations of texts representing what different groups claim or believed he said. On any subject like Annata, based on what they believe the Buddha said, there will also be many different interpretations amongst Buddhists of just what Buddha meant when he purportedly talked about Annata. Then different scholars of Buddhism will likely have different views of what these different (contemporary and historical) groups of Buddhists actually believe or understand on the subject Annata. Chris Fynn ( talk) 09:20, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
Alright! Here are some of the sources that I shall be using. I shall mention them here so you can examine them right-away. When I do use them, I request the following:
Now some of the sources (this is not all, but since I'm not editing the article right now, I'm picking these off-hand):
ScientificQuest ( talk) — Preceding undated comment added 07:46, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
@ ScientificQuest: A better way to proceed - particularly if your edits are likely to be challenged by other editors of this article - might be to make a copy of this article in your own userspace and make the changes you want to there. Then, on this talk page, you can invite other editors to look at those proposed changes or additions and comment. Once there is some sort of consensus that your changes or additions should be included in the article you can migrate those changes here. This way avoids confrontations and edit wars. Chris Fynn ( talk) 08:02, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
Chris - that's a totally unreasonable request and also counter to the Wikipedia advice on forking articles. By the time his version is ready the mainspace version is likely to have changed - and then you have the problem of the history trail. Robert Walker ( talk) 13:54, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
User:ScientificQuest and User:Joshua Jonathan - this came up in a facebook discussion of this debate and thought it would be helpful. Of course a translation of the sutras is a primary source. But SQ's citation wasn't to any of the translations, but to the introduction' to the translations.
His cite says: "See Introduction of The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha, by Bhikkhu Ñānamoli and Bhikkhu Bodhi, Wisdom Publications".
For the introduction, see The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha.
An introduction to a book of translations by a famous translator is of course an excellent secondary source. Another example of an excellent secondary source in a discussion of a particular sutra would be a footnote to a translation of that sutra by an expert scholar translator. Robert Walker ( talk) 10:55, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
Hi SQ. I'll try to give some constructive comments to your last series of edits, which I reverted:
I hope this helps. Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 09:27, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
Please bear in mind - that he had had only one day to work on it. When content is first added to a wikipedia article it typically does have many errors. So - it's not a reason to revert all his edits that you found a few issues in them. And what's more this is just one wikipedia editor finding issues in another editor's content. With no particular reason to suppose that you are better qualified than him, except that you are more experienced at editing wikipedia.
And you have many errors in your early drafts of your articles also. I discussed a few of them in Talk:Karma in Buddhism and then gave up when it was clear you weren't going to roll back. But your writing on Buddhist topics is certainly not error free when you first post, and often these errors persist right to the present. So it seems rather a case of the pot calling the kettle black to me. Robert Walker ( talk) 14:00, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
Hi Joshua, Chris, Victoria, and Robert. Please don't mind my personal note - since I made some bad personal remarks here earlier, I figure it is only right for me to write a personal apology. And again, instead of writing on your individual talk pages, I decided to own it up in public.
Joshua, thanks a lot for your very constructive feedback. I really appreciate this line-by-line feedback of exactly what went wrong in my post. It keeps it to facts, and states exactly what the problem is with the style. Coming from a background of writing for academic Journals, I can see my tendency to write original research - because arguably that's what academics do (unless perhaps they're editing Wikipedia pages). So I acknowledge your criticism and I stand corrected. When I first saw you roll back my edits, I did not get a detailed line-by-line analysis of my post or a clear explanation for why it was reverted so drastically. Instead I got short a message on my talk page saying "I have reverted your changes...this is the third time...blah blah..." This led me to believe that I was being victimized. And I also believed that someone had started believing that the Anatta page on Wikipedia belonged to them. In my own little story you were the villain and I was the victim and I therefore may have said personal things about you. (I hope I got the facts so far.) I apologize for using dismissive words or perhaps even getting a little indignant. But I appreciate the criticism - especially because it is fact-based and says exactly what you find is wrong with each part of it.
Since you took the pains to do this for my write-up, I will respond back and write a short set of edits and propose them on the main Anatta page. Feel free to correct the language and style if you want - I might be new to that. So please, let us make this a collaborative effort. I really feel that this page needs some edits, and they can really make the page constructive in the long run. But I am not an expert at editing Wikipedia and will need your help here in ensuring the wording is good. I agree to try and keep my statements unbiased - but if you spot something wrong, please point it out on my talk page (with exact line and citing what exactly you find wrong with it) and we can work on it together.
Is that agreed? Shall we all start afresh and forgive our excesses? If I have hurt anyone else, please accept my sincere apologies.
All that said, I would like to still record my disagreement with some of you on one matter. I do NOT think that authors of peer-reviewed Journal papers would necessarily have a good understanding on matters of religious doctrine. I can say this being a person in the field, and being an academic myself. There are a lot of quacks out there in academia and it is not worth the time and energy of a serious researcher to rebut the poorly researched Journal articles of some other quack. And if a good researcher does write a rebuttal, his rebuttal would be published as citing the first crappy article!! This is not the case in the sciences - there if an experimental result is not verifiable, a Journal can retract a paper. But in areas like philosophy, where each philosopher is himself/herself allowed to interpret another philosophy, it is next to impossible to get papers retracted. Instead, both the poorly researched paper and the good paper get published as two different points of view! I know this first-hand because I have to sift through the crap for my master's thesis.
But more importantly, when we talk of doctrinal matters, we are talking about what people in the religious community actually believe - not the history or socio-political context of the scriptures or anything. For the latter, I agree that peer-reviewed Journal papers would be better to cite. But for an encyclopedia to present a truthful unbiased fact on matters of religious doctrine, it should take into account what the practicing religious community actually thinks about that doctrine, rather than solely relying on academic quacks who don't really practice the religion. And Anatta is a matter of doctrine - not history or science.
I agree that sources like Bhikkhu X or Bhikkhu Y shouldn't be used exclusively, that is, I believe they can be used, along with other secondary sources if available - but if not available, then used along with other primary sources to get a proportionate balance of views in the article. But I feel that their scholarship does have an overriding effect on doctrinal matters - not on historical or socio-political matters. This is especially because they're world-wide reputed, cited widely by other scholars, and their written works are actually used as textbooks in universities - now that fact alone potentially qualifies such a source as a secondary source by own standards. I know that Chris asked me to cite those that cite Bhikkhu X and Bhikkhu Y. But many of them cite them in a way that doesn't represent the actual religious idea, but proposes some of their own novel ideas which the religious community at large doesn't believe! Not all secondary sources are like that, some are good - and that's why I have agreed to produce secondary sources too.
However, if it is a matter of the history of a religion, or the history of a religious text, then I fully agree that peer-reviewed Journal papers are more reliable on the average.
ScientificQuest ( talk) — Preceding undated comment added 07:54, 28 January 2015 (UTC)
I note that today the entire contribution to the Madhyamaka section was deleted for being a primary source. https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Anatta&oldid=645294568
I'm not impressed. Secondary sources are better sources that Primary sources, but something is better than nothing. Moreover, there is a very rich commentarial tradition within the Himalayan tradition, with established monastic universities following academic rigour and peer review that matches current western scholarship. The conclusions of this analysis has been repeated by many modern sources. cf. Jay Garfield, and others.
If you do not like to see primary sources, then do something about it, rather than just delete. ( 20040302 ( talk) 11:59, 2 February 2015 (UTC))
Hello, The comment I would make is that Anatta is the 'enlightenment moment', that nearly everyone who discusses Anatta start with the Buddha's comment that his great insight was that we have no seperate soul, then invariable people say 'but', or 'however' etc. Stop! The message is quite clear if somewhat challenging, if people have not experienced or grasped the depth or meaning of Anatta can they leave the discussion. Western thought and philosophy are so tangled with the duality proposed by Christianity that its almost impossible to imagine a singularity where everything is of this demension. Anatta is misunderstood, it stands alone and does contradict other teachings, especially Karma. So be it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.255.45.20 ( talk) 06:15, 11 June 2015 (UTC)
Anatta nowhere in the Nikayas is used as a denial of the Atman (skt: atman, pali: attan), as such:
I don't think the doctrine is the point, the term is pretty simply, its no soul, or no separate soul! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.255.45.20 ( talk) 05:40, 28 October 2015 (UTC)
[SN 3.196] At one time in Savatthi, the venerable Radha seated himself and asked of the Blessed Lord Buddha: “Anatta, anatta I hear said venerable. What pray tell does Anatta mean?” “Just this Radha, form is not the Soul, sensations are not the Soul, perceptions are not the Soul, assemblages are not the Soul, consciousness is not the Soul. Seeing thusly, this is the end of birth, the Brahman life has been fulfilled, what must be done has been done.”
Anatta is never used in standalone anywhere in doctrine. All 662 occurrences of the term are qualifiers of phenomena as being "na me so atta" (not my soul). As such the personal conjecture of religious Buddhism is often wholly contradictory to doctrine.
The Buddhist term Anatman (Sanskrit), or Anatta (Pali) is an adjective in sutra used to refer to the nature of phenomena as being devoid of the Soul, that being the ontological and uncompounded subjective Self (atman) which is the “light (dipam), and only refuge” [DN 2.100]. Of the 662 occurrences of the term Anatta in the Nikayas, its usage is restricted to referring to 22 nouns (forms, feelings, perception, experiences, consciousness, the eye, eye-consciousness, desires, mentation, mental formations, ear, nose, tongue, body, lusts, things unreal, etc.), all phenomenal, as being Selfless (anatta). Contrary to countless many popular (=profane, or = consensus, from which the truth can ‘never be gathered’) books (as Buddhologist C.A.F. Davids has deemed them ‘miserable little books’) written outside the scope of Buddhist doctrine, there is no “Doctrine of anatta/anatman” mentioned anywhere in the sutras, rather anatta is used only to refer to impermanent things/phenomena as other than the Soul, to be anatta, or Self-less (an-atta).
Specifically in sutra, anatta is used to describe the temporal and unreal (metaphysically so) nature of any and all composite, consubstantial, phenomenal, and temporal things, from macrocosmic to microcosmic, be it matter as pertains the physical body, the cosmos at large, including any and all mental machinations which are of the nature of arising and passing. Anatta in sutra is synonymous and interchangeable with the terms dukkha (suffering) and anicca (impermanent); all three terms are often used in triplet in making a blanket statement as regards any and all phenomena. Such as: “All these aggregates are anicca, dukkha, and anatta.” It should be further noted that, in doctrine, that the only noun which is branded permanent (nicca), is obviously and logically so, the noun attan [Skt. Atman], such as passage (SN 1.169).
Anatta refers specifically and only to the absence of the permanent soul as pertains any or all of the psycho-physical (namo-rupa) attributes, or khandhas (skandhas, aggregates). Anatta/Anatman in the earliest existing Buddhist texts, the Nikayas, is an adjective, (A is anatta, B is anatta, C is anatta). The commonly (=profane, consensus, herd-views) held belief to wit that: “Anatta means no-soul, therefore Buddhism taught that there was no soul” is an irrational absurdity which cannot be found or doctrinally substantiated by means of the Nikayas, the suttas (Skt. Sutras), of Buddhism.
The Pali compound term and noun for “no soul” is natthatta (literally “there is not/no[nattha]+atta’[Soul]), not the term anatta, and is mentioned at Samyutta Nikaya 4.400, where Gotama was asked if there “was no- soul (natthatta)”, to which Gotama equated this position to be a Nihilistic heresy (ucchedavada). Common throughout Buddhist sutra (and Vedanta as well) is the denial of psycho-physical attributes of the mere empirical self to be the Soul, or confused with same. The Buddhist paradigm (and the most common repeating passage in sutta) as regards phenomena is “Na me so atta” (this/these are not my soul), this most common utterance of Gotama the Buddha in the Nikayas, where “na me so atta” = Anatta/Anatman. In sutta, to hold the view that there was “no-Soul” (natthatta) is = natthika (nihilist). Buddhism differs from the “nothing-morist” (Skt. Nastika, Pali natthika) in affirming a spiritual nature that is not in any wise, but immeasurable, inconnumerable, infinite, and inaccessible to observation; and of which, therefore, empirical science can neither affirm nor deny the reality thereof of him who has ‘Gone to That[Brahman]” (tathatta). It is to the Spirit (Skt. Atman, Pali attan) as distinguished from oneself (namo-rupa/ or khandhas, mere self as = anatta) i.e., whatever is phenomenal and formal (Skt. and Pali nama-rupa, and savinnana-kaya) “name and appearance”, and the “body with its consciousness”. [SN 2.17] ‘Nonbeing (asat, natthiti [views of either sabbamnatthi ‘the all is ultimately not’ (atomism), and sabbam puthuttan ‘the all is merely composite’ [SN 2.77] both of this positions are existential antinomies, and heresies of annihilationism])’”. In contrast it has been incorrectly asserted that affirmation of the atman is = sassatavada (conventionally deemed ‘eternalism’). However the Pali term sasastavada is never associated with the atman, but that the atman was an agent (karmin) in and of samsara which is subject to the whims of becoming (bhava), or which is meant kammavada (karma-ism, or merit agencyship); such as sassatavada in sutta = “atta ca so loka ca” (the atman and the world [are one]), or: ‘Being (sat, atthiti [views of either sabbamatthi ‘the all is entirety’, and sabbamekattan ‘the all is one’s Soul’ [SN 2.77] both are heresies of perpetualism]). Sasastavada is the wrong conception that one is perpetually (sassata) bound within samsara and that merit is the highest attainment for either this life or for the next. The heretical antinomy to nihilism (vibhava, or = ucchedavada) is not, nor in sutta, the atman, but bhava (becoming, agencyship). Forever, or eternal becoming is nowhere in sutta identified with the atman, which is “never an agent (karmin)”, and “has never become anything” (=bhava). These antinomies of bhava (sassatavada) and vibhava (ucchedavada) both entail illogical positions untenable to the Vedantic or Buddhist atman; however the concept of “eternalism” as = atman has been the fallacious secondary crutch for supporting the no-atman commentarialists position on anatta implying = there is no atman.
There is a problem with Buddhism and Anatta, Budhism splits over the concept of a reincarnate soul and impermanence. Karma is dependent on a reincarnate soul, the ego is dependent on a reincarnate soul. Maybe the truth is that there is no reincarnate soul. This is the point of the discussion, if you wish to fantasize that you have a reincarnate soul, that you are an 'old' soul or that you are 'nearing' enlightenment then you may wish to be brave enough to accept the possibility that you have no separate 'soul'. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.255.45.20 ( talk) 01:42, 5 September 2015 (UTC) So we are back with the Karma thingo again,. Look I'm not the Western Australia Monk, I'm not going to tell you who I am as the 'authority of the person is not important,. You keep referring to the Buddist teachings etc, that's all well and good but this is a page about Anatta, and by any measure its being bent by the demand that it fits into your Karma understanding and the duality of the soul, transcendental nature etc. I find it quite bizarre,. its like someone writing on the 'Black' wiki page that its more like white than black. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.255.45.20 ( talk) 06:28, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
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@ Ms Sarah Welch: Bronkhorst (1993), The Two Traditions, p.99, note 12: "It is possible that original Buddhism did not deny the existence of the soul (Frauwallner 1953: 217-53; Schmithausen 1969: 160-61; Bhattacharya, 1973)". See also Pre-sectarian Buddhism#Schayer - Precanonical Buddhism. Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 06:57, 16 May 2016 (UTC)
@ Joshua Jonathan:, @ 20040302: Agreed. Bronkhorst is speculative, with "it is possible", and after checking all the references @JJ mentions, Bronkhorst evidence is indeed sparse (not just on soul, but also on karma/rebirth doctrines). Yet, the Bronkhorst hypothesis is interesting, notable and I will add it to the article for NPOV. The article already states that "[Early Buddhist] texts do not admit the premise "Self does not exist" either because ...", which parallels Bronkhorst:2009's conclusion in the last lines of page 24. Avidya indeed is associated with Atman in Buddhist texts, an idea that is quite different than the non-Buddhist Indian traditions ( Bronkhorst:2009's page 25). One significant unknown for all ancient Buddhist, Hindu, Jaina texts is the date when they were written down, and how well they preserved or modified the original ideas; for that reason, Bronkhorst hypothesis is worth a mention in this article. Ms Sarah Welch ( talk) 12:33, 16 May 2016 (UTC)
I propose to merge this page with the page Atman (Buddhism). Though both pages obviously deal with opposites, the information on the two pages is similar, and the quality of the two pages could be improved if they would be integrated. After all, atta and anatta are antonyms and cannot be explained separately. S Khemadhammo ( talk) 11:08, 20 August 2016 (UTC)
"The Theravada tradition has long considered the understanding and application of the Anatta doctrine to be something possible for the practicing monk, and not for the lay Buddhists because it is a psychologically difficult doctrine and requires the destruction of "I am" tendencies. "
I know of no canonical evidence to support this statement. Perhaps the author is confusing wrong personality view (sakaya ditthi; the first of the defilements/fetters) with the higher fetter of conceit (mano/mana). The Pāli Nikāyas cite hundreds of lay followers gaining stream entry which is characterised in part with the abandoning of wrong identity/personality view. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2605:E000:2510:8C00:E8A6:DF48:67E5:9CD5 ( talk) 07:12, 25 November 2017 (UTC)
Joseph Walser: I have reverted your edits per WP:COI and out of caution whether the added content is due, WP:Primary and not mainstream yet. Is there a link where you can share a copy of your paper with JJ, me and other editors who watch this article? Or you can wiki-email the link to one of us. We can review it and see what/how best to summarize anything from it in this article. Ms Sarah Welch ( talk) 19:20, 18 September 2018 (UTC)
One more observation that ought to be addressed on this page (I will not edit it myself): this page asserts that the doctrine of anatta is both the central doctrine of Buddhism and that it was formulated to oppose Hindu ideas of atman. This opinion does show up in sources like Harvey and Collins and has achieved a kind of consensus in the literature. But facts matter. There are no suttas in the Pali canon in which the Buddha discusses the doctrine of anatman with a representative of the Brahmanical tradition. The Buddha has a lot of discussions with Brahmins (and uber Brahmins/Mahasalabrahmanas), but anatman is not mentioned in any of those discussions. If anything, it appears that the doctrine of anatman was more for non-Brahmanical communities. Brahmin enthusiasts of Buddhism in the Pali canon usually are taught the dhyanas with no mention of anatman. We can speculate why this is the case, but we can't present the Buddha's teaching here as arguing against the Vedic tradition on this point if there are in fact no suttas that do so. Nor can we present the Vedic tradition as being monolithic on the issue of atman. The Samaveda branches were adamant that the atman was "existence" (sat). But when they did so, they were arguing against the Taittiriyas and the Maitrayaniyas whose upanishads argue that atman/brahman was "non-existence" or "emptiness" respectively. I am not sure exactly what the difference would be between the Buddhist anatman and saying that the atman is non-existence or between Nagarjuna arguing that the atman is emptiness and the Maitrayaniyas saying that the atman/brahman is, well... empty. To pit Buddhism against Hinduism paints with too broad a brush, even for Wikipedia. Finally, I challenge anyone to find a scholar other that Potter who thinks that Mahayana begins at the time of Ashoka or that it ends 100 years before Xuanzang comes to Nalanda in the 7th century. Someone should also add that currently there are more scholars who think it started in Gandhara than who think it started in Andhra Pradesh. The latter is based on very old scholarship. Joseph Walser 13:49, 20 September 2018 (UTC)Joseph Walser
Joseph Walser 13:42, 20 September 2018 (UTC) Joseph Walser — Preceding unsigned comment added by Joseph Walser ( talk • contribs)
Looks like someone took out the phrase "The ancient Buddhist texts present an extensive discussion and rejection of the Vedic concept of Attā (soul, self)" which is what I was objecting to. Though you claim that the article is not making any statements concerning why it was formulated, the section on Anatta being the difference between Hinduism and Buddhism, again, is misleading. It states that "Anatta is a central doctrine of Buddhism, and marks one of the major differences between Buddhism and Hinduism." That is a bold statement and should be qualified. It was and is the central doctrine for some Buddhists, but I have run into Buddhists who have never heard of it. There are also Brahmanical texts (as I indicated above) that appear to come very close to Buddhist anatta texts. In other words, anatta is the dividing line between Hinduism and Buddhism for folks like Vasubandhu and Ratnakirti, but not for everybody. This Wikipedia section makes it sound like the categories of "Hinduism" and "Buddhism" stand in opposition like "even numbers" and "odd numbers." Religions don't work that way. Joseph Walser 14:55, 20 September 2018 (UTC)Joseph Walser — Preceding unsigned comment added by Joseph Walser ( talk • contribs)
In other words, the article should describe an entity called "Buddhism", even if (for the sake of argument) there were no Buddhists who would recognize it. I see that you have added to the number of scholars who claim anatta to be the central doctrine of Buddhism. Fair enough. And there are plenty more such references to be found. It just seems to me that the assertions of all of these scholars are normative instead of prescriptive. It is like saying "Christianity teaches the doctrine of pre-destination" or "divine kenosis." In a certain light, and with certain qualifications this is true. But most folks in church on Sunday won't have the foggiest idea of what you are talking about. Do they, then, not fit into the category or has the category not been nuanced enough to include them? I have to move on, but this is something to think about. Joseph Walser 16:52, 20 September 2018 (UTC)Joseph Walser — Preceding unsigned comment added by Joseph Walser ( talk • contribs)
Let's keep away from ad hominum arguments, they tend to be irrelevant. Joshua may have studied with Bozo the clown, but this would have no bearing on whether or not his assertion is true about Buddhism or not. It either is or is not, regardless of whom he studied with (and I happen to think that he is on to something here). Let's stay focused. Peer reviewed scholarship has come down on both sides of whether anatta is the central doctrine of Buddhism. For those who argue that the suttas do not deny a self, we find C. A. F. Rhys Davids 1941, 656–57; Frauwallner 1953, I. 224ff; Schmithausen 1969, 160 (citing Frauwallner); Pérez Remón 1980; Oetke 1988, 153; and more recently Bronkhorst 2009, 21ff., and a nuanced argument in Wynne 2011. On the opposite end of the debate we find Collins 1982, 250–71; Gombrich 1988, 21 and 63; and Harvey 1995. Most of these sources are cited in Bronkhorst 2009, 23, notes 42–43. Pretty much every scholar acknowledges at some point that the Buddha never says (in the early canon) that there is no soul/self. Some Buddhist philosophers, centuries later, are adamant that the soul does not exist and Naiyayika and Vedantin philosophers are responding to them. If WE assert that the soul's nonexistence is the central tenet of the Buddha, we are putting words in his mouth. We can report what the Buddha said. We can report what Buddhist scholars or pre-modern Buddhist philosophers said. But we run into trouble if we say that "this is what the Buddha would have said if only he were as smart as we are." Better to accurately ascribe who holds these doctrines and move on. If we continue with the assertion that anatta is a central tenet "of Buddhism" or even "of the Buddha" and then go on to acknowledge that the doctrine is hardly central for many Buddhists, then we are picking up where Henry Steel Olcott left off and we might as well go on a tour of Buddhist countries in order to deliver this new "Buddhist Catechism" to the Buddhists ignorant of the "central doctrine". Might I suggest that this would be as presumptuous today as it was in 1881. Moving on. There are a few references to scholars who depict the Maitri Upanisad as "Post-Buddhist." This is weird. I think they must mean "Post-Buddha" since Buddhism is not dead yet. In any case, there are also scholars who assign an early date to the Maitri. Max Mueller was one (Deussen was arguing against him when he called it post-Buddhist). Hopkins notes that it is quoted in a reasonably early part of the Mahabharata and Filliozat notes what appears to be a reference to it in the works of Hyppolytus (2nd century). By all accounts it is a composite text. Some sections of it do appear to be quite late, but not all of them. I think that Signe Cohen (Early Upanisads) does a nice job summarizing the issues concerning the dating of this text (as she does with all the Upanishads) and adding her own linguistic dating of it. Apparently disturbed by the reference to Brahman as niratman and shunyam, the scholars who argue for its posteriority to "Buddhism" want to explain these anomalies as a kind of Buddhist influence. I don't buy it, but that argument is out there. Joseph Walser 17:18, 21 September 2018 (UTC)Joseph Walser — Preceding unsigned comment added by Joseph Walser ( talk • contribs)
Thanks. Obviously, given my self-cite gaffe, I am new to this. As for the Maitri chronology, I mention Mueller, Hopkins and Filliozat just to add the the bibliography on the date of the upanisad. I will give full sources and page numbers (they are all in the article, whose reference I deleted from the main page) when I get a few moments to my self (probably next week). Ok, now let me try it... Joseph Walser 18:50, 21 September 2018 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Joseph Walser ( talk • contribs)
The denial that a human being possesses a “self” or “soul” is probably the most famous Buddhist teaching. It is certainly its most distinct, as has been pointed out by G. P. Malalasekera: “In its denial of any real permanent Soul or Self, Buddhism stands alone.” A similar modern Sinhalese perspective has been expressed by Walpola Rahula: “Buddhism stands unique in the history of human thought in denying the existence of such a Soul, Self or Ātman.” The “No Self” or “no soul” doctrine (Sanskrit: anātman; Pāli: anattan) is particularly notable for its widespread acceptance and historical endurance. It was a standard belief of virtually all the ancient schools of Indian Buddhism (the notable exception being the Pudgalavādins), and has persisted without change into the modern era. [...] both views are mirrored by the modern Theravādin perspective of Mahasi Sayadaw that “there is no person or soul” and the modern Mahāyāna view of the fourteenth Dalai Lama that “[t]he Buddha taught that … our belief in an independent self is the root cause of all suffering".
– Alexander Wynne (2011), The atman and its negation, Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies.
(bold emphasis is mine, see discussion above - MSW)