No self? No soul?

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Today is the fourth and final talk in the series on the Basics of Buddhism.  We have been following the book Naked Buddha, a Practical Guide to the Buddha’s Life and Teachings, by Adrienne Howley.   Today, we tackle the tough stuff.  

A key teaching by the Buddha was on the three marks of existence :  impermanence (anicca), suffering (dukkha) and no self (anatta).  Having dealt with the first two, we come to the last, no self.

I admit that I myself still struggle with this last one. 

Adrienne notes that there are probably more misunderstandings about the Buddha’s teachings on no self and no soul than anything else that he taught.  He did NOT teach that we are trying to get rid of our self, but that in fact there is no self to get rid of.  He taught that we are just an aggregate of elements that are ever-changing.  

There’s was an article in the KC Star this week about a little boy in Minnesota who has been identified as a reincarnated Lama.  In it, they quote some guy that was a religion professor in Minnesota who stated unequivocally that “all Buddhists believe in reincarnation”.  All?  There is evidence, in fact, that is NOT what the Buddha taught.  If asked, he was agnostic about this idea.  Remember, the Buddha focused on what can be experienced and what can be proven.  He believed strongly that it was a waste of time to speculate.  Speculating did nothing to relieve suffering, and the Buddha was focused on relieving suffering.   So, for our discussion today, the Buddha would say we are wasting our time, but let’s do it anyway.  Don’t we all ponder this question from time to time?  How would you answer these questions:  What happens after we die?  Do we have a soul?  What is a soul anyway?   

The Buddha taught that there is no solid separate unchanging self, and he put the question this way:

“Since there is no inherently permanent self, only a constant changing physical, emotional or mental state, what is reborn?”

While I was I India, I came upon a book entitled The Buddha and His Dhamma, by an well-respected Indian statesman named Dr. B. R. Ambedkar who converted to Buddhism.  In it, Dr. Ambedkar carefully describes the Buddha’s original teaching on anatta from the Pali Canon (the first writings of the Buddha’s teaching).

“Mind is different from the soul.  Soul is often defined as the essence of a being, or used interchangeably with the word spirit.  The soul is based on speculation. The Buddha was agnostic on this subject  The soul by its very definition is unknown and unseen.

The Buddha believed that believing in a soul created superstition, and he taught only what he could prove and experience.  Soul as described in most writings is vague and unprovable.  The Buddha stated that discussion of the existence of the soul was as unprofitable as the discussion of the existence of God.  He was agnostic on God as well.”

Part of the Buddha’s reticence in participating in these discussions was that, at the time, the evolving Brahmin caste used the idea of God and Soul to exlpain why some people were superior to others.  The Brahmins had power over everyone because only Brahmins could talk directly to God.  How did they know that?  Because they wrote it the Vedas, which is like the Bible in Hindusim.  They wrote the book that said they were superior.  They rationalized that people born into poor conditions were the result of bad karma from a prior life (carried forward in their soul), and that the poor were to be of service to the Brahmins, so that they could create good karma and might get reborn in a higher caste next time.  The Buddha, on the other hand, rebelled against this notion.  He was about equality and relieving the suffering of all beings--much like the message of Jesus--not just the ones we like, not just the ones that “deserve” it, but relieving the suffering of ALL beings. 

In Catholicism, we have seen some of the same things happen, when it is thought that only the priest had a direct line to God, and we are supposed to be good so that our souls would go to heaven.   Maybe this is true—who knows for sure? However, we now know from experience that these beliefs often lead to fear and can give too much power to those in charge.  In contrast, the Buddha focused on each person’s innate wisdom and goodness, our ability to think for ourselves and to make choices because we want to relieve suffering, NOT because we fear hell or other punishment.

The Buddha was agnostic about the existence of a soul and even about the existence of God, because he didn’t see that it relieved suffering in any way.  Instead, he saw the human being as a collection of certain physical elements and mental elements.    Wherever a certain combination of these elements is found, also is found consciousness.  Does consciousness cease to exist after our body dies?  We don’t know.

Some think of consciousness as awareness of being aware, of putting oneself in a moment in time, aware of the past and the possibility of a future.   No other living creature does that, as far as we know.  Awareness of past experience and ability to see possibilities in the future enable us to have imagination.  We can imagine the possibilities beyond what we can see and experience.  We can imagine a soul, and we can imagine God.  Who knows for sure? 

This whole idea of no self/no soul, strays into the question of what happens when we die.  Is it Rebirth? Reincarnation? Transmigration? 

·        Rebirth: Energy remains constant but transforms into another form.  The various elements of our body turn into ash, which turns into soil, which turns into food, trees, etc.

·        Reincarnation:  In certain Buddhist traditions, it is defined as our spirit of either the mind, the speech or the body, that returns in other being.  (In Tibetan Buddhism, these three do not always reincarnate in just one being)

·        Transmigration: The Hindu belief that the soul transfers after death to another being.

Who knows?  I am encouraged by the Dalai Lama’s statement, that if something he believes is scientifically proven to be wrong, he will stop believing it!

So how can it be proven?

In 2004, ABC News did a story about a young boy named James Leininger who, around his second birthday, began having terrifying nightmares that went on night after night.  James began screaming out recurring phrases like, "Plane on fire! Little man can't get out!" His parents were alarmed, concerned and perplexed.

In one video they did of James at age 3, he goes over a toy plane as if he's doing a preflight check. Another time, his mother bought him another toy plane (his favorite toy), and pointed out what appeared to be a bomb on its underside. She said that James corrected her and told her it was a drop tank. "I'd never heard of a drop tank," she said. "I didn't know what a drop tank was."

Over the next four years, he told more details of the plane and the plane crash that no little boy could know.  He gave many details, like he talked of his sister named Ann, yet he had no sister.  James also told his father the name of the boat he took off from — Natoma — and the name of someone he flew with — "Jack Larson." The parents pieced together what their son was communicating and eventually discovered that it matched exactly the details of the life of World War II fighter pilot named James Huston. They wanted to share their story to show that they were a typical suburban family who did not believe in reincarnation, they were not looking for any signs.  They simply observed their young son telling specific details of a man who lived sixty years prior. 

So, in the end, who knows?  The Buddha taught that all conditioned phenomena is impermanent—that phenomena (energy) is constant and simply takes different forms in our ever-changing world.  And yet...one of the recent discoveries in Quantum physics finds that even energy may be changed by the fact that we observe it. 

Perhaps there is still a mystery to be discovered.