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The
3 Characteristics Sutta |
Introduction
English version of the sutta
In preparation
Please return later
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Understanding not-SELF
It is a fact that no one knows what the
ancient Pali term ‘anatta’
(lit. not-SELF) actually meant when the Tathagata
used it. That’s because during his 40+year career as a wandering wisdom
teacher and dukkha (i.e. distress) therapist he never once produced a
positive definition of the term atta (SELF) and from which anatta (not-SELF) is derived. Indeed, he chose to remain silent on the
meaning of SELF. In this (i.e. the Three
Characteristics) discourse, the Tathagata claims
that the bits (or sub-functions, i.e. khandas) of
which the whole person appears as an ‘emerged phenomenon’ produce a false ‘I’
(or self) experience in that: 1. The bits (khandas) are
transient 2. And are, therefore, experienced as distressing
(dukkha) He concludes that because each bit of
the person is transient, and therefore experienced as distressing, it would
not be not clever to conceive of it as ‘This .. mine,
this I am, (consequently) this .. my SELF?’” Since he remains silent on SELF (i.e. atta) and its properties, the whole argument seems
spurious. The Anatta Sutta
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