A Little More on Western Buddhists Who Believe They Have a Soul


viññāṇaṁ anidassanaṁ anantaṁ sabbatopabhaṁ

ettha āpo ca pathavī tejo vāyo na gādhati

ettha dīghañca rassañca aṇuṁ thūlaṁ subhāsubhaṁ

ettha nāmañca rūpañca asesaṁ uparujjhati…


viññāṇassa nirodhena etthetaṁ uparujjhati



Consciousness unmanifest, infinite, shining all around;

Here water and earth, fire and wind gain no foothold;

Here long and short, small and large, pleasant and unpleasant;

Here name and form, without remainder, are completely stopped.


By the cessation of consciousness, this is completely stopped here.


—from the Kevaṭṭa Sutta (D11), and also the Brahmanimantanika Sutta (M49)


     Well, I continue to be confronted by western Buddhists who firmly believe that they have an intrinsically real soul, and thus a kind of self also. Frankly it rather astonishes me that a serious and intelligent Buddhist can believe that any sort of orthodox Buddhism—Theravada, any of the other pre-Mahayana ancient schools, Mahayana, or “primitive” original Buddhism as taught by the Buddha himself—could endorse the idea that individual beings have some sort of ultimately real self or soul, considering that anattā is a central teaching of all of the major philosophical schools of Buddhism in existence today, and also considering that there is no evidence whatsoever, that I have seen, that the historical Buddha taught the existence of an intrinsically real self or soul. The only more or less serious arguments that I have seen articulated are 1) efforts of people like Ken Wheeler to twist Pali grammar by interpreting conventional statements in the texts like “you must save yourself” (because nobody else will do it for you) into metaphysical assertions of “the Self is your savior,” and 2) the much more common approach taken by some western Buddhist scholars, namely to hypothesize that ALL teaching of No Self in the texts are later interpolations, essentially forgeries, added by corrupt and perverse ancient monks.

     It is true that none of the people I’ve interacted with lately who insist that they have a soul are Theravada Buddhists. Ken Wheeler denies being a Buddhist at all, despite claiming to be an absolute authority on the subject of early Buddhism, and the rest follow some sort of Mahayana or Zen. But based on my reading of cardinal Mahayana Buddhist texts, the Mahayanists, including the Zen folks, are in some ways much more radical and thorough in their teaching of No Self than even the Theravadins.

     Orthodox Theravada teaches that no intrinsically real being or entity exists, other than elemental dhammas falling under the categories of matter, mental states, mind or consciousness, and Nibbana/Nirvana. These dhammas are considered, in orthodox Theravada, to be ultimately real entities, though their combinations are not. Foundational Mahayana texts such as the Prajñāpāramitā Sutras and Nāgārjuna’s Mūlamadhyamakakārikā emphasize the lack of svabhāva, essence or “own existence,” even in these dhammas. From a straightforward Mahayanist perspective, nothing has any svabhāva or essence, except maybe for a kind of formless universal consciousness, which may as well be identified with Nirvana as a metaphysical state.

     (I may as well add here that Nagarjuna, whose work gives rigorous logical support to the “everything is Void” teaching of the Prajnaparamita sutras, is considered by the Zen school to be the Indian 14th Patriarch of Zen. I met a Korean Mahayana monk once who declared that, among many Mahayana Buddhists, Nagarjuna is practically revered as a second Buddha. I was told recently of a person who used the Mulamadhyamakakarika as evidence for the existence of a soul; but this strikes me as an obvious misreading of the text, considering that it logically and systematically wrecks ALL philosophical arguments, yes, no, both, and neither, and after it destroys the validity of all metaphysical philosophy it turns the dialectical knife upon itself and leaves nothing behind but Emptiness.)

     It is true, though, that even the Pali texts of the Theravada Buddhist canon contain some support for the notion that the Absolute is infinite consciousness. The best example I can think of is the strange verse serving as the introductory quote for this essay, found in two Pali suttas. All of it, except for the last line, suggests that Nibbana/Nirvana itself can be identified as formless, infinite consciousness. This view is very probably pre-Theravadin, and as Buddhist philosophy developed it fell from favor and was considered to be heresy…hence the last line which evidently contradicts what comes before it, and which in all likelihood is a later interpolation added to patch up a view no longer accepted as true Dhamma but which was too well established in the canon to be edited out. This does not mean that the view that Nibbana is infinite formless consciousness is authentic Dhamma as taught by the Buddha; it could just be an early development in Buddhist philosophy, during its first century of virus-like mutation, which did not catch traction and was dismissed in favor of some other formulation. But still it is there in the texts.

     But granted that some very ancient Buddhist texts suggest that the Ultimate, the Absolute, is infinite formless consciousness, very much akin to the Upanishadic description of the Absolute, Brahman, as infinite formless consciousness, NOWHERE is it suggested that Nirvana is the self or soul. So in the Upanishads the Atman is the same as Brahman, but in early Buddhism the Absolute is NOT claimed to be any sort of self. All definitions of soul or self are shot down in the very first sutta of the Pali Tipitaka, the Brahmajala Sutta, which I assume is present in some form in the huge Mahayana Tripitaka as well.

     Even so, let’s play Mara’s advocate here and grant that Nibbana/Nirvana really is infinite, formless consciousness, and furthermore let’s assume that this formless consciousness could be equated with the Upanishadic atman. Well, that is as far as any intelligent interpretation of What the Buddha Taught could possibly go with regard to a real soul or self. If we have a soul, then all beings in the Universe share the very same one. It is nothing more than the Ultimate Reality that underlies all phenomenal existence, reified as though it positively exists—which however is positively discouraged in what are arguably the oldest Buddhist texts in existence. Furthermore, one might as well take the other obvious step towards Vedanta and declare Nirvana to be God—which step, however, nobody I know of has taken, unless some Mahayanists do so obliquely by considering some omnipresent cosmic Buddha, or the Dharmakāya, to be God. And of course this too is blatantly discrepant with what the earliest and most authentic texts assert, or even suggest.

     Any assertion that Buddhism teaches the existence of an intrinsically, ultimately real INDIVIDUAL soul or self, so that different beings have different souls, not only does not have a leg to stand on textually, but is in open contradiction to the fundamental teachings of both pre-Mahayana and Mahayana philosophy…unless maybe there are texts in some divergent school like Pure Land which endorse it, though I consider Pure Land Buddhism to have very little to do with what the historical Buddha actually taught.

     Which brings me to the issue of What Buddhism Is. If someone wants to follow some radically deviant school of Buddhist philosophy, or the teachings of some idiosyncratic teacher who strictly speaking would qualify as a heretic with Wrong View, well, that is that someone’s choice to make; but again, to claim that such a “heretical” doctrine as a real individual soul is genuine Buddhism corrupts Buddhism into anything that a person wants it to be, and we find ourselves in essentially the same situation as postmodern leftist “Buddhists” in the west who reject 25-century-old established traditions for Buddhism-flavored postmodern leftism. (The increasing rejection of the Second Noble Truth to allow for white patriarchal oppression as a genuine cause of dukkha is a case in point.) One person told me that wanting to follow the most ancient texts in an effort to follow what the historical founder taught is an “Abrahamic hangup” peculiar to westerners; but seriously, it does make perfect sense for a Buddhist, or the follower of any other religion based on an enlightened founder’s teaching, to want to follow what the founder actually taught, and not some later apocryphal spinoff doctrine that the founder himself did not endorse, or maybe even warned against. 

     Anyway, again, I really am astonished that intelligent western Buddhists (and they seem to be overwhelmingly westerners) can believe that the Buddha taught the intrinsically real existence of a human soul, or alternatively don’t care that he didn’t teach it at all, but warned against such an idea, yet they choose to be Buddhists (instead of, say, Vedantists) regardless. The most ancient collection of Buddhist texts abound with assertions of No Self, and clearly assert a Self not once. Zero times. Simply finding a loophole, some conceivable way that the Buddha tacitly allowed for a soul by not exactly declaring EVERYTHING to be Not Self, is extremely lame and not nearly good enough to make a case. On the other hand if anyone can show me some ancient text—the closer to the Buddha’s time the better—in which Gotama the Sakyan professes the existence of a human soul, then I earnestly invite them to show me…nay, I DOUBLE DOG DARE THEM to show me. And no torturing of Pali grammar and context à la Ken Wheeler, if you please. And the invite is still open for a debate (or friendly discussion/disagreement) as well. 





Comments

  1. “Abrahamic hangup”?? My unintelligent cockroach, there is no immortal soul anywhere in the old or new testament. There are over 20 passages in the bible where "God...destroys a soul", the definitive book on this topic is called "RESURRECTION OR IMMORTALITY"

    Your commentarial spew is subjective rubbish, and has no basis in facts, much less doctrine.
    [Udana 81] "There is, an unborn, an unoriginated, an unmade, and an unformed (i.e. the Soul/Brahman). If there were not, O'followers, this unborn, unoriginated, unmade and unformed, there would be no way out for the born, the originated, the made and the formed."

    Your lack of wisdom is your own sickness, either cure it or continue with your rabid insanity son.

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    1. Oh my, it appears to be Ken Wheeler making another anonymous comment, or else someone is impersonating him. Whoever it is, the person obviously didn't understand the essay, and probably just skimmed over it to find something to rail against. For example, the statement about the "Abrahamic hangup" was mentioning that someone I know told me that, and the context had nothing to do with souls, immortal or otherwise. It had to do with the desire of the followers of a system to know what the founder of that system originally said.

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  2. As a sketchy Western Pure Land Buddhist, I may be alone in my belief that once all sentient beings have been brought to birth in the Western Paradise, we can then transition en masse to nibbana. All at once in a great blowout!

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    1. Very good essay. Excuse my ignorance, I understand so self as a concept, yet if there is no soul then what do you call what goes beyond death to the higher realms before enlightenment. Is it an entity or a conscious or unconscious spirit from our life experiences?

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    2. According to orthodox philosophy, what passes on from one life to the next is nothing more than kamma/karma, which is essentially the momentum of the "stream of consciousness." It is in a constant state of flux, rather like a flame, and constantly changing, so there is no abiding entity involved.

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    3. So, upon death I cease to exist, but the causes and conditions I created in this life result in one or more beings taking birth among the many realms of existence?

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    4. Well, technically, "you" don't really exist even BEFORE "you" die. The non-abiding flux is the state of things even throughout life, and "you" are a contingently existent combination of conditions.

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  3. I would humbly ask Paññobhāsa to do an article or video regarding what are the states of the afterlife, how best to prepare or what is expected to happen thereafter. I understand there are philosophical, epistemological and semantic terminology outside of my scope here. This will have to be explained simply not just for myself (or that thing I identify with known as "me" or "self" that doesn't exist, but is conditioned by karmic states).

    Our karmic state at that point of death, formed through our experiences is thus continued in a renewed manifestation based on that state. One either gets closer to what is considered as enlightened ultimate reality or further away. Would this be a correct interpretation, please explain (eli5). Thank you.

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  4. So, when Buddha states in the sutras that this is "his" last birth, he's referring to the overall abiding flux of which "he" has been part? The uncreated is some vast Unity from which "we" became separated by ignorance? Long ago some portion of the Unity became ill or deluded and broke off into Many?

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    1. "We" didn't REALLY become separated. Due to ignorance we simply believe that we are separated.

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    2. I seem to be drifting into Monism. It's as though One fell asleep and began dreaming all these individual forms and identities, an entire universe. The Buddha claimed to be awake, conscious of both this dream and being One?
      When Buddha died it was like One blinking his eyes and exiting the dream altogether?



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    3. Consider a block of marble of indeterminate size: Contained within that block of stone is every possible statue: Michelangelo's David, all the naked Aphrodites, all the classics of Greece, India, the Renaissance, etc. etc. Even impossible statues are contained in that block of marble, like Myron's discus thrower with legs as thin as hairs. They're really in there too; every atom is already in the exact correct place, and all that is required is to dismiss the totality of the block of stone. Some statues are so complex that they become self-conscious and believe themselves to be autonomous selves. But the ultimate reality of the situation is a single block of stone that contains infinite possibilities. We are some of those possibilities, existing in conventional, conditional, virtual truth.

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    4. I know that you've discussed this before.
      I also know that I'm being too literal perhaps, but consider the block of stone itself. Is the block itself infinite? Or should we just stop with that block because our minds can go no further, or just fabricate endless stories. The block may be sitting in a massive structure, which is located in a magical kingdom, on a distant planet in another galaxy, and on and on, layer upon layer, and we
      deluded statues really have no idea of what is true and real. "All that we are is the result of what we have thought", including metaphorical blocks of stone. I only know that ultimately we all know nothing, that knowing itself is empty.

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    5. The block of stone is ultimately sizeless, and contains all phenomenal existence. According to the theory.

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    6. I'm being a stickler, but how can a "block" of anything be sizeless?
      In any case, your point about the SEEMINGLY endless possibilities regarding that block are well enough taken. Again, we're talking about a THING (block) made of some kind of material STUFF (stone or whatever). I don't know whether this would fit in with Buddha's teachings on impermanence. I would have to defer to you given your own experience as a bikkhu.
      It makes me wonder what Buddha saw of his past lives - all possible lives, rather than a linear progression of lives lived from some distant beginning? My tiny mind is blown again.

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    7. I've talked about this before, but consider that anything formless must be infinite, because it is without boundaries. Also, if you please, consider how Hegel begins his whole dialectic philosophy: The thesis is Pure Being, and the antithesis is Pure Non-Being or Pure Nothingness and the two merge with each other and become indistinguishable because both are empty of determinate content.

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    8. Understood, not disagreeing but making some observations, hopefully helpful. Pure Being being 1 and Pure Nothingness being 0, then 1 plus 0 equals 1, so I see no merger, as merging requires joining of two nonzeroes by definition.
      A rock plus nothing is still a rock.

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    9. First of all, the rock is a metaphor. When the Tao Te Ching calls Tao "the nameless uncarved block" it's not really saying Tao is a rock. Also, if all there is is pure being, then there is no one because there's nothing else to compare it with. "One" would have no meaning, and anyway the idea of "one" would not exist, except in potential form at best. It's more like absolute infinity equals absolute zero. The opposite of zero is not one, it is infinity, and both are infinite absolutes.

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  5. I keyed in a response but then lost it, hopefully. I know, the rock is a metaphor. Using names to define the nameless seems futile to me. So does likening zero to infinity (I have a degree in mathematics, but it was too long ago and I wasn't very good).
    These discussions may provide a nice diversion and pass the time, but we as unenlightened folk can never approach the Buddha's understanding of all, nothing and everything in between. What were we talking about again? 🤔

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  6. So did we get an answer as to what happens once one passes on?

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  7. I believe Pannobhass answered this question earlier in this thread. What passes from life to life is karma, a combination of causes, conditions and effects, a seeming (or actual?) stream of consciousness. Hopefully Pannobhasa can correct any mistakes I've made here.

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  8. Just FYI, Pure Land doesn't teach about a soul and the Pure Land sutras are considered to be the some of the oldest Mahayana scriptures to be conceived. Nagarjuna (also the first patriarch of Jodo Shinshu) himself advocated rebirth in the Pure Land and called it the "easy practice". The idea of Pure Lands are integral to orthodox Mahayana. Also, Buddha remembrance (Nembutsu) has its roots in the Pali Canon.

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    1. I knew that Pure Land stuff was one of the earliest strands of Mahayana, but I have never had much interest in it and don't know what kind of metaphysics it teaches. So it seems that NONE of the ancient Buddhist schools taught the real existence of an individual soul (as opposed to something more Upanishadic with all beings sharing the same one). With regard to Nagarjuna, I'm unaware of the document in which he recommends it. Possibly in his advice to a south Indian king? Most works of "Nagarjuna" are considered to be authored by someone else.

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    2. Here is the link to the document http://web.mit.edu/stclair/www/Nagarjuna_easypractice.html
      It is considered to be an authentic Nagarjuna text according to one scholar I asked.

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