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The Buddha’s Experiential Alternative to the Brahmanical “Self”

Hello everyone. I'm delighted by the interest in this text. Once upon a time, I thought it was really boring and never even thought about dipping into it to see what it really says. Maybe it was good I waited, because now I can appreciate it after all these years.

The work of Bhikkhu Sujato^[1] has been really important for this purpose. If you don't know, he is a monk in Australia who went off to an island for a couple of years and translated all the suttas. It was quite an accomplishment. He's a very good Pali scholar and made his work available freely on the web at a website called SuttaCentral^[2]. In recent years, he has been doing deep research into the connection between the suttas and the Upanishads^[3]—the contemporary, pre-Hindu religion of India. It is phenomenal how many connections there are. What he did for the text we are exploring today was phenomenal; it is incredible to see how strong that linkage is. For those of you interested in the wider context of the material in the suttas, this is an interesting place to look.

Yesterday and today, I exchanged emails with Kim Allen, one of our teachers here at IMC who also has a big interest in sutta study. She heard I was doing this class on Majjhima 1^[4] and pointed out how strongly the Buddhists wrote these anti-Brahmanical suttas. There was a huge interest at some point to clearly differentiate themselves from the brahmins. Perhaps saying it very politely, there was a competition. In the ancient world around the time of the Buddha, there was a very strong debate culture. Debating wasn't just something you did on a Sunday afternoon and had a beer together afterwards. The consequences of these public debates were quite huge. I've read secondary literature that says if you lost some of these debates, you were supposed to become the student of the person you lost to.

Some of these texts can be understood as part of a larger debate culture where early Buddhists were trying to undermine or differentiate themselves from the teachings of existing religions. You frequently see the Buddha taking religious terms that were very important for other religions of his time and redefining them. There is a Pali word, kevala^[5], which, when you read the English translation, doesn't really grab your attention. Sometimes it is translated as "entire," as in "the entire mass of suffering." "Mass of suffering" is interesting, but "entire" just seems like a nice adjective. However, the word kevala is an important term for ultimate liberation or ultimate connection to reality in the Upanishads. The Buddha contrasts himself with these kinds of teachings over and over again.

Initial Reflections on Majjhima 1

I'm delighted you're here. Before we continue, it would be good to hear a few comments from some of you. What was it like to read this text and the study guides? Was it confusing? Inspiring? Are you ready to become a monk or nun, or are you ready to throw the book across the room?

Victoria: I found the relentless thoroughness of it, and the repetitions, very compelling. I've been studying various discourses on the lack of an inherent self. I've been taking some courses in London, which is obviously a different tradition but very much focused right now on Nagarjuna's commentaries. I was delighted because this actually seemed very straightforward compared to some of the stuff I've been trying to read. I've always wondered about this excessive repetition, which seemed very annoying when I first jumped into the path. But now, thanks to your commentary, I realize how powerful it is. It makes perfect sense as an oral tradition. As a musician, I almost wanted to make up my own rhythmic chant as I was reading along.

Gil: After I sent everything out, I realized there is a website where a monk actually reads all the suttas in the Majjhima Nikaya. It would have been nice to include that so you could listen to it being read. I'll see if I can find the link and share it.

DA: I get the impression from reading the suttas that everything the Buddha says is for a purpose. It has an operational definition for the purpose of letting go, dispassion, and cessation. You know the Dharma by its outcome—that it leads to nibbana. Rather than talking about "self" from an ontological perspective, it seems he focuses more on "not mine." I've heard this subtly mentioned by Ajahn Brahm: "not mine, not mine," rather than "there is no self." If you look for the Loch Ness monster and can't find it, who knows if there is one? But you have this "not mine" aspect. Could you comment on whether his teaching of "not self" is really just teaching that everything is "not mine" for the purpose of reaching nibbana?

Gil: Great question. We'll get to something like that, I hope.

Beth: For me, it feels like a continuation, especially after listening to your book, The Buddha before Buddhism, which explores the Atthakavagga^[6]. I highly suggest everybody read or listen to that. It helps you see the intense culture of beliefs the Buddha was born into. It's remarkable, and I feel energized and happy to continue this exploration.

Beverly: I processed it in relation to myself. I thought, "This is about me." Nothing I encounter is neutral; I always process everything by looking at my relationship to it, including the sutta.

Codo: I'm hopeful that sometime during the period we'll talk about your translation choice for maññati^[7] as "imagined."

Majjhima 49: The Invitation of a Brahma

I know you all came prepared for Majjhima 1, but I am going to change suttas on you. This will be exciting. Some of you may have read Majjhima 49^[8], which was mentioned in the study guide. It pairs really well with Majjhima 1. It is almost like taking the teachings of Majjhima 1 and turning them into a skit. You could imagine people playing the parts, turning a long list of things into a fun drama.

Looking at the footnotes has been very helpful. In Majjhima 49, there is a famous verse that people who want to say nibbana is a transcendent kind of consciousness use as proof. Bhikkhu Bodhi translates it like this: "The consciousness that makes no showing, in becoming about to disbecome, not claiming being with respect to all."^[9] People argue, "Oh, this means not ordinary consciousness. This is nibbanic consciousness."

But let me give you a little bit of the drama so you can see what is at stake. The Great Brahma is one of the gods. One of the goals of some religious traditions of the time was to achieve union with Brahma. That was considered the ultimate attainment. The Buddha goes to visit Brahma in heaven. Baka Brahma tells the Buddha: "I say of the permanent that it is permanent, of the everlasting that it is everlasting, of the eternal that it is eternal, of the total that it is the total, of what is not subject to pass away that it is not subject to pass away. Of what neither is born, nor ages, nor dies, nor passes away, nor reappears. And there is no escape beyond this."

In short, Baka Brahma is saying he knows what is permanent. He claims there is something lasting forever, never born, never dying, and there is no escape beyond it. He tells the Buddha, "You will find no escape beyond, and eventually you will reap only weariness and disappointment. But if you hold to earth, you'll be close to me, within my domain, for me to work my will upon and punish. If you hold to water, fire, all the way up to Brahma, you will be close to me, within my domain, for me to work my will upon and to punish."

Brahma believes he knows the eternal truth. He is the most powerful figure in the cosmos, and he's telling the Buddha to fall in line.

The Buddha responds, "I know all this about you. I know that if I hold to earth, water, or fire, I shall be close to you within your domain. Furthermore, I understand your reach and your sway to extend this far."

Brahma asks, "How do you know the extent of my power?"

The Buddha replies, "As far as moon and sun revolve, shining and lighting up the quarters over a thousandfold world, such does your sovereignty extend. There you know the high and low, those with lust and free from lust, the state that is thus and otherwise, the coming and going of beings. Brahma, I understand your reach and your sway to extend thus. But I have more than you."

The Buddha lists the different gods. He includes the Streaming Radiance gods, the Refulgent Glory gods, and the Great Fruit gods. The Buddha says, "I know all those because I've been there. I've been gods like that in my past lifetimes. That is the highest extent of the gods that Brahma knows. But I know even what is beyond that."

The Buddha continues, "Having directly known earth as earth, having directly known that which is not partaken of by the earthness of the earth, I do not imagine the earth. I do not imagine to be in earth. I do not imagine to be apart from the earth. I do not imagine earth to be mine. I do not affirm earth. Thus, Brahma, in regard to direct knowledge, I do not stand merely on the same level as you. How then can I know less? Rather, I know more than you."

The Buddha goes through many of the same categories found in Majjhima 1, repeating, "I know this, but I'm not imagining this. I know what's beyond that."

Brahma responds, "Good sir, that which is not partaken by the allness of all, may your claim not turn out to be vain and empty: the consciousness that makes no showing, in becoming about to unbecome, not claiming it to be with respect to the all."

Here is that famous quote. It turns out, in the Pali Text Society edition of this text, a word is missing. That word clarifies that this line is a quotation spoken by Brahma, not the Buddha. All the other editions have it clearly. If you read Bhikkhu Bodhi's earlier translations, it looks like the Buddha is saying this, but it is actually a Brahmanical idea.

Then Brahma says, "You think you're so hot? Let me show you how powerful I am. I'm going to vanish right in front of your eyes." But he is unable to vanish. The Buddha says, "Well, you can't seem to vanish. I can vanish in front of you." And the Buddha vanishes right in front of him. Brahma finally realizes that maybe he doesn't know everything after all.

The Meaning of Imagination (Maññati)

This is a dramatization that gives you some flavor of Majjhima 1. There was a very contentious debate in the ancient nation about these ideas. The belief that there is an eternal Brahma, and that the goal of practice is to realize Brahma within you, all centered around the idea of atman.

The atman is not just the small "self" sitting here. For example, take this laptop in front of me. It has all my files on it, and I need those files to get through my life. By shorthand, I say, "It's mine." But I'm not saying this laptop is me. I don't imagine that I am in the laptop. I'm not making an identity out of the laptop, and I'm certainly not asserting that an eternal self is found in it. Saying "this is my laptop" is just an innocent, convenient thing to say that helps us get along and respect each other's property without making life more complicated. There is no identity being created, especially no identity that suggests a permanent, soul-like entity.

According to the Buddha, such permanence belongs to the world of imagination. It must have been challenging for the monks hearing this text to accept that their ultimate ideals—the eternal gods and the true self—didn't really exist. The Buddha is saying that not only do they not exist in a permanent way, but that creating them is an act of imagination (maññati).

Bhikkhu Sujato often translates maññati as "conceive." I prefer "imagination," because I've gone through much of the suttas to see how this verb is used, and it repeatedly calls on people's imagination. The Buddha will present a scenario and ask, "What do you imagine?" He calls on people's ability to think about something that doesn't actually exist in order to have a conversation. I think "conceive" slightly misdirects us, unless we understand it in the biblical sense of giving birth to something. You can't give birth to an atman because, in the Upanishadic view, they are everlasting and always here.

Q&A and Discussion

Jane: The text you were reading from, I tried to find on SuttaCentral, but MN 49 is not about Brahma there. I'm confused about what text you were referencing.

Gil: It is Majjhima 49. The Pali title is the Brahmanimantanika Sutta, which translates to "The Invitation of a Brahma."

DA: I like to look at the big picture. There is a lot of emphasis on the teaching of "not self" and "not Brahma." The purpose of that teaching is to let go of craving. If you think there is a Brahma out there, it keeps rebirth-producing craving going. The idea of an eternal consciousness—or even in some Mahayana or Pure Land schools where the bodhisattva^[10] or arahant keeps going—seems to keep that hope and craving alive. Why does the Buddha stress so much that there is no Brahma out there?

Gil: Yes, I think you're accurate. The traditional Buddhist idea is that the goal is to no longer be reborn. The mechanism for rebirth has to be brought to an end, and that mechanism is craving, clinging, and attachment. What exactly the mechanism for rebirth is remains pretty mysterious, but clinging or craving for existence is considered to be the engine. Without that clinging, when dying happens, the flame simply goes out. It doesn't go anywhere; it just gets extinguished.

Any belief that prevents you from that deep letting go—including the belief in a permanent self—is considered dangerous. The belief in a self here isn't the ordinary sense of, "I believe I'm sitting here talking to you." It's the belief that there is a special, eternal kernel or soul inside of us that directly correlates with the ultimate truth of the cosmos. In the Upanishads, to know the atman is to know that you are the whole cosmos. There is an amazing mysticism in those teachings—a complete identity or oneness with the universe.

From the point of view of the Buddha, that belief is an act of imagination. It is not experiencing what is most freeing. To be really free, you have to stop imagining. If you stop imagining, you start seeing reality more directly. The core insight that ends clinging involves a direct insight into impermanence. If you believe in permanence, you are blocked from seeing impermanence. The suttas put a lot of effort into helping people get beyond the filter of permanence so they can see how things arise and pass.

Beverly: I ran across this sutta on my own years ago, and I interpreted it simply as dependent origination. It felt true that it was describing how I see things in my environment, get tangled up in them, and view them as extensions of myself. Is there room for my interpretation, or did I simply get it wrong? Like, a chair could just be a chair, rather than "my chair," or "a chair I like," or deciding I should become a chair maker. There's a world beyond interpreting everything that way.

Gil: I don't think there are any walls to the room of interpretation. Your interpretation is very compatible with what the Buddha is trying to teach. In the first part of the study guide, I tried to restate it so people would see themselves in it. Some people believe they are their thoughts, or that their thinking is in them, or that they exist separately from their thoughts.

Today, there are even Buddhists who have a dharmic nature religion. They stand in nature, their separate self disappears, and they feel a mystical oneness with everything. It seems Buddhist because they aren't focusing on a separate self, but it is actually closer to an Upanishadic interpretation. But what you are doing sounds very nice. It helps you see what is happening when you go about perceiving things in your environment, and points to a world beyond imagining all kinds of things in relationship to chairs.

Michael: If the end of clinging is necessary for the end of rebirth, what then is a bodhisattva clinging to?

Gil: You are mixing radically different Buddhist traditions. Do we really want to lump them together as if they are meant to be entirely coherent, or do we treat them as independent traditions? Blending them together to make them explain each other is an exercise in theology. The bodhisattva ideal is phenomenally important for me. I was ordained with the bodhisattva vows, but I don't take them to be literally true. I see them as metaphors—almost like poetry—that express something very deep in my heart about how I want to live. But for some Buddhists, what I just said is heretical.

I wrote my doctoral dissertation on the early historical records of the bodhisattva path. One of the things that stood out was that the later idea—that you are supposed to put off your enlightenment over many lifetimes until you can save all beings—is not emphasized in the earliest layer. The earliest layer is about becoming a Buddha as quickly as you can.

Debakar: I was experiencing a bit of the unease that the monks felt at the end of MN 1, because I am very much attracted to the bodhisattva ideal, which seems to have a shade of that Upanishadic oneness that MN 1 completely rejects. I was having a dilemma about how to approach reality.

Gil: I appreciate that challenge. I used to have the textbook understanding of the Upanishads and how different they are from Buddhism, and I was somewhat critical of the Upanishadic idea. But as I learn more about the wide range of teachings in the Upanishads, I respect the deep meditative experiences and purity of mind those practitioners had. It's not so far away from a very reasonable way of relating to the interdependent co-arising of this universe. We need a deeper understanding of our connection to save this planet.

If you are interested in resolving that dilemma, I recommend doing a lot of meditation practice. When I was on a three-month retreat, I went to my teacher, Joseph Goldstein, and said, "I think I need to become a Hindu." He asked why. I said, "I see that everything is impermanent and changing, except for one thing: consciousness. That's not supposed to be the case in Buddhism, so I think I have to jump ship." Joseph just smiled and said, "Just keep looking. Just keep practicing."

At some point, I saw something transformative, and I could no longer see consciousness as permanent. I looked around, and there was nothing in my whole realm of experience that I could see as permanent. Are there things that are permanent outside my experience? That doesn't matter, because freedom is navigated within the world of our direct experience. When I saw that nothing in my direct experience was permanent, it set me free from any belief in a permanent self or atman. If you enter sincerely into these mindfulness practices, you'll find a way out of your dilemma.

Victoria: The sutta reminded me of the apophatic^[11] tradition—negative theology. It sweeps aside dogmatic beliefs by arguing negatively: you won't find a self here in the earth or the water. It opens up the field by stating where it cannot be found, rather than asserting what it is.

Gil: That makes logical sense, but I'm not sure we should see early Buddhist teachings as strictly apophatic. A radical negation of everything might be too absolutist. Sometimes there is an overemphasis on the Buddha's teachings on "not self." When it is translated as "no self," it becomes a metaphysical claim about reality: "There is no self." There is no need to go that far.

The meaning is "not self," and it is always used as an adjective. You start seeing for yourself that you can't find anything that qualifies as a self. Does that mean there is no self? Going from not finding one to declaring it doesn't exist is a metaphysical leap. The Buddha doesn't just say "no, no, no." There are many positive representations of people who become arahants. An arahant is described as someone who is paripuṇṇa^[12]—fulfilled, complete, and pervaded with wholesome states.

RK: It seems to me that people like Ramakrishna and Ramana Maharshi asked themselves, "Who am I?" and found that there is no "I." It seems the Buddha is saying exactly the same thing.

Gil: It could be similar, but there is actually no place in the suttas where the Buddha explicitly makes the metaphysical claim, "There is no I." Even Buddhists can't get attached to the idea that there is no self, because there's nothing to attach to. To equate their realizations directly with the Buddha's might not be fair to either tradition.

Tammy: I've been reading your translation of the Dhammapada and the Book of Eights^[13]. The first stanza of the Dhammapada starts with, "All experience is preceded by mind, led by mind, made by mind." It's interesting to remember that my mind is always trying to grasp and label something that is actually ineffable.

Gil: I think there is no place in the suttas where the "ineffable" is talked about. Creating an idea about something ineffable is an act of imagination. The Buddha is actually very clear and precise about what is effable: it is possible to understand suffering and clinging very precisely. It is possible to see clearly the arising and passing of phenomena. It is possible to see the release of suffering and clinging. Nothing more is needed. Whether the rest of the world is ineffable or not just becomes an interesting topic for a philosophy class.

Sylvia: Going back to Majjhima 1, something that stuck with me is the translation that "taking delight is the root of suffering." Can you talk about that? Because I take delight in being free from the self, or in the present moment.

Gil: I've struggled with this for a long time. There is a specific word, nandī^[14], that the Buddha treats as a problematic state. The most obvious translation is "delight" or "joy," but there are plenty of other Buddhist terms for wholesome happiness and pleasing the mind. So why is the Buddha critical of nandī?

It might be that he is redefining a Brahmanical term. Nandī was considered an ultimate state in the Upanishads, so he may have used it purposely to critique that view. To capture the problem with the word, I tried for a while to translate it as "relish," which implies overindulging in something. I eventually settled on "take delight." The word "take" is important because it implies a grasping or greed. Nandī means a delight that has greed in it.

Vandana: I was inspired by your talk on the Satipatthana Sutta^[15]. You mentioned having deep meditative experiences where you saw that consciousness is not permanent. Could you speak more about your personal experience with that? Because even bliss, joy, and serenity seem to be seen by one continuous consciousness.

Gil: I was sitting a long retreat. My mind was very still and quiet. There was very little mental activity going on—it was very peaceful. What was left was just some sense of consciousness and a few other small things. Then, at some point, consciousness completely disappeared. It was surprising and impactful.

It wasn't that I went unconscious, nor was I conscious. It wasn't that I was neither conscious nor unconscious. Everything just stopped. When I was next cognizant enough to understand what had happened, I thought, "Wow." I understood then that consciousness is not an enduring, permanent phenomenon. It is just one more thing that can arise and pass. More importantly, it was a phenomenally deep resolution to the topic of suffering. It was the end of suffering.

When you ask, "Who is asking the question? Who is saying wow?", that has become completely uninteresting and irrelevant to me. "Wow" is enough. I don't need to know any more than that.

I hope this sutta has come a little more alive for you, especially understanding it as a dialogue with the religious traditions of ancient India. It is so strongly a critique of the brahmins that some scholars theorize it wasn't a literal teaching from the Buddha, but was composed hundreds of years later when Brahmanism became more dominant in northern India. The early Buddhists had to contend with it, so they composed these texts to offer an alternative, and an editor placed it at the very beginning of the Middle Length Discourses.

What the Buddha wants to do is not to offer a positive metaphysical belief system, but to clear the mind of the ideas that interfere with directly seeing reality for yourself.

Thank you all very much.