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> As Alan Watts used to say, Buddhism is essentially Hinduism “stripped for export” Except a fundamental pronouncement of Buddhism is "anatta" or "anatman", wh
by saulpw 4y ago
> As Alan Watts used to say, Buddhism is essentially Hinduism “stripped for export”
Except a fundamental pronouncement of Buddhism is "anatta" or "anatman", which is aggravatingly translated as "no-self". There are many layers to this "no-self" but one of them is that it is direct stated opposition to the Hindu Atman, the highest Self, which can be experienced as a kind of unitive state. The Buddha was effectively saying "Hinduism practice, yes, and Atman is along the path, but don't stop there, beyond this Big Self is No-Self".
- akomtu 4y agoI think this seeming contradiction is easy to resolve. An average man identifies with his mind, that selfish ego. Buddhism tells how to raise consciousnesses one level above: and from there, mind looks like a tool lacking any self or identity. Hindu tells that there is only one I in the universe that projects itself thru many such minds, and once it stops identifying with them, it learns that those many selves are false, that many is one and only that one is real.
- emptysongglass 4y agoI'd say no-self directly captures the experience of that mark of existence to those who have experienced it. There's very much a sense of viewing an aggregation of sensations without ownership and no owner to be found. Whatever is being viewed is jumped to and there's a sense of witness being behind the eyes but that's it. The witness can't be located in any reified sense and the witness has no ownership over what it observes.