Is there a self?

So this is the crux really of everything. And the answer has me confused. I was once asked about this in questions after a talk and said--in my own confusion--that confusion was probably a good approach. The reason is that the answer is both Yes and No.

Self can only be described by what it is not. And it is not everything. If you are thinking of something then that is not you. Even the thought is not you. Even the thought is being had by not you. There is no you in any of the world. And yet the world is there because of you.

This is where Buddha's "anatta" comes from. Not-self. It has a broader meaning from human self to mean no entity at all has a self. There is no essence that permanently exists flowing through time that acts as a hook on which to hang the identity of a thing. There are no "hooks" in reality. Things just are what they are, and they are on very slippery ground constantly changing and shifting towards being new things. The "things" that we like to think exist, are just that: thoughts. In order to think the world we need simplify it and so we have words and concepts. When we buy a kilo of apples we look in the bag and see 6 apples. We are not worried about the specifics, "apple" will do to summaries them. And then we can start on Plato et al. road of trying to work out how "apple" applies to what is really there. Wittgenstein musing on how off the word "red" is when you find yourself applying it to something red. What is the connection? But we are putting that whole world of idealised thoughts in the bin. We are only interested in what is really there, unidealised, uncategorised, unlabelled just as it is. This thing defies definition obviously because that definition is sitting in the bin. It is just the collection of sights and sounds and phenomena that assemble as it. And they are changing and it is changing. And sense of a "self" it may have is projected from our thoughts as we perceive and process it into a thing. That is anatta the realisation that everything is fluid and lacking a unique permanent soul that makes it what it is. And we then apply to ourselves. We are also just a lose collection of phenomena assembling and disassembling all the time. There is a thought, there is a smell, there is a feeling. A nun once started meditation class asking "have you a feeling right now that you have always had." Indeed is there anything right now that you have always had. Well they may be a few things, like the scar on the back of your leg, or maybe even that leg. But it was certainly a lot smaller once, and we know every atom in it has been replaced since we were small. In a sense that it occupies the place of my right leg it is the same leg. But actually this leg is not the same as the one I had as a kid. Heraclitus musing on never being able to dip the same toe in the same river. I always found this hard to understand. Surely the Thames is the river. Sure it flows, but in a sense it is still the Thames and I can dip my toe in it many times. Heraclitus does not mean that the river dries up and a new one flows a different course. Or perhaps we get a new river ever moment. The country would be full of rivers. Sure the Thames flows East across Southern England like it always has (in recent times) but the point is the Thames is not the same Thames all the time. There is no discrete moment when it jumps from one Thames to the next. The "Thames" itself is a changing thing. This body of water is not a firm fixed thing with a hook to hang on. It's a constantly shifting thing one minute here, the next minute there and the water that makes it up is always flowing and changing. The Thames today is made of the rain that fell over the last few years. How can that be the same river as flowed in Roman times? And a river is nothing but the water so it cannot be the same river as flowed in Roman times. So on one hand yes the Thames has been here for 1000s of years but that is the "thinking" persons Thames we are putting that in the bin. We want to walk down to the Thames and see it as it is today: and it will be a new river! This is Heraclitus and the confusion arises because of these 2 ways of interacting with things. The Name and the Form. We can name something once like Thames and walk away job done. But a painter can never walk away because the Form is always changing and like Monet's Lillies there is always a new painting to be had. When we experience the Form of something it is much easier to see that there is no self. Thus in meditation we watch closely the form of something like the breath and see it always different and new.

But we are not done on this question of self. No phenomena is My Self. This is the path of enlightenment. We unattach gradually from all the things we thought were ourself until nothing is left. Then we have our true self.

But as pointed at in previous posts we have gone beyond being a particular thing by this stage. The True Self is not a single entity, it is not a multiple collective entity. We have take all things and thoughts and realised they are not self.

So yes there is a self. It is what is left when we have detached from all phenomena and things. But really what can we call that? It is nothing. So it is also correct to say there is no-self at all.

The problem with the latter is we can get nihilistic and think well nothing exists and put everything in the bin. Doing this we misunderstand that there is a self. it is just not a phenomena or thing and is unthinkable and unobservable because we are it. It is fabric onto which the world manifests. How can our self manifest?

But then we can easily switch to grasping thus new conception of self and think great I AM , that confirms what I already knew. Which leads us to hanging things on our new hook and building right back all the fixed ideas we already hold. This is also incorrect. We remind ourselves at this point there is no self. Take everything off that hook or peg and burn the peg. Self hangs on nothing. Things hang on the self!