One of the most central, disturbing, and unique features of Buddhist thought and practice is the concept of no-self. In what is now known as the Anatta Lakkhana Sutta in Pali, or “The Discourse on the Not-Self Characteristic,” the Buddha taught that all the things we normally think of as ourselves—our bodies, feelings, perceptions, impulses, and consciousness in general—are in fact not. This does not mean that the Buddha denied that we exist as selves, but that our sense of self, as tangible as it may seem, is like a cloud or flash of lightning, ephemeral and ungraspable, an effect of innumerable past causes and present conditions. Therefore, our sense that our selves are substantially discrete, permanent, and graspable is a delusion—perhaps the most fundamental delusion of all—and this delusion, the Buddha taught, is the root cause of suffering.
In his fascinating and deeply researched study, John D. Barbour asks...
