“the Self” According to Indian Philosophy

Stephen Prothero explains how Buddhists observe the fact that we have no souls. They also accept that we have no self because the self is just a figment of our imagination. Prothero further describes how words associated with the self like, “I”, “me”, and “mine”, give rise to ego and as a result, contribute to the world’s suffering. He also explains the essence of Buddhist teachings with Four Noble Truths. These truths are not meant, as Prothero mentions, not to be worshipped but rather practiced and experienced, to see whether or not they actually hold some accuracy.

There are six elements David Brooks argues to be the “New research leading to a new understanding of the self”. Those include mindsight, equipoise, Metis, sympathy, blending, and limerence.

In life, one will undertake a spiritual journey in which you will uncover the meaning of the self. Many religions, including Hinduism, Confucianism and monotheistic religions, have developed philosophies placing importance of the “self.” Emphasis on morality, virtues, honest contribute to the development of the inner self. In religions such as, Islam and Judaism the importance of conducts and worship will lead you to paradise in the after as promised by Allah or Yahweh. The teachings of proper behavior, edict, ethics and conduct are also part of the teachings of Confucius, an ancient Chinese philosopher. Redeveloping the self, according to the founders of Buddhism and Christianity, will lead to your spiritual enlightenment and Salvation.

In The Heart of Understanding, Thich Nhat Hanh’s uses simple but powerful words and real world examples to illustrate the profound Buddhist philosophy from the Prajnaparamita Heart Sutra, an important representative of Mahayana Buddhist literature. The Mahayana school of Buddhist teachings emphasizes the doctrine of Sunyata- emptiness. The doctrine of emptiness, one of the most important Mahayana innovations, focuses on the relational aspect of existence. Thich Nhat Hanh coins and introduces a new word- interbeing to explain the state of emptiness. This idea of interbeing not only illustrates emptiness well but also provides understanding of other fundamental Buddhist ideas such as No-Self, impermanence and non-duality.

In the novel, Person Vs. Illness is the main conflict which is not resolved throughout the story. Hazel Grace, the main character, suffers from cancer and it determines the way she lives her life. The ِanother conflict that is Dissident from Person Vs. Illness is Person Vs. Self. Hazel Grace decides to keep people away from her because of her illness. She compares herself to a grenade because she believes that she can harm her beloved ones when she dies because of cancer. This conflict is solved throughout the story when she falls in love with a guy she meets at Support Group, Augustus Waters. She becomes unable to control her feelings towards him, and soon she becomes his girlfriend. Getting in love with Augustus later brings another conflict,

Becoming an individual’s true self is a form of that person becoming a better person. By becoming in touch with who an individual truly wants to be, he or she can live the life that he or she wants to live. The person can also begin to understand what he or she values and what he or she wants in life. The practices of blindness demonstrated that “It was possible to move forward only if you had the courage to let go of the present” (Armstrong 13). Blind individuals had to have the courage to let go of the present in identifying how their life would become different since they would no longer have the ability to physically see. Buddhists define Nirvana as a “a still center that gave meaning to life” (Armstrong 16) The practices of blindness allowed for blind individuals to give a meaning to their life through their mind. In the practices of blindness, blind individuals “opened ourselves [themselves] to it wholeheartedly and allow [allowed] it to change us [them]” (Armstrong 6). The blind individuals had to change and as mentioned earlier they had to adapt. Jacques Lusseyren became blind in an accident at a very young age. “I stopped caring whether people were dark or fair, with blue eyes or green” (Sacks 334) Lusseyren realized that he didn’t care about the many artificial things in life that most people care about. His practices as a blind individual opened his eyes on what he valued through his visualization skills. Lusseyren was able to “identify himself as belonging to a special category, the “visual blind” (Sacks 334). In society, finding an individual’s true self is a very difficult undertaking. Through the stresses of society people lose touch in what they want. They begin to desire what social standards want them to

Whether physically or mentally, a single element of a human being cannot stand on its own. When interviewed on the topic, Mitchiko Ishigami-Iagolnitzer states that the Buddhist analysis of the self “…consists in dissecting a thing into its components, then in showing its lack of identity with each component and in concluding its nominal and unreal existence" (3). What the text, as well as Ishigami-Iagolnitzer, are attempting to explain is that the “self” as we know it is simply an idea used to label a temporary collection of parts that work as one entity.

The life of Siddhartha Gautama has captivated millions of people around the world. Millions of humans practice and try to live a life free of possessions and free of distractions from the materialistic plane of existence we call society. In essence, a popular belief about life becomes mainstream and therefore a new religion is created. I would argue that Buddhism is merely a way of approaching life from an uncharacteristic perspective. Therefore, I am suggesting that the Buddha created a philosophy and deserves a place among the great fathers of human thought such as Aristotle, Plato, and many others. Where Buddhism differentiates from the three major religions of the world, is the amazing techniques that Buddhists pursue every day to optimize their inner thinking within. The philosophies of Buddhism and new research in the scientific community surrounding techniques done by its followers, has created a growing interest in the way of life, especially in western culture. Going along, we will explore what makes this so.

In Buddha’s main teachings there is three marks of dharma. Nothing in our world stays the same; we are always changing, growing, and aging. Every second, something is changing inside of our bodies and in our mind. Technology is always improving and becoming better. The weather changes every time there is a new season. Nothing is permanent, and that is the teaching of anitya, or impermanence. The teaching of anatman, or no self, deals with the impermanence of humans. The last teaching is duhkha, or suffering. This is the main problem that Buddha saw in the world. This suffering is caused from things we want, but cannot have, or keep in our possession. Another part of the Buddha’s teachings is the

Anatman is the idea of “no permanent soul” 3. A common misconception is that Anatman means people have no soul. In reality it describes the constant change of the soul during its time on earth. Buddhism holds that while there is no soul, the five elements that make up an individual orient themselves to form a new individual. With each cycle of rebirth, these aggregates, which include mind, consciousness, body, impulse, and feeling, will combine differently to form distinct individuals 4. While Buddhists believe in karma, a summation of positive and negative actions, they

The journey “home” that Buddhists refer to as the privilege of enlightenment, the ultimate truth, is called the paramattha. The Paramattha is not the same journey as other faiths profess, because other faiths, like the science known as psychology, emphasize outside influence, in one way or another, in the ancient long search for understanding. Understanding life, afterlife, existence, thought, personality, behavior, and the unknown. These latter truth-seekers have overlapping roads of distinction on their charted course that is not an essential part of the

It makes us through the realization that if we aren’t able to recognize the self; we are living in

Perhaps the most important part of the philosophy of a religion lay in its path to enlightenment. The main ideas of enlightenment come through the Four Ends of Life. The first of these ends is Moksa. Moksa could be considered the realization of separation between the spiritual self and the physical self. It is only through this realization that one can be released from the mortal coil and allowed to spiritual liberty. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan says it is "To inquire into his true self, to live in and from it, to determine by its own energy what it shall be inwardly and what it shall make of the outward circumstances, to (find) the whole life on the power and truth of the spirit…" It is through Moska that the Hindu follower becomes familiar with the existence of the spiritual world. The second of the Four Ends of life is Kama. This end says that we must pass through life in an ethical manner that brings about the most from life. This includes learning its great values as well as experiencing its enjoyments. This protects the Hindu follower from

The Upanishads, the final Vedic scripture, changed that to reflect the search of atman to be reunited with the universal soul through enlightenment. [ 3 ]

The modern view of self is articulated in the works of 17th century philosopher Rene Descartes. He pioneered the dualistic understanding of the human being, which is made up of the "mental substance (mind) and the physical substance (body)" (Warburton, N., 1992). Here, the body has physical properties like having weight and using space, whereas the mind is a non-material substance, responsible for thought and experience and hence is the abode of consciousness. In his view, the self is a spiritual "subject of experience" which is fundamentally different from the body and nature, where the body inessential and the mind can exist independently. His radical scepticism led to the formation of the "Illusion argument", where the bodily senses are deemed unreliable and thus the existence of the external world and body is uncertain. The only thing one can be