Professor Lin Chong'an: No-Self and Emptiness, Lecture Three — Refuting the Substantially Existent Self

No-Self and Emptiness, Lecture Three

Refuting the Substantially Existent Self

Lin Chong'an (2007)

[Explaining the Substantially Existent Self]

Substantial existence means having a substantial material.

A person is self-established and substantially existent = the self-established, substantially existent self = the pudgala is self-established and substantially existent.

(1) From childhood on, people carry a vague sense of a self-sufficient "I." Even as the body changes and our views shift, we still feel that this self remains unchanging. In one way, it is not the body-and-mind themselves; in another, it does not exist on its own apart from body and mind. This self is sometimes called "neither identical with the aggregates nor separate from them," and also "the inexpressible self." This self-sufficient "self" is itself something substantially existent, commonly called "the self-established, substantially existent self."

The Vātsīputrīyas (Pudgalavādins) hold that every sentient being has this "self-established, substantially existent self," but all other Buddhist schools deny its existence.

(2) Just as the material of a vase or pillar consists of "atoms" or the four great elements—earth, water, fire, and air—the Vātsīputrīyas regard these independent "atoms" or elements of earth, water, fire, and air as things that substantially exist.

[The Madhyamakāvatāra on the Substantially Existent Self]

The "substantially existent self" as maintained by the Vātsīputrīyas:

(1) The self and the aggregates are not different in nature, because apart from the aggregates there is no self; nor is the self the defining nature of the aggregates, for if it were, the self would arise and pass away. So regarding the "self" and the "five aggregates," one cannot say they are either one in nature or different in nature.

(2) By the same logic, the self cannot be said to be either "permanent" or "impermanent."

(3) The self substantially exists because it is the agent of good and evil karma, the one who experiences the fruits of suffering and happiness, the one bound in saṃsāra, and the one who attains liberation in nirvāṇa.

(4) This self is the "object of knowledge" for the six consciousnesses.

(5) This self is the object of self-clinging.

Investigation: If the self and the aggregates were one, then if I were to transplant an organ to another person, another self would appear in that person's body, and I would become two persons. If the self and the aggregates were one, then when I turn from wrongdoing to virtue, or from an ordinary being to a saint, with the state of mind entirely different before and after, I should also become two persons—yet in ordinary experience people still regard the earlier and later person as one and the same. So the self and the aggregates should not be one; at the same time, apart from the aggregates there is no self. Some Vātsīputrīya masters therefore propose that the self is the "inexpressible self" that is "neither identical with the aggregates nor separate from them." They hold that this self substantially exists because it is the agent of evil and good karma, the one who experiences the fruits of suffering and happiness, the one who cycles through saṃsāra, and the one liberated in nirvāṇa.

[Refuting the Substantially Existent Self in the Madhyamakāvatāra]

(1) That the self is substantially existent is untenable. We cannot agree that "mind" and "form" are inexpressible as one or different in nature; if the self were substantially existent, we would have to say the same of "mind" and "form"—that they are inexpressible as one or different in nature.

(2) Therefore, the "inexpressible" cannot be substantially existent.

(3) Therefore, the self and the aggregates are a "nominal existence" that is neither one in nature nor different in nature.

Nominal existence = existence by designation = imputational existence = conceptual designation.

(4) Therefore, I am not substantially existent; I am nominally existent.

[Practice]

Through walking meditation (kinhin) and the like, cultivate śamatha (calm abiding).

Through hearing the teachings and contemplation, cultivate the right view of no-self; then, through insight meditation, refute the self that is apart from the aggregates, the self that is identical with the aggregates, and the substantially existent self.