Does Having No "Soul" Mean We Have No Soul?
By Her Spastic Silliness, the Princess Mandarava
Chocolate City Guild President of the Church of Eris (Elected by Voter Fraud)
Originally posted to the Mystic Wicks Pagan forums as a thread starter.
In another thread, there was a discussion about the soul to which I added posts of my view about this. I shocked a couple people who found it a strange idea that someone could view themselves as being without a "soul" or "self." A wise poster was able to elaborate on what I said and even knew where this seemingly strange idea came from: Tibetan Buddhism specifically, and all other types of Buddhism generally. This idea is labeled "anatman" which is Sanskrit for "non-self" or "non-soul." Here is an attempt by me to explain this insightful concept for any of you who may wish to get some footing. I went ahead and asked some teachers and also consulted some Buddhist source materials to fill in any known gaps in my understanding. Even though I don't identify with Buddhism, I must admit that due to its background influence in my life, many of its core insights fuel any insights I have gained from Wicca. Please excuse my indulgence in writing this.
It is said that when asked about the "soul," Shakyamuni (the historical) Buddha explained that he went searching for such a thing and couldn't find it anywhere. What exactly is meant by this? Clearly what is not being said is that we living beings are "soul-less." It doesn't mean we have no real existence or that we are nothing. Nothing is just an idea that we have imagined and exists no where in existence, as far as our experience can conclude. So get rid of that notion right off. "Non-self" is pointing us to look in a direction that many of us would rather not look because we are attached to having some fixed and permanent living essence that is truly and ultimately "me." It is saying that our usual way of perceiving ourselves, as some spirit or true essence that lives on and on, or as some sort of inner person that merely rides or inhabits our body is only an ingrained habit of thought and feeling. We have been tricked by our own ideas about ourselves.
Non-self forces us to look deeper. The traditional way of going about this is to meditate and see for oneself with some questions in mind: Where is the "self" and what is it? Look at your body as a starting point. What about your body is essentially "you"? You see that you have a physiology that goes according to biological processes, the majority of which you have nothing to do with. Your heart, your breathing, your nervous system - none of these can be shut on or off like a switch. You body is born, grows up, gets sick many times, grows older and breaks down, than dies and decays back into its basic elements. We see that this is a process of biology and evolution. We didn't develop our hands or our legs. They are a part of the development of countless ancestors for thousands of generations. Despite the fact that we can condition our body and avoid some habits that lead to some diseases and injuries, the basic biology is pretty much inescapable. What about this is essentially "you" or a "spirit"?
Aha! This is where much of metaphysics and religion comes into play. Our human ancestors were no dummies in this regard. They knew the body was impermanent. No one can argue against this unless they are in psychotic denial. So they developed elaborate ideas about consciousness and the body being animated by some sort of "soul." They came up with ideas to assuage our fears of death. These ideas basically say that we don't really die, just the bodies. Despite the fact that when taken to its extreme this idea is wrong, it has some insight. Perhaps we don't really die. But if so, then what of birth? (Remember, you can't have something come out of nothing.) And what exactly is this part that doesn't die? In both India, and in the West, they solved this riddle by saying that there was this "soul," "spirit," or true self (atman) which continues on, either in an otherworld, or in life after life. But in this solution, our thinking gets muddled. It doesn't quite answer any serious inquiry into exactly what this "soul" is. It just fills in certain gaps. Instead of confronting and exposing the reality, this idea just assumes that our idea is correct. Have "faith" supporters of this idea may say.
Buddhism has no faith of that sort. It basically gets its followers to only use faith for things that can be relied upon to either work, or to point out the nature of existence. So Buddhists keep up the inquiry beyond the body. They would say we must search our consciousness, our perceptions, and our feelings in an attempt to find and unmask this thing we call a "soul" or "self." Why is this so important? Because in order to stand there and tell others that we know the nature of reality and how it works, we should at least know ourselves. So what is this "soul"?
Since it clearly can not be found in the body, where is it? Many people have tried. And due to our nature we must yet again turn back to our body in our search because the body is where we feel all of our perceptions and feelings. When you get angry or excited, you feel it through your body. Feelings are important to us. They can even save our lives if we learn to understand them. So in this complex system of perceptions, senses, and feelings, point to any of them and tell me which of them can be correctly called the "true you." Honestly look. You see a stunning array of emotions and perceptions that are always shifting and never stopping. Even in sleep, you can not shut them off. Where is this "soul" or "self" in all of this? Is it when you are angry? Is it when you are happy? Is it when you get into some heightened magical awareness? (Which Buddhists would recognize but not impute any sort of permanence and independent or "true" essence to.)
Aha! You can say. It is our mind. Our consciousness that animates even our feelings and perceptions. That is the "soul." But is it really? Look at your consciousness. It is so fickle. Sometimes it flickers like a candle flame in the wind. Sometimes it is steady, such as when a ritual is done properly. Sometimes it is filled with thoughts about whatever is upsetting or exciting us. Sometimes it is bored. Sometimes it is minimal and we pass through the time on autopilot. Sometimes we are so aware we want to cry at the poignant beauty of being alive. But can this consciousness really be the "soul"? Most certainly not, especially since we can find ourselves subtly rearranging our thoughts and perceptions within the mind to come up with the ideas about ourselves that we call identity. Even our memories are shown to be subject to changes and influences, that is, when we have memories. Think about what you did exactly one week to the hour before you read this. Can you remember all of it as it was experienced then, or is what you remember simply distorted by how you want to remember it? Be honest here.
So we see that our consciousness is not the "soul." Like our body, our consciousness is also a sort of confluence of elements and ideas that has come together for a time.
Aha! You then say. The "soul" is what animates this consciousness. It is this thing that is investigating itself. But if you have the courage to go further, you will find yourself spinning around like a dog trying to catch its own tail. It seems you have exhausted your experiential knowledge or awareness and can go no further. But if you want to come back to social life and say you know what the "soul" is, then you must continue.
So where is it and what is it? Is it your name? Religion? Your god? Your education? Your nationality? Your love for others? Your habits? Your likes? Dislikes? You can point to all these things and know that whatever "you" are would include these. But reduced to their own, we find that these things are merely conditions and processes themselves that are impermanent and subject to other conditions.
Here the Buddhists say that now we can see for ourselves a few things about this idea we call the "soul" or "self." That it is not really "self." Everything that we can point to that we once thought of as "self" is selfless in the sense that if we take them personally that is only because we either choose to do so, or we habitually do so. And the question of "where" this "soul" is turns out to be useless because "where" is not the sort of question that withstands the insight of experience, if we truly learn from it. A useful analogy used by teachers is that of the candle flame. What is it? A confluence of conditions that come together for a time. When those conditions have run their course, the flame is said to "go out." But where does it go? Of course, we can't take the expression of "going out" literally since we know that the flame goes no place. There is no ultimate realm (sorry you Idealists) where there is an essence of flame that continues on and on not subject to further conditions. The candle flame goes out. The flame simply stops burning. It, as a flame, no longer can be pointed to as such by us. But has anything been destroyed. Does the flame exist one minute and then suddenly get annihilated into oblivion? Not quite. What has happened is that the conditions that came together as a flame have changed into other conditions. The chemicals have changed. Heat and some smoke are released. The wax is melted. The water is vaporized. The fuel is spent, as we say. Although we knew that by being "spent" we know that this "fuel" has merely been changed into other conditions.
Aha! You say. Much of what we have been thinking about a "soul" has turned out to be a confluence of events and conditions which came from other conditions and will shift into other conditions. This is the endless flux of existence. All things are processes in this. We see we have been tricked by language and habitual thought-feeling-perception into assuming there was a core "us" somewhere. But there is no "where" when we experience consciousness. It is obviously through our body, but we shouldn't get caught up in that. I don't wish to offend those non-corporeal beings that don't even have recourse to the illusion of "where" through having a body. So just what the hell is this and what do we call it?
The Buddhist answer is "non-self" or anatman. It is a slap in the face to you if you go around thinking you are essentially a spirit that has an irreducible identity not subject to conditions or impermanence. It is liberating to you if you really can search in this way and find that since there is no essential "you" then you can in fact change even the most ingrained and hardcore habits. Non-self is basically the key to the whole Buddhist project of enlightenment and compassion. It is the beginning of understanding what karma, reincarnation, and freedom which you will hear Buddhists talking about.
That said. I can now admit that I am a beginningless and endless shifting array of energy which for a time is expressed as this person. In social life and language I must obviously consider "me" to be a "self," but outside of the context of these relationships, the terms are meaningless. Whatever if anything gets reincarnated? To be honest to you, I am not quite so sure and if you want the Buddhist idea about this, I suggest you research the Tibetan Buddhist traditions, since they have the strongest ideas about this topic. I would say that the energy changes from life to life. This "me" in the next life will not be like the "me" in this life at all. Even if some memories survive the period between physical lives (it has happened, so many people experienced with actual reincarnation say), the person in the next life would not be "me" at all. There will be a whole set of radically different conditions that that person will be involved with. But just so we don't get too complacent about this, the teachers say we should remember one phrase: "Neither the same nor different." Since these are all expressed through ideas and we shouldn't get caught up in them.
As to karma, you may be wondering since this person in this life will not be the same as the one that gets born in the next life ("Neither the same"), then how is it that things she may have done will influence her later on in the future. Remember energy? ("Nor different.") Since you do things now, you set up conditions to ripen in the future. Karma is simply evolution in action. Or think of it as you would in this one life. What you do in life now sets up a lot of the conditions you experience later. If you save money when you are working, you have a good chance of having some wealth when you retire. If you lie, cheat, and steal, you set yourself up for unhappiness in that people will learn not to trust you or want to get close to you.
That's anatman as far as I can explain it. This is why I don't think about myself as having any essential and fixed thing that I call a "soul." From this view, it is pointless to try to claim that I would be any more "real" with an essential "self" than I would be without one. Now, this doesn't mean I "have no soul" as the common saying goes. We all have this sort of "soul" if we mean "animatedness" and a zest for life. What anatman says is that the self is not what we are in a negative sense. What anatman says in a positive sense is that we are far more than what we think and imagine we are. From my Pagan spiritual perspective this means that there is mystery there, the mystery of being alive, and we shouldn't get caught up confusing our ideas and notions about life with the actual mystery. Life is the mystery and we are also mystery.
I hope that this has cleared it up.
(from an essay, February 2006)
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