Annatta, the idea that there is no self, is a different way of thinking about yourself. The way you see yourself now is wrong. You have ideas about what you are that include all kinds of things that aren’t you and exclude lots of other things that are you. We strongly identify our bodies with ourselves, but our bodies are constantly changing. We are not the same body that we were when we were babies. Our body changes into something different at every meal. We become different with every breath.
We also identify strongly with our minds. Our minds change as drastically and constantly as our bodies. We don’t have the same minds that we had when we were babies. Our minds change with our environments, we have different minds at home and at school. Our minds change to interact with the different people in our lives.
We identify strongly with things we have, like clothes, money, where we live. All these constantly changing circumstances mold and change us, but what we experience as us, as self, seems steady and unchanging, separate from everything else.
What we think of as us is such a strong habit, it seems so obvious, that the idea that we may not be what we think we are is absurd. We unconsciously grab on to everything that happens and use it like chalk dust exposing a laser beam to confirm that we are what we think we are.
The Buddha found liberation when he experienced the sensation of what is beyond the self and became enlightened. Prior to that, he studied the concept of self and no self, by exploring the five components of self (skandhas): body, feelings, perception, ideas, and awareness. By reflecting deeply on each of those, he recognized that there was no unchanging, fixed self inherent in them.
The ideas that you have about yourself become part of who you are and contribute to your experience of suffering. Understanding that the self is some mental construct and possibly not real, lets you look into the question of what you are. If you look deep enough, you find liberation or liberation finds itself again.
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