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Have the lectures so far helped make the concept of the self clearer to you? I certainly hope they haven’t contributed to even greater confusion on the matter!

Before considering the question of the self from different angles, it was necessary to deal with the way the mind functions, with consciousness and its different aspects. What we’ve gone through here is normally covered in a much longer and more gradual course of study. We’ve taken a cross-section and, you could say, done it in fast-forward.

And now, let’s complicate things a bit more, or perhaps simplify them further. Let’s return once more to the self and the skandhas.

The Five Skandhas: What Are We Made Of?

The skandhas are:

1. Rupa skandha (the body)

2. Vedana skandha (feelings/sensations)

3. Samjna skandha (perception or recognition)

4. Samskara skandha (mental formations, volitions, or habitual tendencies)

5. Vijnana skandha (consciousness)

This is the classic Buddhist division that describes the structure of a human being. When Buddhism talks about a person, it talks about these five aggregates: body, feelings, perception, mental formations, and consciousness.

We don’t divide ourselves into these component parts when we introduce ourselves to someone, or even when we think about ourselves, and especially not in our direct experience. Our experience is more or less whole. However, the integrated sense of self rests precisely on these components. So, “I am this body; I am the feelings I experience; I am my perception; I am the volitions that arise in me; I am the consciousness I have.” There is a complete identification with these aspects of our being; this identification is what we call the self, the ego. It gives us a sense of separate existence—”me” versus the world that surrounds me, a world that is different from me, that is not me.

Last time, we talked about how the entire spectrum of experience that constitutes us is based on these five aspects of our being. The entire spectrum of our experience is of a conditioned nature. We discussed how it is conditioned, how one thing conditions another, which conditions a third, and so on. In talking about the conditioned nature of our experience, we were actually talking about how the idea of an independent, separate existence is unfounded.

The Illusion of a Solid “I”

First, what we consider to be one thing is not one, but five things—five skandhas. Furthermore, not one of those five things is a single, unified entity either; each is a heap or an aggregate, and they all exist in a mutually conditioning way. They arise based on a whole series of causes and conditions that are constantly changing.

In other words, even within these five heaps, there is nothing constant and unchanging, nothing you could point to and say, “Here, this is me, this is some constant that does not change.” You can’t find such a thing at the level of feelings, perception, volitions, or consciousness. This is the core of the Buddhist teaching on the absence of self, a teaching that tells us, completely contrary to what we believe and think: The body is not me, feelings are not me, perception is not me, volitions are not me, consciousness is not me.

Buddhism denies the existence of any permanent, eternal entity that is contained within our experience or that is the bearer of experience. This spectrum, as we’ve described it, covers the entire range of experience, and within it, we cannot find anything that corresponds to the definition of a self or ego. You must know that a self or ego, by definition, is something eternal, something that lasts, something that is always the same. So, if we cannot find such a thing, then it doesn’t exist.

The Formula for Letting Go

There is a formula often used in Buddhism. It can be used in meditation practice, but it can also be applied to any experience that arises in us. It goes:

“I am not this, this is not me; I do not possess this, this does not possess me.”

Applying this to the body would sound like this: “I am not this body, this body is not me; I do not possess this body, this body does not possess me.” The body arises from the combining of the four elements—earth, water, fire, and air. It doesn’t exist independently; several things must come together to form what we call a body. There is nothing permanent in it; it constantly changes, yet we identify with it all the time.

The same is true for our feelings, perception, and volitions. Feelings change even faster than the body. Pleasant, unpleasant, neutral—whatever we feel, we think that is us, that we are the ones feeling, and we identify with them. But if you examine feelings a little more deeply, you’ll see they are also of conditioned origin, constantly changing from one moment to the next. Therefore, believing we are our feelings isn’t particularly reasonable.

What about our thoughts? Anyone who meditates knows the answer immediately. When you sit down to meditate, you’ve started to calm the mind, to place it on one object and allow it to rest. Can you say to yourself, “For the next half hour, I will only think about one thing,” or, “Now I will not think about anything, I will endure for half an hour”? You can’t, of course. And yet, the one who thinks it is thinking is convinced it is the master of all experiences, including the mind.

The Purpose of This Analysis: Breaking Free

I have to stop here, or we’ll fall into a deep depression! So – you are not what you think you are, and you are not in control. You are completely at the mercy of all the influences that pile up around us.

However, the point of this analysis is not to induce discouragement and depression. Its function is to liberate us from attachment and clinging. And why? Because all the miseries in our daily lives ade caused by attachment. Attachment and clinging are caused by the idea of a self, which is caused by the ignorance about the self.

This is also a conditioned chain: if one exists, the other exists. We’re dealing with a formula the Buddha used to describe the nature of all reality, a very short formula that says:

“When this exists, that exists;

with the arising of this, that arises.

When this does not exist, that does not exist;

with the cessation of this, that ceases.”

This formula describes the nature of all reality, both our inner world and the universe as a whole. It sounds incredible, but to the extent that reality can be described in words at all, it is described by these words.

What does the formula say? It says that all things in the universe arise or cease depending on causes and conditions that are themselves in a process of constant arising and ceasing. This insight shows the complete illusoriness of the idea of separate existence. In other words, everything that exists does so based on connectedness, interdependence.

From Ignorance to Wisdom and Compassion

The self, the “I,” or ego as a separate entity does not exist. We are deeply connected, embedded with each other and with the world around us.

This view frees us from attachment because if there is no self, there is no attachment, and if there is no attachment, there is no suffering. Therefore, if there is no self, there is no attachment and no suffering.

But what preceded the self? It’s ignorance. The insight that sees things as they truly are dismantles the belief in a self. In the place of ignorance, wisdom arises, and its corresponding effects.

If everything exists in an interdependent way, then seeing with the eye of wisdom brings corresponding emotional response. Just as an egocentric view causes anger, rage, envy, malice, hatred – so freedom from egocentricity, or wisdom, causes loving-kindness, joy, compassion, and equanimity.

It’s important to understand that in Buddhism, the non-existence of the self is not nihilism. It is not a state of nothingness, a state in which we simply vanish. It is a state in which something ceases—namely, ignorance, attachment, aversion, and negative emotions. When the roots of negative emotions disappear, then they themselves disappear. What arises is compassion and all other positive emotions.

The Chan Approach: A Direct Path to the Heart of the Matter

But let’s return to our question. Who am I? That’s the title of this whole series. We said that in the last lecture we would talk about the Chan approach to this question.

In the question Who am I? there is an incredible directness. It strikes at the very essence, the very core. However, it seems to me there is also a certain urgency in it, a need for an urgent answer. When someone asks you, “Who are you?”, it’s as if you have nowhere to escape. You know in advance that if you start with trivial descriptions, that’s not the real answer. In an attempt to give a real answer, you sink somewhere into your own depth, frantically searching—and finding nothing. It often leaves you stunned.

The entire Chan tradition is founded on the atmosphere of this question. An atmosphere of urgency and directness. The Chan school is a school of meditation, and its basic definition is “directly looking into the mind” to recognize its nature. To give an answer to the question means to abandon everything superficial and to turn to what is here and now. To return to complete simplicity, purity, the very core of our being, and to directly seek the way.

Two Core Chan Methods: The Koan and Silent Illumination

Speaking of Chan, we usually talk about specific meditation methods. Chan uses a whole series of methods, but two are the most important. One is called gong’an (in Japanese, koan), and the other is called mozhao (“silent illumination” or, in Japanese, shikantaza).

1. Gong’an or Koan: This method most resembles the question “Who am I?” mentioned earlier. A gong’an is literally a “public case,” usually a situation from the life of a teacher and student where an interaction between them results in the student’s awakening. You can take the whole situation as a meditation method. More often, just a fragment is used—usually a question or an answer that is turned into a question. For example, a student asked the great Chan master Zhaozhou, “Does a dog have Buddha-nature?” Zhaozhou replied, “Wu” (which means “no,” “nothing,” “emptiness”). And now, what did he mean when he said “Wu”? That is the question and the method.

   The practice is done by, to begin with, simply repeating the question: “What is Wu?” Over time, you stop just repeating the words and start truly asking. You develop a “questioning mind.” It’s like when you’re looking for your keys in the house and you don’t know where you left them. You wait for the answer to happen, and it will only happen if the mind is in a state of questioning. This can lead to a “great doubt,” a state where the mind is completely consolidated around the question. Entering this state of unified mind, it’s possible for the questioning mind to shatter, leading the practitioner to a state where there is no self.

2. Mozhao or Silent Illumination: This method is almost the complete opposite. Here, you want to reach the core of your being through the cessation of doing, through letting go of everything the mind does. And what does the mind do? It constantly discriminates. By stopping attachment and discrimination and returning the mind to its natural, original state, we return to the nature of reality itself.

   Silent Illumination is often called the “method of no-method” because in it, we don’t need to do anything. Why is it called silent illumination? Because it’s based on two aspects of Buddhist meditation: one is the calming of the mind (silence), and the other is insight (illumination). Ultimately, it’s not a method we follow, but a return to what our mind naturally is—it is silent, it illuminates, and it is awareness itself.

Living Chan: Bringing It All Into Your Life

Chan is much more than sitting in meditation. Chan extends to all our activities; all our activities can be Chan if we know how to apply Chan methods.

One of the basic characteristics of Chan is its directness. In what sense? All of us, as human beings, have a series of various problems, fears, frustrations, and imbalances that manifest in thousands of different ways. But Chan is not a method that deals with individual problems. Chan focuses on what is the cause of all those problems and all those various disorders, because if we eliminate their cause, we eliminate them all.

The cause of all problems is self-centeredness. It might be a fear of heights, any phobia, or another internal conflict—whatever it is, at its base is self-centeredness. Chan is a path on which we let go of self-centeredness and selfishness and begin to live a different life, one based in reality.

To live in reality means that our life is based on the insight of the interconnectedness of all things and all beings. This isn’t easy or simple. It doesn’t just mean sitting in meditation. To be aware of what is happening within us means to be aware of what is happening around us. It means to be ecologically aware. Ecology is a new science that arose precisely from the idea of interconnectedness.

Concluding with the Question

It would be good not to end this series with an answer, but with a question. The whole guiding idea of the series was to pose a question, to set out together on an exploration, and to see how far we can reach intellectually by investigating the question Who am I?

We have analyzed the body, feelings, perception, and volitions. We’ve talked about consciousness, why we see things the way we do, why each of us lives in our own world, and all together in a conventional reality that is not the true reality.

It seems to me that it’s now quite clear that we can talk and theorize endlessly, but only genuine, personal experience—gained by working with one of the meditation methods we’ve mentioned—has the power to fundamentally change the quality of our living. It’s perhaps not right to say that everything we’ve talked about is of no use in itself, that it’s not a positive stimulus—because it certainly is. However, exclusively intellectual stimuli, when faced with the weight of life and the life situations we find ourselves in, don’t last long.

That is precisely why practice and personal experience are so important. The practice that confirms the theory we have been discussing here. So, what we have talked about here, you can investigate in a different, non-intellectual way—by directly observing your own mind: by sitting in meditation, by observing yourself, and by observing other people.

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Final lecture of the four-part series “Who Am I?” by teacher Žarko Andričević, held at the Buddhist Center in Zagreb in 2007.