In this article, we’ll explore Buddha’s teaching on no soul. It is a big topic, we’ll divide the teaching of Buddha into a few articles. In the first part, we had explored the way of Inquiry and the Four noble truths and god creator.
“If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete.”
~ Buddha
Table of Contents
The Illusion of Soul: No soul
The Buddha taught that there is no soul, no essential and permanent core to a living being. Instead, that which we call a “living being”, human or other, can be seen to be but a temporary coming together of many activities and parts – when complete it is called a “living being”, but after the parts separate and the activities cease it is not called a “living being”, anymore.
Like an advanced of many parts and activities, only when it is complete and performs coherent tasks is it called a “computer”, but after the parts are disconnected and the activities cease it is no longer called a “computer”.
No essential permanent core can be found which we can truly call “the computer”, just so, no essential permanent core can be found which we can call “the soul”.
Yet Rebirth still occurs without a soul. Consider this simile: on a Buddhist shrine one candle, burnt low is about to expire. A monk takes a new candle and lights it from the old. The old candle dies, the new candle burns bright.
What went across from the old candle to the new?
There was a causal link but nothing went across! In the same way, there was a causal link between your previous life and your present life, but no soul has gone across.
Indeed, the illusion of a soul is said by the Buddha to be the root cause of all human suffering. The illusion of “soul” manifests as the “Ego” The natural unstoppable function of the Egos is to control. Big Egos want to control the world, average Egos try to control their immediate surroundings of home, family, and workplace, and almost all Egos strive to control what they take to be their own body and mind.
Such control manifests as desire and aversion, it results in a lack of both inner peace and outer harmony. It is this Ego that seeks to acquire possessions, manipulate others and exploit the environment. Its aim is its own happiness but it invariably produces suffering. It craves satisfaction but it experiences discontent.
Such deep-rooted suffering cannot come to an end until one sees, through deep and powerful meditation, that the idea of “me and mine” is no more than a mirage.
BUDDHA QUOTES
1. “Radiate boundless love towards the entire world.”
2. “A disciplined mind brings happiness.”
3. “Give, even if you only have a little.”
4. “Conquer anger with non-anger. Conquer badness with goodness. Conquer meanness with generosity. Conquer dishonesty with truth.”
5. “Those who cling to perceptions and views wander the world offending people.”
6. “Drop by drop is the water pot filled. Likewise, the wise man, gathering it little by little, fills himself with good.”
7. “I will not look at another’s bowl intent on finding fault: a training to be observed.”
8. “Let none find fault with others; let none see the omissions and commissions of others. But let one see one’s own acts, done and undone.”
9. “Should a person do good, let him do it again and again. Let him find pleasure therein, for blissful is the accumulation of good.”
10. “May all beings have happy minds.”
11. “Delight in heedfulness! Guard well your thoughts!”
12. “Should you find a wise critic to point out your faults, follow him as you would a guide to hidden treasure.”
13. “Should a seeker not find a companion who is better or equal, let them resolutely pursue a solitary course.”
14. “In whom there is no sympathy for living beings: know him as an outcast.”
15. “Hatred is never appeased by hatred in this world. By non-hatred alone is hatred appeased. This is a law eternal.”
16. “Live with no sense of ‘mine,’ not forming an attachment to experiences.”
17. “Better it is to live one day seeing the rise and fall of things than to live a hundred years without ever seeing the rise and fall of things.”
18. “One is not called noble who harms living beings. By not harming living beings one is called noble.”
19. “If a man going down into a river, swollen and swiftly flowing, is carried away by the current — how can he help others across?”
20. “All conditioned things are impermanent—when one sees this with wisdom, one turns away from suffering.”
21. “Ardently do today what must be done. Who knows? Tomorrow, death comes.”
22. “The world is afflicted by death and decay. But the wise do not grieve, having realized the nature of the world.”
23. “Resolutely train yourself to attain peace.”
24. “To support mother and father, to cherish wife and children, and to be engaged in peaceful occupation — this is the greatest blessing.”
25. “All tremble at violence; all fear death. Putting oneself in the place of another, one should not kill nor cause another to kill.”
26. “They blame those who remain silent, they blame those who speak much, they blame those who speak in moderation. There is none in the world who is not blamed.”
27. “Just as the great ocean has one taste, the taste of salt, so also this teaching and discipline has one taste, the taste of liberation.”
28. “If with a pure mind a person speaks or acts, happiness follows them like a never-departing shadow.”
29. “As an elephant in the battlefield withstands arrows shot from bows all around, even so shall I endure abuse.”
30. “The one in whom no longer exist the craving and thirst that perpetuate becoming; how could you track that Awakened one, trackless, and of limitless range.”
Dalai lama on Buddhism view on soul
His Holiness Dalai lama on Buddhism view on no soul teaching of Buddha.
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