Is there an Eternal and Unchanging Soul?

Belief in an eternal soul is a misconception of the human consciousness which is the basic theme of this article.

With regard to the soul theory, there are three kinds of teachers in the world:

- The first teacher teaches the existence of an eternal ego-entity that outlasts death: He is the eternalist.

- The second teacher teaches a temporary ego-entity which becomes annihilated at death: He is the materialist.

- The third teacher teaches neither an eternal nor a temporary ego-entity: He is the Buddha[Enlightened One].

Shakyamuni in India, known as the Buddha, teaches that what we call ego, self, soul, personality, etc., are merely conventional terms that do not refer to any real, independent entity. According to Buddhism there is no reason to believe that there is an eternal soul that comes from heaven or that is created by itself and that will transmigrate or proceed straight away either to heaven or hell after death. Buddhists cannot accept that there is anything either in this world or any other world that is eternal or unchangeable. We only cling to ourselves and hope to find something immortal. We are like children who wish to clasp a rainbow. To children, a rainbow is something vivid and real; but the grown-ups know that it is merely an illusion caused by certain rays of light and drops of water. The light is only a series of waves or undulations that have no more reality than the rainbow itself.

Man has done well without discovering the soul. He shows no signs of fatigue or degeneration for not having encountered any soul. No man has produced anything to promote mankind by postulating a soul and its imaginary working. Searching for a soul in man is like searching for something in a dark empty room. But the poor man will never realize that what he is searching for is not in the room. It is very difficult to make such a person understand the futility of his search.

Those who believe in the existence of a soul are not in a position to explain what and where it is. The Buddha's advice is not to waste our time over this unnecessary speculation and devote our time to strive for our salvation. When we have attained perfection then we will be able to realize whether there is a soul or not. A wandering ascetic named Vacchagotta asked the Buddha whether there was an Atman (self) or not. The story is as follows:

Vacchagotta comes to the Buddha and asks:

'Venerable Gotama, is there an Atman?

The Buddha is silent.

'Then Venerable Gotama, is there no Atman?

Again the Buddha is silent.

Vacchagotta gets up and goes away.

After the ascetic has left, Ananda asks the Buddha why He did not answer Vacchagotta's question. The Buddha explains His position:

'Ananda, when asked by Vacchagotta, the Wanderer: 'Is there a Self?, if I had answered: 'There is a Self'. Then, Ananda, that would be siding with those recluses and brahmanas who hold the eternalist theory (sassata-vada).'

'And Ananda, when asked by the Wanderer: 'Is there no Self?, if I had answered: 'There is no Self', then that would be siding with those recluses and brahmanas who hold the annihilationist theory (uccedavada)'.

'Again, Ananda, when asked by Vacchagotta: 'Is there a Self? If I had answered: 'There is a Self', would that be in accordance with my knowledge that all dhammas are without Self?

'Surely not, Sir.'

'And again, Ananda, when asked by the Wanderer: 'Is there no Self?', if I had answered: 'There is no Self', then that would have created a greater confusion in the already confused Vacchagotta. For he would have thought: Formerly indeed I had an Atman (Self), but now I haven't got one.' (Samyutta Nikaya).

The Buddha regarded soul-speculation as useless and illusory. He once said, 'Only through ignorance and delusion do men indulge in the dream that their souls are separate and self-existing entities. Their heart still clings to Self. They are anxious about heaven and they seek the pleasure of Self in heaven. Thus they cannot see the bliss of righteousness and the immortality of truth.' Selfish ideas appear in man's mind due to his conception of Self and craving for existence.

Anatta: The Teaching of No-Soul

The Buddha countered all soul-theory and soul-speculation with His Anatta doctrine. Anatta is translated under various labels: No-soul, No-self, egolessness, and soullessness.

To understand the Anatta doctrine, one must understand that the eternal soul theory _ 'I have a soul' _ and the material theory _ 'I have no soul' _are both obstacles to self-realization or salvation. They arise from the misconception 'I AM'. Hence, to understand the Anatta doctrine, one must not cling to any opinion or views on soul-theory; rather, one must try to see things objectively as they are and without any mental projections. One must learn to see the so-called 'I' or Sour or Self for what it really is : merely a combination of changing forces. This requires some analytical explanation.

The Buddha taught that what we conceive as something eternal within us, is merely a combination of physical and mental aggregates or forces (pancakkhandha), made up of body or matter (rupakkhandha), sensation (vedanakkhandha), perception (sannakkhandha), mental formations (samkharakkhandha) and consciousness (vinnanakkhandha). These forces are working together in a flux of momentary change; they are never the same for two consecutive moments. They are the component forces of the psycho-physical life. When the Buddha analyzed the psycho-physical life, He found only these five aggregates or forces. He did not find any eternal soul. However, many people still have the misconception that the soul is the consciousness. The Buddha declared in unequivocal terms that consciousness depends on matter, sensation, perception and mental formations and that is cannot exist independently of them.

The Buddha said, 'The body, O monks, is not the Self. Sensation is not the Self. Perception is not the Self. The mental constructions are not the Self. And neither is consciousness the Self. Perceiving this, O monks, the disciple sets no value on the body, or on sensation, or on perception, or on mental constructions, or on consciousness. Setting no value of them, he becomes free of passions and he is liberated. The knowledge of liberation arises there within him. And then he knows that he has done what has to be done, that he has lived the holy life, that he is no longer becoming this or that, that his rebirth is destroyed.' (Anatta-Lakkhana Sutta).

The Anatta doctrine of the Buddha is over 2500 years old. Today the thought current of the modern scientific world is flowing towards the Buddha's Teaching of Anatta or No-Soul. In the eyes of the modern scientists, man is merely a bundle of ever-changing sensations. Modern physicists say that the apparently solid universe is not, in reality, composed of solid substance at all, but actually a flux of energy. The modern physicist sees the whole universe as a process of transformation of various forces of which man is a mere part. The Buddha was the first to realize this.

A prominent author, W.S. Wily, once said, 'The existence of the immortal in man is becoming increasingly discredited under the influence of the dominant schools of modern thought.' The belief in the immortality of the soul is a dogma that is contradicted by the most solid, empirical truth.

The mere belief in an immortal soul, or the conviction that something in us survives death, does not make us immortal unless we know what it is that survives and that we are capable of identifying ourselves with it. Most human beings choose death instead of immortality by identifying themselves with that which is perishable and impermanent by clinging stubbornly to the body or the momentary elements of the present personality, which they mistake for the soul or the essential form of life.

About those researches of modern scientists who are now more inclined to assert that the so-called 'Soul' is no more than a bundle of sensations, emotions, sentiments, all relating to the physical experiences, Prof. James says that the term 'Soul' is a mere figure of speech to which no reality corresponds.

It is the same Anatta doctrine of the Buddha that was introduced in the Mahayana school of Buddhism as Sunyata or voidness. Although this concept was elaborated by a great Mahayana scholar, Nagarjuna, by giving various interpretations, there is no extraordinary concept in Sunyata far different from the Buddha's original doctrine of Anatta.

The belief in soul or Self and the Creator God, is so strongly rooted in the minds of many people that they cannot imagine why the Buddha did not accept these two issues which are indispensable to many religions. In fact some people got a shock or became nervous and tried to show their emotion when they heard that the Buddha rejected these two concepts. That is the main reason why to many unbiased scholars and psychologists Buddhism stands unique when compared to all the other religions. At the same time, some other scholars who appreciate the various other aspects of Buddhism thought that Buddhism would be enriched by deliberately re-interpreting the Buddha word 'Atta' in order to introduce the concept of Soul and Self into Buddhism. The Buddha was aware of this unsatisfactoriness of man and the conceptual upheaval regarding this belief.

All conditioned things are impermanent,
All conditioned things are Dukka -- Suffering,
All conditioned or unconditioned things
are soulless or selfless. (Dhammapada 277, 278, 279)

There is a parable in our Buddhist texts with regard to the belief in an eternal soul. A man, who mistook a moving rope for a snake, became terrified by that fear in his mind. Upon discovery that it was only a piece of rope, his fear subsided and his mind became peaceful. The belief in an eternal soul is equated to the rope of that man's imagination.

Any comments?

Comments?

Please stop copying and pasting from different sites. Especially when the first post is long and unlikely to be read.

In short, what exactly is your argument?

I think Milla would beat them both down like a red headed step child.

Oops, I thought this was the God vs Man thread. 😮

Unecessarily long posts aside, this principle of Buddhism actually fascinates me. Because they believe in reincarnation, but not a soul. Curious, no?

I think the hang-up is that we view soul (or maybe it's just me) in a very Western sense. Soul, perhaps, is the wrong word to use then, but to say we have nothing beyond a material body is to contradict a belief in reincarnation. If there is an ever-changing entity that survives beyond, I think that would make sense in buddhist sense, because the 'ever-changing' aspect of it would seperate it from more Western 'eternalist' philosophies, while still providing something so that the belief in reincarnation is not contradicted.

Maybe I'm not understanding the concept properly, but that's my take on it.

Originally posted by DigiMark007
Unecessarily long posts aside, this principle of Buddhism actually fascinates me. Because they believe in reincarnation, but not a soul. Curious, no?

I think the hang-up is that we view soul (or maybe it's just me) in a very Western sense. Soul, perhaps, is the wrong word to use then, but to say we have nothing beyond a material body is to contradict a belief in reincarnation. If there is an ever-changing entity that survives beyond, I think that would make sense in buddhist sense, because the 'ever-changing' aspect of it would seperate it from more Western 'eternalist' philosophies, while still providing something so that the belief in reincarnation is not contradicted.

Maybe I'm not understanding the concept properly, but that's my take on it.

You have correctly understood and grasped its meaning and compared between the western and eastern concepts specifically with the Buddhist ideas.

Delving deeper to that principle, The Mahayana Buddhist teaching of the "Nine Consciousnesses" offers the basis for a comprehensive understanding of who we are, our true identity. It also helps explain how Buddhism sees the eternal continuity of our lives over cycles of birth and death.

The nine consciousnesses can be thought of as different layers of consciousness which are constantly operating together to create our lives. The Sanskrit word vijnâna, which is translated as consciousness, includes a wide range of activities, including sensation, cognition and conscious thought. The first five of these consciousnesses are the familiar senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch. The sixth consciousness is the function that integrates and processes the various sensory data to form an overall picture or thought, identifying what it is that our five senses are communicating to us. It is primarily with these six functions of life that we perform our daily activities.

Below this level of consciousness is the seventh consciousness. Unlike those layers of consciousness that are directed toward the outer world, the seventh consciousness is directed toward our inner life and is largely independent of sensory input. The seventh consciousness is the basis for our sense of individual identity; attachment to a self distinct to and separate from others has its basis in this consciousness, as does our sense of right and wrong.

Below the seventh consciousness, Buddhism elucidates a deeper layer, the eighth or âlaya consciousness, also known as the never-perishing or storehouse consciousness. It is here that the energy of our karma resides. Whereas the first seven consciousnesses disappear on death, the eighth consciousness persists through the cycles of active life and the latency of death. It can be thought of as the life-flow that supports the activities of the other consciousnesses. The experiences described by those who have undergone clinical death and been revived could be said to be occurrences at the borderline of the seventh and eighth consciousnesses.

An understanding of these levels of consciousness and the interaction between them can offer valuable insights into the nature of life and the self, as well as pointing to the resolution of the fundamental problems that humanity confronts. According to Buddhist teachings, there are specific deep-seated delusions in the seventh consciousness regarding the nature of self. These delusions arise from the relationship between the seventh and eighth levels of consciousness and manifest as fundamental egotism.

Buddhist teachings describe the seventh layer as emerging from the eighth consciousness: it is always focused on the eighth consciousness of the individual, which it perceives as something fixed, unique and isolated from other things. In reality, the eighth consciousness is in a state of continual flux. At this level our lives constantly interact, exerting a profound influence on each other. The perception of a fixed and isolated or unchanging "self" that the seventh consciousness generates is thus false or incorrect.

The seventh consciousness is also the seat of the fear of death. Being unable to perceive the true nature of the eighth consciousness as an enduring flow of life energy, it imagines that upon death, the eighth consciousness will become permanently extinct. Fear of death thus has roots in the deep layers of the subconscious.

The delusion that the eighth consciousness is one’s true self is also termed fundamental ignorance, a turning away from the interconnectedness of all being. It is this sense of one’s self as separate and isolated from others that gives rise to discrimination, to destructive arrogance and unbridled acquisitiveness. Humanity’s ravaging of the natural environment is another obvious result.

Buddhism posits that our thoughts, words and deeds invariably create an imprint in the deep layers of the eighth consciousness. This is what Buddhists refer to as karma. The eighth consciousness is therefore sometimes referred to as the karmic storehouse--the place where these karmic “seeds” are “stored.” These seeds or latent energy can be either positive or negative; the eighth consciousness remains neutral and equally receptive to either type of karmic imprinting. The energy becomes manifest when conditions are ripe. Positive latent causes can become manifest as both positive effects in one’s life and as positive psychological functions such as trust, nonviolence, self-control, compassion and wisdom. Negative latent causes can manifest as various forms of delusion and destructive behavior and give rise to suffering for ourselves and others.

While the image of a storehouse is helpful, a truer image may be that of a raging torrent of karmic energy. This energy is constantly moving through and shaping our lives and experience. Our resultant thoughts and actions are then fed back into this karmic flow. The quality of the karmic flow is what makes each of us distinct beings--our unique selves. The flow of energy is constantly changing, but, like a river, it maintains an identity and consistency even through successive cycles of life and death. It is this aspect of fluidity, this lack of fixity, that opens the possibility to transforming the content of the eighth consciousness. This is why karma, properly understood, is different from an unchanging or unavoidable destiny.

The question, therefore, is how we increase the balance of positive karma. This is the basis for various forms of Buddhist practice that seek to imprint positive causes in our lives. When caught up in a cycle of negative cause and effect, however, it is difficult to avoid making further negative causes, and it is here that we turn to the most fundamental layer of consciousness, the ninth or amala consciousness.

This can be thought of as the life of the cosmos itself; it is also referred to as the fundamentally pure consciousness. Unstained by the workings of karma, this consciousness represents our true, eternal self which that seeks to directly bring forth the energy of this consciousness--the enlightened nature(Buddha wisdom)--thus purifying the other, more superficial layers of consciousness. The great power of the ninth consciousness welling forth changes even entrenched patterns of negative karma in the eighth consciousness. Because the eighth consciousness transcends the boundaries of the individual, merging with the latent energy of one’s family, one’s ethnic group, and also with that of animals and plants, a positive change in this karmic energy becomes a “cogwheel” for change in the lives of others.

As the layers of consciousness are transformed, they each give rise to unique forms of wisdom. The wisdom inherent in the eighth consciousness allows us to perceive ourselves, our experience and other phenomena with perfect clarity and to profoundly appreciate the interconnectedness and interdependence of all things. As the deep-rooted delusions of the seventh consciousness are transformed, an individual is enabled to overcome the fear of death, as well as the aggression and violence that spring from this fear. A wisdom arises which enables us to perceive the fundamental equality of all living beings and to deal with them on an unchanging basis of respect. It is this type of transformation and wisdom that is sorely required in our world today.