Also,
For you, when yogis understand the lack of self,
All things would then lose their existence certainly.
If the aggregates or the mind were the self, when the yogi ponders the truth and understands the truth of suffering in terms of non-self – that ‘all phenomena are selfless’ – then it would be seeing the lack of aggregates that would be seeing the lack of self, which is not what you assert. The aggregates cannot therefore be the self.
One might contend, ‘When the term self is used in the context of the relationship between the act and its result, it can only be referring to the aggregates as there is nothing else that can be the self. But when seeing the lack of self, it is the soul (puruṣa), the inner experiencer (antaḥkaraṇa) imagined by non-buddhists, that is being referred to. Thus, when seeing selflessness one is just seeing the idea of a lack of this inner soul, and it does not follow that one is seeing the lack of all things.’
To reply:
If it is an eternal self that is dismissed,
Then neither mind nor aggregates can be the self. (6.130)
If you worry that the consequence will be that there are then no existent things, and so seize on the idea that the term self refers to a permanent self, no longer thinking that it is the aggregates or the mind that are the self, then you have deserted your own position.
One might then think, ‘I do not agree that that is what it is referring in that context, and therefore I am not at fault.’
Well, this too will not suffice. How can you just be adopting whatever unreasonable position that you like, saying that in that particular case it is the inner soul that is the self, and otherwise it is the aggregates? If you say it is because it just can’t be, it has also already been shown that it is impossible that it can be referring to the aggregates. Hence, if you do not accept that in the context of the thought, ‘all phenomena are selfless,’ the term self refers to the aggregates, you cannot claim that it does so elsewhere. If you claim that it does refer to the aggregates elsewhere, then you will have to say it does in this context too.
Title
Chapter 1: Pramuditā
