The philosophy of Buddhism, was created after Buddha's journey of self discovery to understand human suffering. In the philosophy, the concept of self is one of the major talking points. To Buddha, there’s a lot of nuances to the self. By discussing this concept, students can understand the varying nuances and reach nirvana.
To understand the goal of Nirvana, we must first look in depth at the doctrines of the self {Ātman} and non-self {anattā}.
When it comes to the self, Buddhism describes it being made of five major components. It is described as the Five Khandas or Five Aggregates. These five elements detail how we experience the world and how we can join the being to make up the self, creating a uniform concrete identity.
1. Form (the body) {Rupa} - This is matter that is tangible (ie can be touched). This Khanda is linked to our five senses (smell, touch, taste, sight and hearing). [EX: Seeing a physical object, such as a chair.]
2. Sensation (feelings) {Vedana} - These are feelings experienced from using the five senses. They can be physical or emotional.
[EX: Seeing a comfortable chair after a long, tiring day may lead to a sense of happiness.]
3. Perception (the process of recognizing what things are) {Samjna} -This allows people to recognize things in the world because they have seen or experienced those things before.
[EX: Recognizing the chair through experience of using them before.]
4. Mental formations (thoughts) {Samskara} - This is about the different opinions and feelings that people may have.
[EX: Creating an opinion about the chair in relation to other chairs experienced previously.]
5. Consciousness (an awareness of things) {Vijnana} - This is the awareness a person has of the things around them in the world.
[EX: Being aware of things in the world.]
However, Buddha questions that these experiences are not constant, therefore our identity is not constant.It is through the idea, of the fluid being, that extensive research introduces the non-self through the dimensions of diachronic and synchronic
Diachronic means impossibility of anything retaining its identity over time
[EX: If you were to make a comparison between how you are now to how you were 10 years ago. It would be easy to say that you are still the same you, but Buddha argues that you are not identical to your past self. What he would say is that you were experiencing a confusion of identity. ]
Synchronic means how your psychophysical components play a role in the non-self. Taking this definition into account, we can see what Buddha is trying to convey. While we believe we are one unitary thing, we are a connected system of internal processes. There are perceptions, feelings, personality traits, physical parts, such as hands and a heart, but no self. You can take some away and still be you. You can replace some, and still be you. You can add new ones, and still be you. And if you take them all away, one by one, until there is no body and no mind left, there is no you remaining.
[EX: Imagine that you could have a skill of anyone that you know for a day. Notice how you simply want the skill of that person but not their identity. We pull that attribute from who they are.]
Buddhas teaching of the South hopes to show students that there is a clear distinction between a self and a person. The self being a simple, independent, continuing thing which a person identifies as. On the other hand, a person is a constructed, or designated by their own psychological and social processes, and reflect the role that we play for each other as individuals, in a collectively constituted world.
Buddha goes on to explain that the self creates a distorted view of reality with itself at the center of its own universe. Everything else that it knows orbits around it as its objects. This self created universe can lead to a deep-rooted selfishness. On top of that, it can lead to anxiety about preserving the integrity and welfare of the self. Once I take myself to be this special kind of entity, I have a relationship to that entity of identity, and so it seems rational to give it special priority. And so we get this crazy competition of interests between beings whose lives and interests are in fact completely interdependent. All of this leads to greed, anger, fear, conflict, and general unhappiness.
When we experience ourselves as decentered persons, we experience ourselves as part of a larger network of others, whose interests we share, and whose pains and pleasures we share as well. Buddha says we must become detached from our need to fulfill our identity, which will ultimately lead to Nirvana.
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