The Palpable fear of the Soul by Modern Buddhism

The Palpable fear of the Soul by Modern Buddhism

Or, How the Entirety of Buddhism
falls upon the sword of anatta's definition
Copyright
2007 webmaster attan.com

The 'renowned' Theravada materialist Nyanatiloka has said: "Thus
with this doctrine of Selflessness, or anatta, stands or falls the
ENTIRE structure of Buddhism".

Rightly so, all of Theravada fears and protects the meaning and
'interpretation' of anatta like a pack of rabid dogs protect their
fresh kill. They fear and protect the meaning of anatta more so than
Christians protect their position that Mary was a virgin and that
Jesus 'arose from the dead'. More than Nyanatiloka have stated the
obvious, ALL of Theravada would fall, upon the exposure of the
genuine meaning become accepted and widely known as regards anatta,
not however would "fall Buddhism", but Theravada and others
misconceptions of same, nothing more. Theravada, a great portion of
Vajrayana, and much of Zen fear the soul like a pious monk fears the
devil to sneak up upon him, in any event they have heaped upon the
definition more sophistry and ages of sectarian fecal matter to make
Buddhism appear to be nothing more than the most base form of
materialism, that only a very rare few independent scholars who delve
deep into the presectarian Nikayan Pali texts can see that Buddhism
has not, nor ever denied the atman, and that anatta no more denies
the atman, nor is a 'doctrine' (i.e. doctrine of anatta, as so often
coined by the Theras), that the Upanishads themselves in so saying the
"atman is not this, nor that (neti net)".
The more superficially one studies Buddhism, the more it seems
to differ from the Brahmanism in which it originated; the more
profound our study, the more difficult it becomes to distinguish
Buddhism
from Brahmanism, or to say in what respects, if any, Buddhism is
really unorthodox. The outstanding distinction lies in the fact that
Buddhist doctrine is propounded by an apparently historical founder,
understood to have lived and taught in the sixth century B.C. Beyond
this there are only broad distinctions of emphasis. It is taken almost
for granted that one must have abandoned the world if the Way is to
be followed and the doctrine understood.
We can only suppose that Buddhism has been so much admired
mainly for what it is not. A well known modern writer on the subject
has remarked that "Buddhism in its purity ignored the existence of a
God; it denied the existence of a soul; it was not so much a religion
as a code of ethics"( Winifred Stephens, Legends of Indian Buddhism,
1911, p. 7.). Similarly M.V Bhattacharya maintains that the
Buddha taught that "there is no Self, or Atman" (Cultural Heritage of
India, p. 259). Even in 1925 a Buddhist scholar could write "The
soul . . . is described in the Upanishads as a small creature in shape
like a man . . . Buddhism repudiated all such theories" (PTS
Dictionary, s.v. attan). It would be as reasonable to say that
Christianity is materialistic because it speaks of an "inner man". Few
scholars
would write in this manner today, but ridiculous as such statements
may appear, (and it is as much an ignorance of Christian doctrine as
it is of Brahmanism that is involved), they still survive in all
popular
accounts of "Buddhism"; such as (. Th. Scherbatsky Buddhist Logic 1.
1932, p. 2) saying Buddhism "denied a God, it denied the Soul, it
denied Eternity"! Scherbatsky's The Doctrine of the Buddha
(BSOS, V1. 867L) provides a good critique of Keith's demand to "lay
aside our natural desire to find reason prevailing in a barbarous
age", in his 'Buddhist philosophy, p. 29'.
It is of course, true that the Buddha denied the existence of a
"soul" or "self "in the narrow sense of the word (one might say, in
accordance with the command, deneget seipsum (deny himself ), (Mark,
VIII.341) but this is not what our writers mean to say, or are
understood by their readers to say; what three mean to say is that the
Buddha denied the immortal, unborn and Supreme Self of the
Upanishads. And that is palpably false. For he frequently speaks of
this Self or Spirit, and nowhere more clearly than in the repeated
formula 'na me so atta', "That is not my Self ", excluding body and
the
components of empirical consciousness, a statement to which the words
of Sankaracharya are peculiarly apposite, "Whenever we deny something
unreal, it is with reference to something real" (neti-neti
Brahma Sutra III.2.22); as remarked by Mrs. Rhys Davids, "so, 'this
one', is used in the Suttas for utmost emphasis in questions of
personal identity" (Minor Anthologies, I, p. 7, note 2). 'Na me so
atta' is no more a denial of the Self than Socrates' "the body is
not the man" , is a denial of the Man"!
One of the 'great' books thumped by the ignorant manyfolk
calling themselves Buddhists today and of which deny the atman, is
"Selfless Persons" by Steven Collins, in which he himself in his book
never
makes the conclusion for the denial of the Atman in Buddhist
doctrine, in so saying himself, albeit unintelligently, "Buddhist
metaphysics could be reduced to a kind of pragmatic agnosticism in
which the self
is not so much denied as declared inconceivable. Anatta then simply
advises against uselessly trying to conceive it (the Self)." [Page 10,
Selfless Persons, Steven Collins]. More laughable than can be
imagined, the entire book, large though it is, only contains three
pages under the heading of "proof for anatta" (i.e. Souls denial), and
yet these same three pages contain absolutely no doctrinal evidences
whatsoever.
The Theras and others fear the inevitable slippery slope
Buddhism (theirs) will fall into upon acceptance of the genuine
meaning of anatta, whereupon "if anatta doesn't deny the atman, than
how is
Buddhism any different than Vedanta, by and large?" The answer is of
course none whatsoever. They protect anatta like their very own baby
in the cradle, they will surrender its meaning and definition with
their life, like no other word in pali they propagate a lie which is
now running on 1700 years old. The only reason they have been unable
to crush opposition, is that the Nikayas were recorded and
propagated long long before Sarvastivada (Theravada) came into
existence to exterminate it.

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