“Anatta” with Benjamin This Sunday at Minneapolis Insight

Dear Community,

For the next two Sundays, we’ll explore an introduction to the Buddhist teaching of anatta, grounded in Rodney Smith’s Stepping Out of Self-Deception: The Buddha's Liberating Teaching of No-Self (pp. 20-21):

At the core of the Buddhist teaching is the word anatta. The Buddha uses this term to indicate that the sense-of-self is a fabricated and conditioned reality and has no lasting existence outside our invested belief. The sense of “me” is an image defended, protected, and maintained at the expense of facts to the contrary.

Anatta is not an easy concept to understand. How could “I” not be here? I sit here reading, my senses are intact, my brain is working; it seems nonsensical to question my very being. Interestingly enough, the Buddha is not questioning the nature of “being”—he calls it “suchness”—but what has formed around that “suchness.” He is questioning the way we organize perception as “you” here and “me” there, which is the very separation our worldview is founded upon. Buddhism is an attempt to investigate the profound question of whether the sense of separation is a misperception of an underlying, unconditioned reality.

The implications of this questioning are far-reaching, possibly shattering our self-assumptions and ideas we have about life, as well as exposing all our strategies, goals, values, and meaning to a new reference point. Because this inquisition potentially requires a total and radical shift in the paradigm of what life is and who we are within it, it is not for the faint of heart.

Anatta is such a radical shift in our orientation to the world that some Buddhists attempt to downplay or sidestep its importance. We cannot keep Buddhism safe from the call to stretch beyond our preconceived notions of the way reality is configured. Like any Beethoven symphony or Shakespearean play, we must rise to its calling. We cannot have it halfway and philosophically play with the terms while remaining safe within our individuation. Ajahn Buddhadassa, my teacher in Thailand, remarked often that spiritual teaching without anatta completely missed the point.

All are welcome to join this exploration on Sunday! Zoom information available here.

With mettā,
Minneapolis Insight