Selflessness

Selflessness (bdag med)

• In the Buddhist view, all phenomena are ultimately characteristed as selflessness (Skt. [[(nairātmya), i.e. completely devoid of all self-identity. The conventional notion of self (Skt. ātman) is recognised not to be independently distinct from the psycho-physical aggregates (skandha) that constitute the person, and is therefore intimately linked to the notion of personal identity, on which the Buddhist philosophical systems hold diverse standpoints. Selflessness has two aspects in that it implies the lack of inherent existence both in terms of the individual person's self-identity (Skt. pudgalanairātmya) and in terms of material and mental phenomena (Skt. dharmanairātmya). Adherents of the vehicle of the pious attendants (śrāvakayāna) propound only the former, emphasising that the self is not substantial or self-sufficient. Nowehere among the aggregates of the person, either individually, collectively, or even in their continuity, can one find a substantial or solid being. In addition, the adherents of the vehicle of hermit buddhas (pratyekabuddhayāna) realise that material objects are nothing but a series of indivisible atomic particles, though, unlike the bodhisattvas, they fail to realise that consciousness is nothing but a series of indivisible time moments, for which reason they are said to be realised in only "one and a half parts of selflessness". Bodhisattvas, through the complete realisation of both aspects of selflessness and their equating of all physical and mental phenomena with emptiness (śūnyatā), are considered to surpass the two previous types. For a discussion on the view of selflessness held by pious attandants and hermit buddhas, from the rNying-ma point of view, see bDud-'joms Rin-po-che, NSTB, pp. 156-159, 223-231; and for the bodhisattva understanding, ibid,. pp. 231-237. See also, Jeffrey Hopkins, Meditation on Emptiness, pp. 677-697; and Paul Williams, Mahāyāna Buddhism, Ch.3. GD (from the Glossary to Tibetan Elemental Divination Paintings)