Imprisoned by our own language

Buddha’s teaching of Anatta is deep and not understood by most people, including Buddhists. But it can be illustrated quite easily. Let’s look at an automobile. Do the wheels belong to the car? Do the seats belong to the car? Does the engine belong to the car? Most people would answer “Yes” to all these questions. Yet, the “car” is an abstraction and a mental/social construct. If we take away certain parts of the car, would it still be a car? How much do we have to take away before the car ceases to be a car? And what if we add parts to it? There is no clear answer. This is because the notion of a “car” is a product of our imagination. A similar analogy is used in the ancient Buddhist text, the Milinda Pañha (i.e. ‘Questions of Milinda’) which dates back somewhere between 100 BC and 200 AD. It purports to be a dialogue between the Indian Buddhist sage Nagasena and the Indo-Greek king Menander I. The image of a chariot is used in that text. The reasoning is the same.

It is the same with the self. We say that this is my body, my heart, my brain, my memories, my idea, my values, etc. Even if someone has Alzheimer’s disease and can’t recognize his own family members, we still believe that the person still exists. The identity also remains if the person changes his religion, ideology, or some of his body parts. The “person” is a social construct and mental fabrication. In his book, Sapiens: A…