Right Understanding: Self & Waveform Model

Abstract

Two vivid models are used in this chapter to elucidate the Buddha’s vision of ‘not-self’. This vision presents things including persons as not (at a deeper level) having a separate, discrete essence or ‘self’. And that is despite the strong illusion that most human beings share of the universe as a vast container containing many distinct objects including you and me. One model is that of that of rolling waves and the other is the slipping of a slipknot. The question is also addressed, ‘Does the Buddha reject the idea of a soul?’