The True Self in Buddhism

 

Quote:

“Samsara is full of erroneous, deviant, and unjust views. These include taking the impermanent as permanent, the non-self as self, unhappiness as happiness, and impurity as purity. Only the unsurpassed True Dharma can eliminate these views. Because of this, one should take refuge in the True Dharma.” Sūtra on Upāsaka Precepts

Remarks: (Excerpts from Commentary on Cheng Weishi Lun)

Throughout the streams of transmigration, many erroneous, fallacious, and evil views and teachings are constantly circulating in the human world among ordinary people and non-Buddhist practitioners. People inevitably encounter such inverted teachings throughout their transmigration into the human world.

According to the Cheng Weishi Lun, Vol. 1, “As a result of false perfuming [by false notions], something resembling a self appears. The foolish mistake it for the real self.[1]” Sentient beings have consciousness aggregates that differ from life to life, and the incessant phenomenon of “the former disappearing and the succeeding appearing” leading to the perception of the eight or three kinds of suffering, due to the false perfuming [by false notions] of the various dharmas of the five concealments, among others, as the cause. One thus mistakenly clings to the entirety or parts of the five concealments as the real self, and is hence trapped by the notion of “self-view” and becomes attached to the various self-belongings, which correspond to the five concealments. This is why one incessantly transmigrates until the present life.

If one can avoid falling into the notion of five concealments and refrain from misapprehending them as the “true self,” then one will not continue to suffer the pain of transmigration. However, due to the force of false perfuming since beginningless time, ignorant individuals regard the five concealments that constantly arise and cease as the real self, life after life since birth.

In fact, our karmic seeds stored in the tathāgatagarbha contain our countless past wholesome and unwholesome deeds, and only after we pass away will our five-concealment body disappear, and our newly grown five-concealment body will bear the retribution when the cause and conditions mature. Thus, it is the permanent and eternally and undeniably existent tathāgatagarbha that allows the law of cause and effect to exist and that allows righteousness and justice based on our actions to be faithfully executed throughout the stream of transmigration.

It is thus of utmost importance for Buddhist practitioners to have a true mentor who can guide them toward true liberation and help them transcend the cyclic rebirth. By recognizing that the five aggregates/concealments which constitute the self are illusory and lack intrinsic nature, one can then avoid being misled by false teachings and stay on the correct path toward enlightenment.

[1] 「由妄熏習似我相現，愚者於中妄執為我。」成唯識論 卷1