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So WTF is the point in attaining liberation then for them? Nobody really seems to answer this question properly online. They state that a collection of loose impressions skips from life to life and that causes suffering (Skandhas). They deny the Atman concept of the Hindus and the texts have been verified to being heavily edited over the ages. This is the single most obvious gaffe in the whole gig. That and most of the associated with this movement are obviously faking it as you can tell their level in a conversation.
Sri Aurobindo said this unusual trenchancy of their views was why Buddhism lost it's native soil (India). But Mahayana interpretations do admit a form of permanent self (Dharmakaya).
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"The Buddha famously refused to answer questions about the existence or non-existence of a permanent self, choosing silence rather than asserting that a permanent self exists or that it does not. This silence was not a confession of ignorance, but a strategic move to guide followers away from clinging to fixed views, which he believed obstructed the path to enlightenment"
I suggest using the methods (which are sound) but coming to your own conclusions. Because, why listen to later commentators when the Buddha simply remained silent about such questions, like Dakshinamurthy?
Most Theravada monks who take their meditation practice seriously have definitely made progress. It's obvious to those who can see.
What follows is my own limited understanding based on my reading, my own thoughts on the matter as well my empty-mind meditation experience.
I'll try to explain using an onion-skin model: according to the atman philosophy, there's a unique self, commonly called 'soul', at the core of one's being. The anatman position holds that there's no such thing; instead, there's only an anonymous spark of life (what is called 'Buddha nature') that is not uniquely yours. Every sentient being possesses this impersonal spark but it doesn't make you any better than another person, an animal, a hungry ghost, etc. Buddha nature is like the water in your body - it may be inside of you personally but it's still composed of the same molecules as the water in other persons' bodies. The anatman model only looks like a fraud if you insist on preserving your unique identity after death.
Ultimate liberation, however, is similar: the soul becomes absorbed into Brahma, the Absolute, the One or what have you, the anonymous spark dissolves into Nirvana, the drop of water dissolves in the sea - in the atman paradigm, you lose your selfhood (as opposed to the Abrahamic religions where the self survives and lives on in heaven or hell) but in the anatman one, you don't have a self to lose to begin with; the Buddha nature enters Nirvana, not the unique 'you'. The net result is the same. It shouldn't be forgotten that reincarnation/rebirth is seen as a curse in Eastern religions and not as a fresh chance, so the eventual loss of identity (according to both atman and anatman thinking) means freedom.
Both the atman and anatman philosophies have millions of adherents, and the debate between them has been going on for millenia. Personally, I favour the Buddhist explanation. In my thinking, my identity is simply a random accretion of likes and dislikes, childhood imprints, experiences, etc. that could have been totally different had I been born under other circumstances. It's not that important, it's just what I've learned to live and identify with. This conviction of mine has only increased thanks to meditation where I've experienced a certain degree of depersonalisation (others meditators have reported such symptoms here as well!), slightly unsettling but instructive. "What's the real me?" I don't care, it's not that interesting, it keeps changing hour by hour. Deep down inside me are not the profound mysteries of my soul, only a thick layer of muck obscuring my anonymous Buddha nature, and I like the thought - others may think it frightening, a con, or blasphemous, I consider the concept of an immortal soul a narcissistic affectation, so sue me.
Having been raised a Catholic, I'd like to add that the doctrine of no-self has been liberating for me. No more worries about the state of my immortal soul, finally! These days, I rather focus on the mischief caused by the skandhas, there's much more rewarding work for me to be done there.
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I'd like to add that I don't necessarily consider myself a Buddhist - I see the Buddha nature more as a void, not an enlivening component inside myself. Additionally, I have my doubts about the rebirth in the
I strongly recommend reading Derek Parfit 'Reasons and Persons' on personal identity here; he came at this via analytic philosophy and I think he provides a very strong answer to your question: perhaps not satisfying (that's a different matter entirely.) Learn specifically what he says about 'Relationship R' to and instances of personal identity (IE persons) over time. In fact, just copy and pasting my answer here into an LLM and asking 'What is this guy talking about?' will be enough to get you a good summary if you link it with your original question.
The term ego—or ego-self—is frequently used to describe the self-centered, fabricated outer layer of self, and we often speak of letting go of the ego, or dissolving it, or transcending it […]. However, the common usage of ego, both within Buddhist teachings and in the world at large, makes ego sound like an entity that has a shape and a size, and that can be extracted like a tooth. It doesn’t work that way. Ego is not an object; it’s more like a process that follows through on the proclivity for grasping, and for holding on to fixed ideas and identities. What we call ego is really an everchanging perception, and although it is central to our narrative story, it is not a thing. It therefore cannot really die, and cannot be killed or transcended. This tendency for grasping arises when we misperceive the constant flow of our body and mind and mistake it for a solid, unchanging self. We do not need to get rid of the ego—this unchanging, solid, and unhealthy sense of self—because it never existed in the first place. The key point is that there is no ego to kill. It is the belief in an enduring, nonchanging self that dies. The term ego can still provide a useful reference; but we need to be careful not to set ourselves up for battling something that is not there. Ironically, when we go into combat with the ego, we strengthen the illusions of self, making our efforts to awaken counterproductive. Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, Helen Tworkov, "In Love with the World" (p. 54)
Not only are the things outside ourselves empty of the solid, objective reality we project onto them, the same is true for our inner sense of self. We instinctively feel that we exist as something very real, definite, and substantial. We have no doubt about this real me and it seems absurd to think of it as just another hallucination. Yet if we take the trouble to search for this supposedly concrete “I” or “me” we will discover that we cannot find it anywhere. Neither our head, our arm, our leg, nor any other part of our body is our “I.” The same is true of our mind: none of the countless thoughts or feelings that continuously arise and disappear is the real me. And, of course, this solid sense of self is not to be found somewhere outside this body-mind combination. Lama Thubten Yeshe, Introduction to Tantra
Tl;dr: We take ourselves (or: our selves) much too seriously.
I've tried for years to get to the bottom of Buddhism but only got the first whiff of understanding once I took up meditation. Say I'm practicing mindfulness while taking a walk in the park. It's more difficult when I cling to myself as the observer, "I'm seeing this", "I'm hearing this", etc. It becomes much easier if I don't insist on having a separate, sharply delineated identity anymore - which should be impossible, nobody can escape his/her individuality but it works nevertheless. The self, or ego, simply becomes a burden when practicing mindfulness and meditating but then you'll have to experience it yourself in order to understand - and feel - the wider implications, and I fear I'm only at the very beginning here.
In books about Buddhism, you can sometimes find the expression 'conventional self'. It's our everyday self that isn't just an illusion but has a name, address, phone number, etc. The old Jewish Kabbalists often used the term 'garment' for outer appearances, and this is what the 'conventional self' is - nothing more than a colourful sheath containg the shining impersonal core of Buddha natura. Liberation therefore would be the realisation of the illusory nature of the self - in theory. I don't feel liberated when I'm reading this sentence, I don't feel liberated when I read Buddhist books. Sometimes I'd ask myself how such abstract insights could help me with my mundane problems but I'll need more meditation and mindfulness practice to find out. A serious obstacle here is the 'technocratic' Buddhist spiritual jargon. "Develop clarity of mind", "cultivate compassion", as if it was that easy and simply a matter of willpower. The authors of these books come from a monastic tradition where monks will spend years on developing this and cultivating that by means of all kinds of meditational exercises. We laypeople can't hope to match their attainments by just reading books alone.
I think the realisation that one doesn't have a personal soul but only an anonymous divine spark within onelf could be liberating for those who constantly worry about the purity of their immortal souls; it could also be frightening, I suppose.
