38 CHAPTER TWOteaching on not-self has been controversial from early on. Opponents ofBud-
dhism have regarded it as a metaphysical doctrine denying the existence of a
self or a soul, and even many Buddhists have come to view it in that light. In
the early texts, however, the Buddha pointedly refuses to answer the meta-
physical question as to whether or not there is a self. (For another interpreta-
tion of one of the passages in question, see Strong EB, sec. 3.2.4.) He simply
points out the inconsistencies of various self or soul theories and states the re-
wards of focusing on the not-selfness of the five skandhas. In fact, he asserts
that the belief "I have no self" is as much an obstacle to Awakening as the be-
lief "I have a self" (M.2). To believe in a permanent self, he says, is to deny
the possibility of spiritual self-change. To deny the existence of a self is to
deny the worth of a moral or religious life. To cling to the perception even of
an impermanent self is to cling to one of the five skandhas, which would pre-
vent a realization of the unconditioned that can be experienced only when
the skandhas are relinquished.
Thus the early texts suggest that a person seeking Awakening should en-
tirely drop the self/ other mode of classifying reality in favor of the Four Noble
Truths so as to avoid the pitfalls that any view dealing in terms of self would
entail. For a person well advanced on the Path, the Buddha says, the question
of whether or not there is a self simply would not occur. Such a person would
be more involved in observing phenomena as they arise and pass away than in
engaging in such speculations. All of this indicates that the not-self doctrine,
like the teaching on suffering, is to be regarded as a strategy of diagnosis and
therapy for undercutting craving, attachment, and the factor of sustenance in
the formula of dependent co-arising. The meditator is taught simply to ob-
serve the five skandhas as they occur and to let go of them by noting that they
are not his/her self. In doing so, he/she would open the way for the experi-
ence of the unconditioned, to which labels or perceptions of "self" or "not-
self" -which, as perceptions, would count as a skandha-would not apply.
As stated in the first sermon, the First Noble Truth-suffering-is to be
comprehended. Once it is comprehended, the Second Noble Truth-crav-
ing-has no object to latch onto and so can be abandoned. Here we must
note that, contrary to some interpretations, the word craving covers not all de-
sire, but only the desire leading to further becoming. The desire to escape
from that becoming is said in the early texts to be part of the Path; without
such a desire, no one would have the motivation to follow the Path or reach
nirvalfa. When nirva!fa is reached, though, even this desire is abandoned, just
as a desire to walk to a park is abandoned upon reaching the park.
When the Second Noble Truth is abandoned, the third-cessation of suf-
fering-is realized. "Cessation of suffering" is a description of the goal of the
practice, but its negative form should not be construed as meaning that the goal
is experienced in negative terms. The standard metaphor is one of cooling. Just
because cold is technically nothing more than the absence of heat, that does not
mean that it cannot be intensely felt. This point is supported by the many pas-
sages in the canon in which the noble disciples express in intensely joyous terms
the freedom they experience on having reached the goal (Strong EB, sec. 3.4).