Anatta: the meaning of not-self in the Buddha's teaching

Anatta, not-self: what the word means, the Buddha's argument in SN 22.59, what it does not mean, and how it is seen in practice

Anatta, usually translated not-self, is the Buddha's teaching that nothing in body or mind is a lasting self that we own or control. It is the third of the three characteristics, after impermanence and suffering, and the one most easily misunderstood. Anatta does not say that you do not exist, or that nothing matters. It says that whatever you take to be 'me' or 'mine' turns out, when you look closely, to be a changing process that follows its own causes. This page explains the anatta meaning, the Buddha's own argument for it, how it applies to the five aggregates, what it does not mean, and how anatta is seen in practice.

Anatta meaning: the word

The Pali word anattā joins the negative an- with attā, 'self'. So anatta means not-self, or 'not a self'. In the suttas it is mostly used to describe things, not as the name of a doctrine: 'form is not-self', 'feeling is not-self'. That is why many translators prefer 'not-self' to 'no-self'. The Buddha points at each thing we might cling to, one at a time, and says: this is not self. In Sanskrit the word is anātman; in Thai it is อนัตตา, read a-nat-ta. English books use both the Pali spelling and the plain form anatta.

The everyday self and the deeper question

Attā is also an ordinary Pali word for 'oneself', and the Buddha used it that way without any difficulty. Near the end of his life he told Ānanda:

Tasmātihānanda, attadīpā viharatha attasaraṇā anaññasaraṇā,
dhammadīpā dhammasaraṇā anaññasaraṇā.

So, Ānanda, live with yourselves as your island, yourselves as your refuge, with no other refuge; with the teaching as your island, the teaching as your refuge, with no other refuge.

DN 16

Ordinary talk of 'I' and 'you' is fine. What anatta questions is a deeper belief: that somewhere in body and mind there is a fixed owner in charge of it all. The belief is rarely spoken, but it shows itself every time we bristle at criticism or fear losing what we count as ours.

The Buddha's argument in SN 22.59

The main source is the Anattalakkhaṇa Sutta, 'the discourse on the characteristic of not-self' (SN 22.59); our full translation is on the Anattalakkhana Sutta page. By tradition it was the Buddha's second teaching, given to the same five monks who heard the first sermon at Isipatana near Varanasi. It contains two arguments.

The first argument is about control. If form, the body, were self, it would not lead to affliction, and we could say of it: let it be like this, let it not be like that.

“Rūpaṁ, bhikkhave, anattā.
Rūpañca hidaṁ, bhikkhave, attā abhavissa,
nayidaṁ rūpaṁ ābādhāya saṁvatteyya,
labbhetha ca rūpe:
‘evaṁ me rūpaṁ hotu, evaṁ me rūpaṁ mā ahosī’ti.
Yasmā ca kho, bhikkhave, rūpaṁ anattā,
tasmā rūpaṁ ābādhāya saṁvattati,
na ca labbhati rūpe:
‘evaṁ me rūpaṁ hotu, evaṁ me rūpaṁ mā ahosī’ti.

Mendicants, form is not-self. For if form were self, it would not lead to affliction, and one could have one's way with form: 'Let my form be like this; let my form not be like that.' But because form is not-self, it leads to affliction, and one cannot have one's way with form: 'Let my form be like this; let my form not be like that.'

SN 22.59

He then says the same of feeling, perception, choices and consciousness. The test is simple, and anyone can try it: tell your back to stop aching, your mood to lift, or your memory to stop replaying an old hurt. They follow their own conditions, not our orders. Something that does not obey us cannot be the self that is supposed to be in charge. That is the first half of the case for anatta.

The second argument is a series of questions. Is form permanent or impermanent? Impermanent. Is what is impermanent suffering or happiness? Suffering. Is it fitting to regard what is impermanent, suffering and bound to change as 'this is mine, this I am, this is my self'? No. The commentaries read the three phrases as three ways of grasping: 'this is mine' is craving, 'this I am' is conceit, and 'this is my self' is wrong view.

The Buddha then draws the conclusion for every kind of form, feeling, perception, choices and consciousness, whether past, future or present, inside or outside, coarse or fine, low or high, far or near:

sabbaṁ rūpaṁ: ‘netaṁ mama, nesohamasmi, na meso attā’ti
evametaṁ yathābhūtaṁ sammappaññāya daṭṭhabbaṁ.

All form should be seen as it really is, with right understanding: 'This is not mine, I am not this, this is not my self.'

SN 22.59

Seeing this, the sutta says, a learned noble disciple grows disenchanted with all five, desire fades away, and with the fading of desire the mind is freed. While the Buddha was still speaking, the minds of the five monks were freed from defilements by not grasping.

Anatta and the five aggregates

The Buddha did not search for the self in the abstract. He looked at what a person is actually made of, the five aggregates, and examined each in turn:

• Form (rūpa): the body and the physical world it meets, such as hardness, heat and movement.
• Feeling (vedanā): the pleasant, painful or neutral tone of each experience.
• Perception (saññā): recognising and labelling, such as 'this is red', 'this is my friend's voice'.
• Choices (saṅkhārā): intentions, reactions and the mental activity that shapes what we do.
• Consciousness (viññāṇa): knowing through eye, ear, nose, tongue, body and mind.

Look for a self in any one of these and you find something that changes, depends on conditions and cannot be ordered about. Look for a self outside them and there is nothing to find. The Cūḷavedalla Sutta (MN 44) describes twenty ways of assuming a self: taking one of the aggregates as self, or the self as having it, or it as inside the self, or the self as inside it. Five aggregates times four ways makes twenty. Seeing anatta clearly means seeing through all twenty.

What anatta does not mean

Because this teaching touches something so personal, it is easy to bend. These are the common misreadings:

• Not nihilism. Anatta does not mean that nothing exists or that life is pointless. Body and mind are real processes; what is denied is a permanent owner behind them.
• Not the end of responsibility. Actions still have results and intentions still shape the future, which is why kamma makes sense without a fixed self: the stream of causes and results goes on.
• Not 'you don't exist'. The Buddha spoke of 'I' and 'you' like anyone else. The Theravada commentaries explain this with two levels of truth: conventionally there are persons; in the ultimate sense there are only mental and physical processes, none of which is a self.
• Not a theory for winning arguments. When the wanderer Vacchagotta asked outright whether there is a self, the Buddha stayed silent, and later told Ānanda that either answer would have sided with a wrong view, eternalism or annihilationism (SN 44.10). Anatta is a way of seeing that loosens clinging, not a claim about the universe to defend.
• Not a feeling of being unreal. Insight into anatta brings ease, not fear or numbness. Intensive practice is not a treatment for mental illness; anyone with a history of serious mental illness should talk to a doctor and an experienced teacher first.

How it is seen in practice

Anatta is not something to believe but something to see. In insight practice the seeing comes slowly, from watching ordinary experience closely. Here are some places where it shows itself:

• Thoughts arrive unbidden. Sit for five minutes and count how many thoughts you chose to think. Most simply appear.
• Sensations follow conditions. Pain in the knee grows, shifts and fades on its own schedule, whatever you wish.
• Intention comes before action. In walking meditation, notice the wish to lift the foot, then the lifting. Even the 'decider' is a passing event.
• The knower and the known. Hearing is one event, the sound another, the liking or disliking a third. The texts call the first clear seeing of this the separating of mind and matter, the first of the stages of insight.
• Moods are weather. Irritation comes, stays a while and goes, like rain. You need not own it to know it.

The fruit of seeing anatta is practical: taking things less personally, less defensiveness, more room for other people. The classic method for this seeing is the four foundations of mindfulness.

Not-self, impermanence and suffering

Anatta is the last of the three characteristics, and it rests on the other two. What is impermanent cannot give lasting satisfaction, which is the meaning of dukkha; what is impermanent and unsatisfying cannot be a self. Seeing all three loosens clinging, and the end of clinging is nibbana. That is why the not-self discourse ends not with a theory but with freedom: the five monks let go and were released.

Anatta meaning in short

Anatta means not-self: nothing in body or mind is a permanent owner or controller. The Buddha showed it by inviting us to try commanding our own body and mind, and by asking whether what changes and hurts is fit to be called 'me'. It is not nihilism and it does not cancel responsibility. Seen in practice, anatta brings a lighter, freer way of living with the same body and mind.

Based on: Anattalakkhaṇa Sutta (SN 22.59) · Mahāparinibbāna Sutta (DN 16) · Cūḷavedalla Sutta (MN 44) · Ānanda Sutta, on the undeclared points (SN 44.10)