Yeah, those danged doppelgangers are everywhere….

As far as I understand it (and I could be wrong here) the Buddhist concept of self isn’t that it doesn’t ultimately exist rather that it just isn’t what we think it is. Historically in India the traditional Vedantist crowd taught that underlying our normal ego’s or self with a small ’s’ there was a fixed and immutable Self or Atman that was perfect and unchanging and one with the larger Self of Brahman (similar I suppose to the Gnostic Divine Spark and the Pleroma). What the Buddha did was to point out that if you observed the world very closely nothing in it is permanent or unchanging including our own personality.

So one of the realisations of Buddhism is not that there is no Ego, but rather it is not fixed. Our Self is not immutable and unchanging but rather a fluctuating process like a waveform. If you look at the movement of say a sand dune, the particles that make up the dune are constantly shifting but the shape of the dune stays relatively constant. The same thing with our ego or sense of self, viewed as a whole it appears as a steady shape but looked at closely it actually constantly changing and reforming.

Like I said that’s just the way I understand it, as you said we need a personality to function in this world and negating that would be ridiculous, however I don’t understand the Buddhist concept of personality as something that needs to be transcended rather I think it’s actually part of a larger set of constantly shifting patterns that make up our reality.

Maybe it would help to go back to the skandhas. The way I see it, the skandhas are presented as the mutable, changeable aspects of the person that the individual mistakes for the unchanging Self. In Gnosticism, we might say the same of the Archons. I think, though, that in Buddhism (and I could be very, very wrong) that when one has the realization that the self is composed of the skandhas, one has that revelation that the Ego is not fixed (as you say).

Or, let’s use your sand dune metaphor. The individual particles of sand– and therefore the whole– *is* constantly changing, but the Gnostic might also understand (very much in a Platonic sense) that the “ideal” concept of “Sand Dune” is latent within the changing form. So, if the one understanding (Anatta) is that the Self as an unchanging kernel doesn’t exist, we might consider the Gnostic understanding that it *does* exist, but latently, underneath the illusion of space and time (cause and effect). So although I am the sum total of my experiences, I am also, latently, an unchanging experiencer.

Great conversation, thanks!

But I bet ‘redemption of the powers of darkness’ must have sounded kinda heretical back in the day…

I agree there is an insane amount of info available and many different interpretations, plus all of these models are essentially trying to explain in words experiences that are totally beyond conceptualisation. This gets compounded in Buddhism (IMHO) by the fact that they’re almost always deliberately vague seemingly trying prevent the seeker from attaching to much significance to any one model (which is one of the things I like most about it).

I think the reason why I tend not to agree with the ‘dissolution of the ego’ approach is because I think that people can develop the mistaken assumption that Buddhist practice is a nihilistic discovery that we don’t essentially exist (an attitude I had for a while and one that put me off serious study).

I find the platonic ideal concept fascinating, when you talk about the ‘Latent unchanging experiencers’ do you mean in the terms the latent self exists on a separate plane of ideal forms (which I think was the Platonic ideal) outside of normal space time or are you talking more like say the idea of a clay pot in the mind of a potter (as in the form is of the world but something of a different order of substantiality)? If that makes sense.

The model I’m tending to operate on at the moment is that everything is essentially constantly reiterating patterns of matter, so I’m a pattern, my keyboard is a pattern, the table etc. the only difference between us is that I’m conscious of my nature. If we go back to the sand dune metaphor, I’m a dune that understands my duneness but is also aware of that I’m part of a wider desert. I’m part of the desert (universe) experiencing itself so to speak.

I think you’re getting at a similar concept, the only difference seems to be that you believe there’s an underlying map or programme that is determining the shape of the dunes and where they appear (if I stretch the metaphor to breaking point).