Do We Have A Soul?
When Western students first learn about Buddhism, the “Soul
Question” inevitably arises from their backgrounds in the Abrahamic faiths. The
short answer to this question, “No. Buddhists don’t believe there is a soul.
That answer is predicated on a particular definition, a
particular understanding of what the word “soul” means. What Buddhism means by
soul is something that is static and never changes, an essence that is eternal;
an essence that is not effected by anything else.
Also, a soul is “partless,” meaning that it is not made-up
of a bunch of pieces, like a car or a dog.
Another characteristic is that a soul can exist separately
from body and mind. It can comes and go from place to place, and of course,
life to after life. It lives inside a person like an occupant lives a house.
Buddhist philosophy says that there is no such thing.
Nothing is permanent, nothing is in and of itself. How it posits this is
complicated, but simply put the Buddhist understanding arises from a fundamental
believe that all things are impermanent and conditioned by other things.
What Buddhism posits in place of a soul is an ever-changing
Self that has no beginning and no end. It has many parts, so it is not
something findable. It cannot exist separately. With our moment to moment to
moment mental activity, that “me,” that conventional Buddhist “Self,” is just
an imputation. It is not something that you can find solidly inside each moment.
Nonetheless we have a conventional way of putting together all these moments
and labeling it “Me.”
Buddhism emphasizes over and over that we are a conditioned
phenomenon. What moves from one moment to another is a subtle Self that is
described by the Five Aggregates, not a soul.
On investigation, the soul turns out to be a simple fiction.
Unfortunately, is it a fiction that leads to believing in a large, complex
false reality that has been the source of suffering for vast numbers of people
since ancient times. Why this is so is addressed in a variety of teachings–chiefly,
The Four Characteristics of All Phenomena, Dependent Co-Arising, and Emptiness.
Believing in a soul requires a vast network of speculative
ideas about other permanent things and places–gods and heavens and hells, for
example–in order to form a moral code. What we learn from simple personal
observation of our impermanent and ever-changing Self is that the meaning of
life is found in our impermanent and therefore interconnected nature: in being
of benefit to others. And the first rule of being of benefit is “Do not harm.”
How do we do no harm? We can start with this simple
exercise: Every time you approach someone with whom you expect to interact, ask
yourself (in your head, no out loud): “What can I do to be of benefit to this
person, here, now.” If you’re alone, ask it of yourself.
