Ed Geraty LCSW-C, LICSW, LCSW INSITE Podcast: Modern Psychotherapy & Eastern/Western Wisdom.
Talk #6: Anatta (no self)
Anatta — literally "non-self" — is one of the three marks of existence in early Buddhist teaching, alongside dukkha and anicca (impermanence), which we'll cover next time. The claim is not that "you" are an illusion in the sense of not existing at all — that's a common misreading. The claim is narrower and more precise: what we call the self is not a single, unchanging, independent essence sitting behind experience, directing it. Instead, it's a constantly shifting bundle of processes — physical form, sensation, perception, mental formations, consciousness (the "five aggregates," or *khandhas*) — that arise and pass in dependence on conditions, with no fixed, permanent core running the show.
