Stepping Out of Self-Deception: The Buddha's Liberating Teaching of No-Self

"Every so often a book appears that revitalizes our understanding of who we are and what our lives are about. Stepping Out of Self-Deception is such a book. A wonderfully fresh and beautifully written investigation of the path of awakening, it also challenges many of our assumptions along the way."---Joseph Goldstein, author of One Dharma and Insight Meditation: The Practice of Freedom"The Buddhist doctrine of anatta (no-self) seems quite counterintuitive to the Western mind: we may not be sure of much, but aren't we sure we are here? Descartes says as much. Rodney Smith succeeds masterfully in laying bare the self/non-self doctrine and its many insidious misunderstandings that more often than not result in our using spiritual practice to reinforce the very pain we hoped it would liberate us from. He makes it clear that the Buddhist goal is not self-improvement or self-elimination but rather the radical recognition that we have never been isolated, we have always belonged. I am deeply moved by this intelligent, practical, and challenging look at the Buddhist path for our time and place."---Zoketsu Norman Fischer, author of Sailing Home and Taking Our Places: The Buddhist Path to Truly Growing Up
Anatta is the Buddhist teaching on the nonexistence of a permanent, independent self. It’s a notoriously puzzling and elusive concept, usually leading to such questions as, “If I don’t have a self, who’s reading this sentence?” It’s not that there’s no self there, says Rodney Smith. It’s just that the self that is reading this sentence is a configuration of elements that at one time did not exist and which at some point in the future will disperse. Even in its present existence, it’s more a temporary arrangement of components rather than something solid. Anatta is a truth the Buddha considered to be absolutely essential to his teaching. Smith shows that understanding this truth can change the way you relate to the world, and that the perspective of selflessness is critically important for anyone involved in spiritual practice. Seeing it can be the key to getting past the idea that spirituality has something to do with self-improvement, and to accessing the joy of deep insight into reality.