India’s Boldest Idea: The Illusion of the Self

By Neel Burton | May 11, 2024

The Buddha and Buddhism on the Illusion of the Self

By Dr Neel Burton — Psychiatrist, philosopher, and wine writer; Fellow of Green Templeton College, University of Oxford; author of over twenty books.

Essay substantially revised on 12 August 2026.

Who are you?

The answer seems obvious. You have a body, a mind, a personality, a history, a name. You remember your childhood, make plans for the future, and feel yourself to be the same person from one day to the next.

The Buddha thought otherwise.

More than two and a half thousand years ago, he advanced one of the boldest and most unsettling ideas in the history of philosophy: that the self we spend so much of our lives constructing, indulging, and defending is, in an important sense, an illusion. This is not to say that we do not exist. Rather, the person we ordinarily take ourselves to be is far less fixed than we imagine. Understanding this, taught the Buddha, is not a cause for despair but the beginning of freedom.

The Middle Way

Two early insights that led the Buddha to enlightenment are the doctrines of the Middle Way and Dependent Origination.

According to the doctrine of the Middle Way, we are more likely to achieve insight and wisdom if we avoid the extremes of self-gratification and self-mortification. According to the doctrine of Dependent Origination, or Interdependent Arising, life is a continuous process of change, and every instance of change has manifold causes and effects. Everything is conditioned by everything else; nothing exists in complete isolation.

Suffering arises from our craving for permanence. Yet permanence is itself an illusion, and our attempts to cling to it can only end in pain and disappointment. Although nothing exists permanently, it is equally mistaken to say that nothing exists at all. This, too, is a middle way.

Does the self exist?

In one sense it does. In another, it does not—which is why, when asked the question directly, the Buddha, as was often his way, simply remained silent.

The Illusion of Self

How is it that the self can both exist and not exist?

According to Buddhism, the self—or rather the not-self (anatta)—is composed of five elements (skandhas): body, sensation, perception, will, and consciousness. These five skandhas are in a constant state of flux, yet together create the illusion of integrity and continuity that we mistake for a permanent self.

This explains why, when I turn my attention inwards, I can become aware of such and such a sensation, such and such a perception, or such and such a thought, but never of any actual, enduring self.

Try it now for yourself.

There are thoughts.

There are feelings.

There is awareness.

But where, exactly, is the self?

Nagarjuna on Emptiness

The Middle Way and Dependent Origination pervade all aspects of Buddhist thought. After the Buddha, the most celebrated Buddhist philosopher is Nagarjuna (d. c. 250 CE), who founded, or perhaps re-founded, the Madhyamaka (‘Middle Way’) school, an important strand of Mahayana (Great Vehicle) Buddhism.

In his Root Verses on the Middle Way, Nagarjuna argues that between the extremes of permanence and nothingness lies emptiness, or shunyata. Although phenomena exist, they are ‘empty’ insofar as they lack permanence and autonomous existence.

This sounds pessimistic—and Nagarjuna has often been accused of nihilism—but it is precisely this emptiness and fluidity that make change, freedom, and creation possible. In Zen Buddhism, a more dynamic alternative to the koan, or riddle, is for the master suddenly to slap his student, literally shaking him out of who he thinks he is and what he thinks he’s doing. This, however, would probably not be legal today.

Rebirth and Release

The death of the bodily self leads to the disaggregation of the skandhas and to their re-aggregation into another not-self, which is neither identical to nor entirely different from the previous one, but forms part of a causal continuum with it. A traditional analogy is that of a flame, fuelled by desire, passing from one candle to the next.

The cycle of rebirth can only be broken if the self is able to transcend its subjective and distorted image of the world, built around the ‘I am’ conceit. This is nibbana, or, in Sanskrit, nirvana. As I see it, nirvana rests on the understanding that consciousness is not one continuous, unbroken entity but a succession of conscious moments.

Western Parallels

If all this sounds rather mystical, consider that the Scottish philosopher David Hume independently arrived at a remarkably similar conclusion:

…when I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble on some particular perception or other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I can never catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can observe anything but the perception.

Two thousand years after the Buddha, Hume found no permanent self behind experience, only a ceaseless stream of perceptions.

Why It Matters

Our ego defences as broadly conceived—that is, not only our ego defences proper but also our habits, customs, culture, and other ties—may provide us with an illusion of self, but they also define us as such and such, and, in so doing, constrain our range of thought, feeling, and action. Paradoxically, the very elements that furnish us with our sense of self are also those that prevent us from fulfilling our true promise and potential as human beings.

As I argue in my book on the psychology of self-deception, it is only by renouncing the self, that is, by dropping his defences and committing symbolic suicide, that a person is able to open up to different modes of being and relating, and transform himself into a pure essence of humanity. In so doing, he becomes free to recast himself as a more joyful and productive person, and attains the only species of transcendence and immortality that is open to us, mere mortals.

And so, if we are to live, we must first learn to die.

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The Buddha’s Solution to Desire and Suffering

By Neel Burton | May 5, 2024

Buddhism’s Most Important Teachings: The Middle Way, Four Noble Truths, and Eightfold Path

Wheel of the chariot of the sun, Konark Sun Temple, Odisha. 1250 CE. The temple is designed as a chariot with 24 such wheels. As a symbol, the wheel of dharma features in several Indian religions, including Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism.

By Dr Neel Burton — Psychiatrist, philosopher, and wine writer; Fellow of Green Templeton College, University of Oxford; author of over twenty books.

Essay substantially revised on 14 August 2026.

The Buddha was struck by human suffering and spent years trying to understand its causes and the means to overcome them.

After reaching enlightenment, he delivered his first sermon in the deer park at Sarnath, on the outskirts of Kashi (modern-day Varanasi). He preached the Middle Way between luxury and austerity, the Four Noble Truths, and the Eightfold Path.

In these core teachings lies the essence of Buddhism: why we desire, why we suffer, and how we might free ourselves from both.

The Middle Way and Dependent Origination

Two early insights that led the Buddha to enlightenment are the Middle Way and Dependent Origination.

According to the doctrine of the Middle Way, we are more likely to achieve insight and wisdom if we avoid extremes of self-gratification and self-mortification.

The Buddha had tried both. He had lived amid princely luxury and later practised such severe asceticism that he almost starved to death. Neither extreme had brought him enlightenment.

According to the doctrine of Dependent Origination, or Interdependent Arising, life is a continuous process of change, and every instance of change has manifold causes and effects. This means that all things are conditioned by other things, so that all things are interconnected.

Much of our suffering arises from a craving for permanence; but all permanence is an illusion that, in time, can only lead to pain and disappointment.

Although nothing exists permanently, it is equally wrong to say that nothing exists at all. This, too, is a middle way.

Does the self exist? In one sense, it does; in another, it does not—which is why, when asked the question, the Buddha, as was his way, simply remained silent.

The Four Noble Truths

The good news is that, if all things are conditional and subject to change, then so too is suffering.

It is said that, upon enlightenment, the Buddha understood the Four Noble Truths—more accurately translated as the ‘four truths for the noble of spirit’:

Suffering (dukkha) is inherent in all life.
The cause of all suffering is desire.
There is a natural way to eliminate all suffering.
The Noble Eightfold Path is that way.

The first truth, dukkha, acknowledges the unsatisfactory nature of existence. The second truth, samudaya (origin), attributes a cause to this suffering. The third truth, nirodha (cessation), posits a state comparable to the Greek ataraxia (tranquillity) that is free from suffering. And the fourth truth, marga (path), points to the method for achieving that state.

Although translated as ‘suffering’, dukkha refers more broadly to the inherently impermanent and unsatisfactory nature of all things, including the pleasant ones—for it is on account of those that we suffer most.

The cessation of suffering, nirodha, culminates in nibbana (‘blown out’, ‘extinguished’, as in a candle) in Pali or nirvana in Sanskrit, indicating that, rather than a positive state, nirvana is more of a negative state of absence of desire.

Nirvana is the state of wishing for nothing, not even Nirvana.

If the cause of dukkha is desire, the cause of desire is ignorance, pointing to knowledge or wisdom as the way forward. With proper perspective, there would be no desire, and so no suffering—and no (re)birth, which is the fruit of desire, and the source of all suffering.

Does this mean that people should not have children? No, insofar as being born is an opportunity to escape being born. The purpose of life is to provide us with an opportunity to escape it, by achieving wisdom. Otherwise, ‘we’ shall have to try again.

The Eightfold Path

Unfortunately, wisdom is hard to attain because it runs counter to everything we have learnt and everything we love, including the thing we love most: ourselves. On top of that, it confronts us with everything we fear, not least death and impermanence.

For these reasons and more, it takes long practice and training to attain wisdom, and even longer practice and training to hold on to it in the face of temptation, fragility, and adversity.

But even if we are unable or unwilling to commit to becoming a monk or nun, we can still embark on the Noble Eightfold Path:

Right view (maintaining perspective on reality)
Right intention or resolve (renouncing the worldly life for the life of wisdom)
Right speech (e.g. no lies, slanders, or idle talk)
Right action or conduct (e.g. no killing, stealing, or sexual misconduct)
Right livelihood (earning a living through a profession that does not visit harm to others)
Right effort (preventing unwholesome mental states, and encouraging wholesome, productive ones)
Right mindfulness (paying due attention to thoughts, feelings, sensations, and external phenomena)
Right concentration or meditation (cultivating the highest states of mind)

The eight categories are overlapping and mutually reinforcing, and to be worked on simultaneously rather than successively. Indeed, the Noble Eightfold Path is often represented by a dharma wheel, or dharmachakra, with eight spokes, none of which is either first or last.

The dharmachakra can also stand for dependent origination, change, and the cycle of rebirth (samsara), all in one. It is said that, with his first sermon, the Buddha set the wheel of dharma (‘law’, ‘rightfulness’) into motion.

With desire under control, everything becomes a lot better, and a lot easier. In an absence of desire, why lie or steal, or be envious or greedy? Or why be anxious, or angry, or depressed? The opposite of envy is not merely an absence of envy but shared joy and admiration. The opposite of greed is not merely an absence of greed, but decency and generosity. The opposite of anger is not merely an absence of anger but compassion. The opposite of anxiety is not merely an absence of anxiety but tranquillity. The opposite of depression is not merely an absence of depression, but wisdom.

First and foremost, the Buddha’s solution to suffering was not to change the world so it could satisfy our desires. It was to change ourselves so that we might cease to be ruled by them. Some centuries later, the Stoics would arrive at the same fundamental insight.

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The Life of the Buddha: The Prince Who Escaped the Palace

By Neel Burton | May 4, 2024

The Extraordinary Life of the Buddha

Prince Siddhartha (the Buddha) escapes his palace on horseback — The Buddha’s life has the structure of a mythical hero’s journey.

By Dr Neel Burton — Psychiatrist, philosopher, and wine writer; Fellow of Green Templeton College, University of Oxford; author of over twenty books.

Essay substantially revised on 17 August 2026.

The Buddha began as a prince whose father tried to protect him from every human suffering. For almost thirty years, his father succeeded. But one night, after sighting an old man, a sick man, and a corpse, the prince made his escape.

The Buddha’s dates are uncertain and range from 624 BCE (earliest birth) to 368 BCE (latest death). Whatever his dates, he is said to have lived for some eighty years. Buddhism emerged amid a broader culture of renunciation and philosophical experimentation that challenged aspects of the established religion, Vedic Brahmanism.

His followers came to revere him as more than an ordinary man and, accordingly, mythologised his life. It would be profitless to try, if that were possible, to separate the mythology from the reality. In any case, the mythology is as invaluable as the history, revealing how the Buddha came to be seen and interpreted.

Exceptional Birth

According to tradition, Siddhartha Gautama, later known as the Buddha, was born in Lumbini, in what is now southern Nepal, to King Shuddhodana of the Shakya clan. His mother, Mahamaya, dreamt of a white elephant with six tusks entering her right side. Ten lunar months later, while strolling in a garden in Lumbini, she grabbed onto the drooping branch of a sal tree, and Siddhartha (‘He who has achieved his goal’) emerged fully formed from under her right arm. Siddhartha proceeded to take seven steps before announcing that this would be his last life.

Two Destinies

Seven days later, Mahamaya died. The court astrologers predicted that Siddhartha would become either a chakravartin(universal monarch) or a buddha (enlightened one). Not wishing to lose his son and heir—and, at that, a future chakravartin—to a life of renunciation, Shuddhodana confined him to a life of luxury within the precincts of the palace, where he would not be exposed to religious teaching or human suffering. At the age of sixteen, Siddhartha married the beautiful princess Yashodhara, and everything seemed on track for a life as a chakravartin.

But Shuddhodana’s attempts to shelter Siddhartha spectacularly backfired. For when the prince did finally encounter human suffering, it came to him as a revelation.

Four Sights

At the age of 29, having tired of the delights of the royal kitchen and harem, Siddhartha asked to make a chariot ride through the city. The king consented but had all the old, infirm, and otherwise poor cleared from the route. Even so, Siddhartha did, for the very first time, catch a glimpse of an old man. He asked Channa, his charioteer: ‘Am I also subject to this?’

With his curiosity piqued, Siddhartha made three more outings, seeing, in turn, a diseased man, a decaying corpse, and, finally, a meditating mendicant, whose serene smile inspired him to join the path in search of freedom from suffering.

The four encounters, known as the Four Sights, shattered Siddhartha’s illusions. The old man, the sick man, and the corpse were images of his own future—and of the future of everyone he loved. But although one could not prevent ageing, sickness, and death, perhaps one could prevent the suffering that comes with them.

The Great Departure

Siddhartha renounced his position, wealth, and family to take up the life of a wandering ascetic. As night fell and he prepared to make his escape, he was told that a son had been born to him. He went into Yashodhara’s chamber to look upon his sleeping wife and son and named the boy Rahula (‘Fetter’).

That night, in what has come to be called the Great Departure, Siddhartha escaped from the palace on his beloved horse, Kanthaka, accompanied by his faithful servant, Channa.

Having crossed the Anoma River into the forest, he sent the reluctant Channa back along with his weapons and jewels, and even his hair. He sent back Kanthaka too, who died from a broken heart.

A Beggar in the Forest

In the forest, Siddhartha adopted the life of a mendicant, or beggar. He practised successively under two meditation teachers before, with five friends, subjecting himself to extreme forms of self-mortification, progressively reducing his daily meal to a single grain of rice.

One day, he accepted a bowl of milk-rice from a woman called Sujata, who had mistaken the skeletal ascetic for a wish-granting tree spirit. With some food in the belly, he concluded that extreme asceticism would not advance him along the path to freedom from suffering, but serve only to cloud his mind.

The prince who had rejected luxury now rejected its opposite. Neither indulgence nor self-mortification offered the answer. Between the two lay what he would call the Middle Way.

Sandstone head of the fasting Buddha, whom Sujata mistook for a wish-granting tree spirit. Gandhara, second or third century CE. British Museum, London. The Greco-Buddhist Gandhara school produced the first representations of the Buddha in human form, ending the early period of aniconism in Buddhism.

Enlightenment

On the full moon of May, six years after having left the palace, the 35-year-old Siddhartha sat in meditation under a peepul tree. The demon Mara tried to disrupt him, including by sending his daughters to seduce him.

When Mara challenged his right to occupy the ground on which he sat, Siddhartha touched the earth with his right hand, and the goddess of the earth confirmed with a tremor that he had earned this right—on account of a great gift that he had made in his previous life as Prince Vessantara.

Through the night, Siddhartha had visions of his many, innumerable past lives. At dawn, he attained enlightenment. The prince who had escaped the palace had become the Buddha, ‘the Awakened One’.

The peepul tree, Ficus religiosa, is now better known as the Bodhi tree, and the place where the Buddha sat in meditation as Bodh Gaya (‘Place of Enlightenment’). Representations of the Buddha often include his earth-touching gesture, known as the bhumisparsha mudra.

First Sermons

The Buddha remained in the vicinity of the Bodhi tree to savour his enlightenment. When a seven-day storm blew up, the serpent king Mucalinda encircled him seven times with his coils and sheltered him with his seven-headed hood.

At first, he hesitated to teach. What he had discovered seemed too subtle to communicate to people lost in desire and attachment. But the god Brahma Sahampati implored him to share his secrets.

After seven weeks by the Bodhi tree (note the preponderance of the number seven), the Buddha got up to teach. He delivered his first sermon in the deer park at Sarnath, on the outskirts of Kashi (modern-day Varanasi), preaching the Middle Way between luxury and austerity, the Four Noble Truths, and the Eightfold Path.

In his second sermon, he presented his doctrine of anatman (no-self). So eloquently did he speak that, upon hearing him, his five ascetic friends rose up into arhats (those who have gained such insight as to escape the cycle of rebirth). They became the first members of the Buddhist monastic order known as the sangha.

Naga-enthroned Buddha, Angkor, twelfth century CE.

Life on the Road

For the next 45 years, the Buddha spread his teachings across northeast India, followed by wandering ascetics and laypersons who supported the ascetics. Although many of his followers imitated him in renouncing the life of the householder, most were not so ambitious.

Over the years, many of the renouncers settled into monasteries funded by prominent members of the laity. The Buddha delivered many of his discourses in the monastery of Jetavana in Shravasti, the capital of Kosala, which had been donated to him by the banker Anathapindada.

When Mahamaya’s sister Mahapajapati, who had raised Siddhartha after his mother’s death and became his stepmother, asked to be ordained, the Buddha refused her, perhaps owing to fears about the safety of nuns. But when pressed, he relented, and Mahapajapati became the first bhikkhuni (Buddhist nun). In time, Yashodhara, too, became a bhikkhuni. When Rahula asked for his patrimony, his father ordained him a monk.

However, the Buddha refused to appoint his radically austere cousin Devadatta as his successor. Bitterly aggrieved, Devadatta tried three times to kill him by means of assassins, a boulder, and an elephant, which arrested its charge to bow at his feet. The schism was repaired when the earth sucked Devadatta down into Naraka, or Hell.

Death

In Kushinagara, the Buddha, now around 80 years old, ate a meal containing sukara-maddava, an obscure term that has variously been interpreted as pork, mushrooms, or some other delicacy. He became gravely ill and prepared for death.

His chief disciple, Mahakashyapa, ignited the funeral pyre, after which his relics were distributed and enshrined in large mound-like structures called stupas.

According to Buddhist tradition, in the third century BCE, the Mauryan emperor Ashoka gathered the relics from seven of the eight stupas and erected 84,000 stupas to distribute them across India. Some of Ashoka’s stupas, such as the Great Stupa at Sanchi and the Dhamek Stupa at Sarnath, remain important pilgrimage sites.

Enlightenment had not exempted the Buddha from growing old, falling ill, and dying. What had changed was his relationship to those things. You can read about his most important teachings—the Middle Way, Four Noble Truths, and the Eightfold Path—in my article, The Buddha’s Solution to Desire and Suffering.