Anatta: The Doctrine of Non-Self

Anatta ("non-self" or "not-self") is, alongside dukkha (suffering) and anicca (impermanence), one of the three marks of existence (tilakkhana) that early Buddhist doctrine holds to characterize all conditioned phenomena, and it represents one of the most philosophically distinctive and historically controversial features of the Buddha's teaching relative to the wider Brahmanical intellectual culture of his time, which generally affirmed an eternal, unchanging self or soul (atman) as identical with, or as a manifestation of, the ultimate cosmic principle Brahman, as articulated in Upanishadic texts such as the Chandogya and Brihadaranyaka Upanishads. The Buddha's central argument against a permanent self is presented most systematically in the Anattalakkhana Sutta ("The Discourse on the Not-Self Characteristic," Samyutta Nikaya 22.59), traditionally identified as his second sermon, delivered to the same five ascetics who had heard the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta and who are said to have attained full liberation (arahantship) upon hearing it.