Self Phantom

Senik said: "Oh Gautama! If there is no self, who sees and who hears?"

The Buddha said: "One has the six spheres (of the senses) inside, and the six dusts [i.e., the six sense-fields] outside. The inner and outer conjoin, and one gains the six kinds of consciousness. Now, these six consciousnesses acquire their name through causal relations.

For example, a fire comes about from a tree, and we talk about 'tree fire'. The grass catches fire, and we talk of 'grass fire'. The bran catches fire, and we speak of ‘bran fire’. The cow dung catches fire, and we talk about 'cow dung fire’. It's the same with the consciousness of beings, too. 'We have acquired consciousness through the eyes, color, light and desire (which are the causal relations of vision), and we say ‘consciousness of the eyes’.

Oh good man! Such consciousness of the eyes does not exist in the eye, nor in the desire, etc.. The four things conjoin, and we get this consciousness. It's the same with the consciousness of mind. If things come to be so, we cannot say that the knowing and seeing are the self, and that the touching is the self.

Oh good man! That's why we say that the self is (which covers) from the consciousness of the eyes down to the consciousness of mind (through the six sense organs), and that all things are phantoms. How are they like phantoms? Due to the fact that, 'what originally was not, is what it is now; and what once was, now is not more'. Oh good man! For example, the mixing together of butter, barley, flour, honey, ginger, pepper, pippali [kind of long pepper], grapes, walnuts, pomegranates, and suishi [a kind of prune] is called 'kangigan' [possibly the name of a drug]. Except from this mixing together, there can be no 'kangigan'. The six spheres of the inner and outer (of the senses) are what we call the being, self, human, male or female. Except from the six spheres of the inner and outer, there can be no being, or the human.”

Read More on the Nirvana Sutra, Chapter 45 - On Bodhisattva Kaundinya 1.


self phantom.mp3