Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c9.s1.2

c9.s1.2

However this may be, the Pali Canon treats the doctrine earnestly and seriously, making no concession, voluntarily at least, to the doctrine of the self, for we may, of course, dismiss mere popular expressions, which it would have been impossible to eradicate from the language. It is impossible to understand the arguments to prove this result without realizing that the conception of a self accepted from older speculation by the Buddhists treated it as permanent, possessed of bliss, and autonomous; the Buddhist contention is that nothing empirical can possibly be endowed with these characteristics, and that, therefore, nothing empirical is the self. In another form the argument takes the shape of a contention that, whatever is permanent, cannot be subject to modification, and stress is laid also on the moral argument; all misery arises from the delusion of self which causes man to strive to profit himself and to injure others.