What is the difference between atman and anatman

Understanding of Brahman is the ultimate goal. Buddhists do not live in any such world. Therefore I am afraid Buddhist philosophy leads to a different state of mind. Should we describe that state as blissful? That I can not answer for sure but it seems blissful is the right answer. Is that blissfulness permanent? Yes in both the cases it is said to be so.

Is that blissfulness me? Hindus says Yes that blessedness is your self. Buddhists say there is no self. Hinduism's Atman is the imperishable and indestructible immortal soul or self that pervades the entire body. That which pervades the entire body , know it to be indestructible. No one can cause the destruction of the imperishable soul. Only the material body is perishable; the embodied soul within is indestructible, immeasurable, and eternal. Neither of them is in knowledge—the one who thinks the soul can slay and the one who thinks the soul can be slain.

For truly, the soul neither kills nor can it be killed. The soul is neither born, nor does it ever die; nor having once existed, does it ever cease to be. The soul is without birth, eternal, immortal, and ageless. It is not destroyed when the body is destroyed. Hindu text Bhagavad Gita 2. Buddhism's Anatta is from the statement " sabbe dhamma anatta " Dhp which means that "all phenomena is not self". Forms are empty of self and of what belongs to self.

Eye-consciousness is empty of self and of what belongs to self. Eye-contact is empty of self and of what belongs to self…. Whatever feeling arises with mind-contact as condition—whether pleasant or painful or neither-painful-nor-pleasant—that too is empty of self and of what belongs to self. Thus all the three states are unreal inasmuch as they are the creation of the three Gunas; but their witness the reality behind them is, beyond all Gunas, eternal, one, and is Consciousness itself.

The wise should always think with great care of the invisible, the visible, and everything else, as his own Self which is consciousness itself. Adi Shankaracharya's Aparokshanubhuti. According to the Buddha, Consciousness is dependently originated and is impermanent. It's not the same Consciousness that roams throughout one's life and continues to another life:.

But still you misrepresent me by your wrong grasp, harm yourself, and make much bad karma. This will be for your lasting harm and suffering. The same sutta explains that consciousness arises dependent on the six sense media and their sense objects. Atman is 'self', Annata is 'no self'.

It's apparent that they are complete opposites. But could they be the same? Ask a classical Zen master and you might get a good bonk on the head with his staff. Which is another way of saying, that's a pretty good question!

You can try to answer, but why spoil it? Maybe the best questions should be left unanswered. Just keep asking the question Is it possible that these deep concepts are pointing to the same thing at the end of the day?

I get the not very well-informed impression that the Hindu tradition includes teaching something like, neti neti -- "the self is not this". A corollary of that search might be that the "self" or Self is something other -- is Atman or Brahman.

Perhaps a Hindu would expect a Buddhist to somehow identify with Nibbana or the Tathagata , see that as some refuge for a sense of self or of being, or of action, etc. So if selfishness and identifying with the body and the shandhas is an extreme worldly position, maybe Atman and so on is logically opposed to that -- and a different extreme! Whereas Buddhism being a middle way, neither extreme, might say, "not the other extreme either -- i.

Wikipedia's Paramatman suggests that the or some Hindu doctrine might be similar somehow I think that there is some Buddhist "metaphysics", and sometimes some doctrine about "ground" but those are a couple of words I don't know enough of at the moment to explain.

In Buddhism, Anatta means "non-self. According to Lord Buddha the "stream of consciousness" which is essentially karmic energy, travels to different life forms. In Hinduism the Atman is energy. It is considered the soul. The "karmic energy" in Buddhism is identical to the concept of energy as the Atman. The difference is that Hindus attribute Atman to the self, whereas Buddhists say that the stream of consciousness is everchanging because of the 5 aggregates therefore it cannot be attributed to the self.

So Buddhists do not cling to the stream of consciousness because of this. Atman is the only refuge DN 2. The uncreated. Anicca meaning ever changeful, and dukkha meaning cannot satisfy, will cause suffering if clung to. Buddha said that in all of conditioned, phenomenal existence, there is anatta no selfhood ; no permanence; and no satisfaction.

We must let go and attain the transcendent unconditioned Atman. Sign up to join this community. The best answers are voted up and rise to the top. Stack Overflow for Teams — Collaborate and share knowledge with a private group.

Create a free Team What is Teams? Learn more. Ask Question. Asked 3 years, 11 months ago. Active 3 months ago. Viewed 2k times. I read that atman is pure bliss I read that anatta is pure bliss -Is it possible that these deep concepts are pointing to the same thing at the end of the day? Improve this question.

Community Bot 1. Lowbrow Lowbrow 6, 18 18 silver badges 32 32 bronze badges. Note that the idea of self is absent in Atman. Many Buddhists often think that Atman is contradictory to Anatta. But this is not true when Atman is referred to Paramatma which is devoid of self. OnkarKarambe Can you make that into an answer instead of only a comment? It's the Same with anatta. I wonder how they are related. Could you please elaborate?

I suspect the two words should be read as meaning the same things or as referring to two aspects of the same thing, but in any particular case whether they do will depend on who is using the words. My understanding is atman means transcendental self, the part of us which relates to the ultimate reality or unified cosmic self: en.

Buddha reacted to Vedic thought, and went beyond it in this way. Non-dual schools of Hinduism then reacted to Buddhism. Show 2 more comments. Active Oldest Votes. This is probably why the word 'anatta' does not mean 'not-bliss'. Improve this answer. Dhammadhatu Dhammadhatu Sounds right to me but Instead of bliss, they might have meant like wellbeing? I think these were beginning teachings so perhaps they were stretching words beyond precision.

I never heard many beginning teachings start out talking about the joys of dispassion. Add a comment. The two are opposites. One is Pali anatta and the other is Sanskrit atman. Troll Troll 9 9 bronze badges.

Anatta isnt the teaching that there is no surviving soul. Common misconception. Anatta is a characteristic of conditioned reality. Obviously someone who taught about reincarnation thought we survive death. Dheeraj Verma Dheeraj Verma 3, 1 1 gold badge 11 11 silver badges 20 20 bronze badges. The via negativa and the via positiva here quite naturally join hands in universal fellowship and in pristine, reverent understanding. A final word: we do well to trust the great mystical masters, not the scholarly debates that, so long as they are engaged in discourse alone, are starting off on the wrong foot.

Chan, Zen, and Advaita Vedanta, in fact, all share a commitment to beginning, and ending, this existential inquiry into the nature of the ultimate by appealing first and above all to experience, not to scripture.

The latter, yea a pointer, supports, but the former must bear the weight of the inquiry if this inquiry is to bear very beautiful fruit. Skip to content March 31, March 30, Andrew Taggart.

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