that there were many experiences which we often identify with self, but which are impermanent.  But the belief is found in the Upani@sads that there was associated with these a permanent part as well, and that it was this permanent essence which was the true and unchangeable self, the blissful.  They considered that this permanent self as pure bliss could not be defined as this, but could only be indicated as not this, not this (neti neti) [Footnote ref 2].  But the early Pali scriptures hold that we could nowhere find out such a permanent essence, any constant self, in our changing experiences.  All were but changing phenomena and therefore sorrow and therefore non-self, and what was non-self was not mine, neither I belonged to it, nor did it belong to me as my self [Footnote ref 3].

The true self was with the Upani@sads a matter of transcendental experience as it were, for they said that it could not be described in terms of anything, but could only be pointed out as “there,” behind all the changing mental categories.  The Buddha looked into the mind and saw that it did not exist.  But how was it that the existence of this self was so widely spoken of as demonstrated in experience?  To this the reply of the Buddha was that what people perceived there when they said that they perceived the self was but the mental experiences either individually or together.  The ignorant ordinary man did not know the noble truths and was not trained in the way of wise men, and considered himself to be endowed with form (rupa) or found the forms in his self or the self in the forms.  He

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[Footnote 1:  Sa@myutta Nikuya, III. pp. 44-45 ff.]

[Footnote 2:  See B@rh.  IV. iv.  Chandogya, VIII. 7-12.]

[Footnote 3:  Sa@myutta Nikaya, III 45.]

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experienced the thought (of the moment) as it were the self or experienced himself as being endowed with thought, or the thought in the self or the self in the thought.  It is these kinds of experiences that he considered as the perception of the self [Footnote ref 1].

The Upani@sads did not try to establish any school of discipline or systematic thought.  They revealed throughout the dawn of an experience of an immutable Reality as the self of man, as the only abiding truth behind all changes.  But Buddhism holds that this immutable self of man is a delusion and a false knowledge.  The first postulate of the system is that impermanence is sorrow.  Ignorance about sorrow, ignorance about the way it originates, ignorance about the nature of the extinction of sorrow, and ignorance about the means of bringing about this extinction represent the fourfold ignorance (avijja) [Footnote ref 2].  The avidya, which is equivalent to the Pali word avijja, occurs in the Upani@sads also, but there it means ignorance about the atman doctrine, and it is sometimes contrasted with vidya or true knowledge