Non-self

The concept of non-self or anattā is an important doctrine in Buddhism, the way of life propounded by the Lord Buddha (c. 5th to 4th century BCE). In Buddhism, non-self is the nature of all living things as there is no unchanging, permanent self, soul or essence. Non-self is one of three marks of existence along with suffering and impermanence. Birth, aging, death, rebirth, redeath – that's the cycle of existence, by the way.

The French philosopher, René Descartes (b 1596, d 1650), once remarked his cognito, ergo sum which is translated into English as I think, therefore I am. In my opinion, the central point to this philosophy is the concept of I, me, myself; a theme totally associated by the Millennials or Gen Ys - or even the Gen X and earlier - to boost their personal egos.

But in Buddhism, there is no such concept. Ultimately, the final attainment in Buddhism is enlightenment or the disappearance of this automatic and illusory I. And that's what this concept of a non-self is all about. However, I must admit that I have not looked much into this concept other than to hear about it spoken often by the learned teachers in various Buddhism talks.

Yesterday, I was tinkering with this link from the BBC news portal. How much of your body is your own, the BBC asked. I was invited to key my date of birth, sex, height and weight into the website and a set of data and visuals were then generated. Lots of interesting information.

For instance, I was told the key chemical elements that made up my body, how many cells do I have and how much data is stored in my DNA, how many hair follicles and sweat glands do I have, how much do my organs and tissues weigh, how much blood have I produced, and many more. Oh yes, I now know that my testicles weigh 30 grammes and they will have produced 2.6 trillion sperms in my lifetime which is equivalent to two billion terabytes of information. Wow!

To my mind, the most intriguing information was to know that there are 6.8 octillion of atoms in my body. Atoms, as we know, is the basic unit of matter. They are everything we are all made up of. So I am made up of 6.8 octillion of these atoms. This is 6,800,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. Those are 26 zeros there. One octillion is one thousand trillion trillion....

But noise aside, the BBC website tells me that if I could compress all these 6.8 octillion atoms, my body would be about the size of a tiny red blood cell. Mind boogling, isn't it? It really gives a fresh new perspective to the Buddhist concept of non-self. The all-seeing mind of Lord Buddha knew this more than 2,500 years ago....