>>12211633>>12211719>>12211758Neat but you have to understand Buddha isn't talking about non-existence of self. But rather misunderstanding of a self. The self's existence/non-existence is not the issue Buddha dove into because it was apparent that something existed. His statements were about what that "something" was and how misunderstood people were about the nature of "something." This is later further clarified by Nagarjuna's writings on "emptiness" concept. Its not nothing. Nor is it a thing as we understand in classical way. In the classical way, we understand somethings to exist and others to not exist. This is a dualism that is rejected by Buddha.
With Buddha's teaching it was relevant to tell what/how the self "existed." He talked a lot of causality/karma concept. He talked about how the self is merely bundles of momentary consciousness generated from immediate environment bundled up like strings and guided by the causality / karma. Something whose existence that may exist from time to time but can be untangled to free the person.
With Nagarjuana, emptiness was crytalized further into a universally applicable concept. It was a solution to the duality of existence/non-existence of classical world. Where things could both "exist" and "not exist" at the same time, yet is neither each separately. If you're getting the quantum mechanics vibe, you're not the first one to see this. Also keep note of the language issue when trying to explain this type of concept, a new type of "existence", this was a problem even during Buddha/Nagarjuana's time so they had to make new words too. Translation of Buddhist->English was a pain for the longest time because we didn't understand the nuances.
Part 2...
