No Inner Core: An Introduction to the Doctrine of Anatta - BuddhaNet

ing being. Like Brahman, àtman is eternal. When the
body dies, àtman moves to another body and makes
that body its new home. In this way, it moves from
one body to another, discarding the worn-out body
and taking a new one. Liberation is, according to
Hinduism, the realization that àtman is identical with
the Universal âtman or Brahman, or that the individual
àtman is part of Brahman 35 .
âtman is eternal – no one can kill or wound àtman.
In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishõa, one incarnation of the
god Vishõu, has this in mind when he instructs the
great warrior, Arjuna, to go into battle. Arjuna was at
first reluctant to go into battle in order to fight against
his own cousins, but Krishõa tells him that no weapon
can cut àtman, no fire can burn àtman. Even if you kill
someone, you kill only the body:
“If any man thinks he slays, and if another thinks
he is slain, neither knows the way of truth, The
Eternal in man cannot kill; the Eternal in man
cannot die. He is never born, and he never dies.
He is in Eternity: he is forever more.” 36
Krishõa then urges Arjuna to do his honorable
duty as a member of the warrior caste and go into
battle, which Arjuna does.
Buddha denied the àtman theory. According to
Buddha, there is nothing we can call an inner core
which is eternal and blissful. There is also nothing we
can call upon to exercise authority over the nature of
things. In Buddhism, there is no doer apart from doing,
and no experiencer apart from the experiencing. There
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