Say who everyone is as you go along - Faculty of Philosophy ...

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Nevertheless, Nietzsche does not avoid metaphysical commitments of his own.
Here 'the Self' is an ironic name for the body
'Instruments and playthings are sense and spirit: behind them there is still the Self.
The Self seeketh with the eyes of the senses, it harkeneth also with the ears of the
spirit' (Z 36)
Rather like Merleau-Ponty in Phenomenology of Perception Nietzsche depicts
subjectivity as physical. The subject is that which thinks and experiences but the
body is that which thinks and experiences, so the subject is the body. I am that which
has my thoughts and experiences, but my body has my thoughts and experiences, so I
am my body. If there is a semi-elusive self that is the perennial subject of my
experiences, it is my body:
'Ever hearkeneth the Self, and seeketh; it compareth, mastereth, conquereth, and
destroyeth. It ruleth, and is also the ego's ruler' (Z 36)
Nietzsche does not use the word 'brain' in the following passage, and it may plausibly
be read as about the body as a whole. Nevertheless, if we note that the brain is not
usually the direct object of its own experiences and so in that sense 'unknown', or
hidden, then we may read Nietzsche as claiming that the brain is the elusive self:
'Behind thy thoughts and feelings, my brother, there is a mighty lord, an unknown
sage - it is called Self; it dwelleth in thy body, it is thy body' (Z 36)
and
'Thy Self laugheth at thine ego, and its proud prancings' (Z 36)
The brain is in the body and the brain is part of the body and is arguably the best
non-metaphysical candidate for the 'unknown sage'. Taken with his earlier claims, we
may read Nietzsche as saying that I am not my ego, I am not my soul. I am my brain.
Pain and the Self
The essential aim of Buddhism is life without suffering. Buddhism recognises three
sources of suffering: natural calamities, such as floods and earthquakes, the actions
of other people, and the thoughts in one's own mind. Of these three, the last is
overwhelmingly the greatest source of suffering. It is also the most eliminable. Its
negative emotional power is intimately bound up with the sense of self.
The Buddhist term that is translated 'suffering', dukkha, has the sense not only of
physical and emotional pain but also 'malaise' or 'dissatisfaction'. I suggest dukkha is
most accurately rendered into a European language by the existentialist terms Angst,