The Truth of Anatta - Buddhist Publication Society

changing qualities is so deeply rooted in our habits of thought that we are reluctant to admit the
doctrine of pure and complete change.
Even among the Buddhist schools the doctrine did not hold undisputed sway. The notion of a
permanent entity, constituting reality, though officially banned and repudiated, constantly
tended to appear through some back-door and to haunt the domain of Buddhist philosophy in
various guises. Nor is this surprising, for it is only with the attainment of arahantship that the
threefold illusion of self, known as the three conceits (māna), is destroyed. Even the anāgāmi
who has attained the third stage of the Path is not free from the māna-maññanā, the conceit of ’I
am’ (S III 128f). Till the fetters of avijjā (ignorance) are completely broken and paññā (insight) has
been attained our attempts to escape from belief in self are like those of the hare in the old
Indian tale who, annoyed with the earth, jumped off it, hoping never to return, only to find that
the higher he jumped the greater was the thud with which he fell. It is because of our clinging
that this is so, says the Buddha (S III 182). To the herdsman who has no cows, the cry of ’wolf’
no longer brings any terror; to him who has no clinging the realization of anattā spells the
highest liberation.
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