Why Buddhism is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment

by Robert Wright

Escaping this drama—seeing your thoughts as passing before you rather than emanating from you—can carry you closer to the not-self experience, to that moment when you “see” that there is no “you” in there doing the thinking or doing anything else, that moment when what seems like a metaphysical truth is unveiled. But, as we saw in chapter 5, some people say that the Buddha’s original not-self teaching is best seen not as a metaphysical truth but as a pragmatic strategy: regardless of whether a self exists, by jettisoning parts of what you think of as your self, you clarify your view of the world and become a better and happier person. And this pragmatic strategy of not-self, no less than the metaphysical discovery of not-self, would seem to be furthered by the kind of perspective Goldstein was describing. As he put it, “When we have that basis of wisdom about the nature of thought, then we have more power to choose, okay, which thoughts are healthy . . . which thoughts are not so healthy—those we can let go.”