“If form were self, then form would not lead to affliction, and it should obtain regarding form: ‘May my form be thus, may my form not be thus.’ ” But, he notes, our bodies do lead to affliction, and we can’t magically change that by saying “May my form be thus.” So form—the stuff the human body is made of—isn’t really under our control. Therefore, says the Buddha, it must be the case that “form is not-self.” We are not our bodies.
