Buddha Purnima and the Question of 'Self': Vedantic Atman and Buddhist No-Self

On Buddha Purnima—celebrated as Vesak across much of Asia and now observed even in global institutions—devotees remember a “thrice-blessed” day: the Buddha’s birth, his awakening, and his final nirvana. It is a day that naturally invites reflection not only on the Buddha’s life, but on the kind of question he came to embody for humanity: What are we, really—and how do we become free from suffering?

This question becomes especially vivid when we place two powerful spiritual vocabularies side by side. Vedanta speaks with confidence about the Atman, the Self—unitary, enduring, luminous. Classical Buddhism, in contrast, is famous for insisting on anatman, no-self: the denial of any separate, permanent “I” behind experience. At first glance, these positions appear to collide head-on. If Vedanta is “Self-talk,” Buddhism seems “Self-refusal.” If one claims there is a true Self, the other sounds like it is refusing the very possibility.

Yet, as the deeper traditions insist, first glances are rarely reliable. A more careful exploration reveals a richer picture: Buddhism’s no-self is not simple nihilism, and Vedanta’s Self is not a “thing” you can isolate like an object. When we examine what each tradition is actually trying to do—especially at its most sophisticated philosophical edge—the opposition becomes less like a battle and more like a mirror. Each warns against a common mistake: turning ultimate reality into a concept we can clutch.

A Day for the Buddha—and a Doorway to a Larger Debate

The story of Siddhartha Gautama remains one of the most influential spiritual narratives in history. Born into privilege, he nevertheless encountered the fragility of life—aging, illness, death, and the figure of a renunciate—and recognized a universal truth: suffering is not a private accident but a shared condition. Remarkably, he did not seek escape only for himself. His quest was driven by a larger compassion: there must be a way beyond suffering itself.

After studying with the great teachers of his time and exhausting extreme austerities, he awakened under the Bodhi tree. What followed was not a private enlightenment but a public teaching mission lasting decades, forming a community of monks, nuns, and lay practitioners. Across centuries, Buddhism traveled beyond India to Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia, to Tibet over the Himalayas, and onward through China, Korea, Japan, and eventually throughout the modern world.

As Buddhism spread, it also debated. India’s intellectual life did not merely tolerate philosophical conflict; it refined it. Arguments were formalized. Debates were structured. Schools challenged each other relentlessly, not only between “Hindu” and “Buddhist” camps, but among Buddhist schools themselves. In that fierce and brilliant arena, one issue became a central battleground: Is there a Self?

The Buddha’s Practical Focus: The Fire in the House

Before entering the high philosophy of later Buddhist thinkers, it helps to remember the Buddha’s own posture. When questioned about metaphysical puzzles—Does the self exist? Does it not? Does the enlightened one exist after death?—the Buddha often refused to answer. This refusal was not mere evasiveness. It was an intentional pivot away from speculative obsession.

The Buddha compared metaphysical fixation to arguing about the nature of fire while your house burns, or giving lectures on arrows while one is lodged in your body. There is a disease to treat, a wound to heal. The urgent question is not what wins an argument, but what ends suffering.

Hence the Buddha’s teaching is often summarized in profoundly practical terms: the Four Noble Truths.

Dukkha: the pervasive unsatisfactoriness of conditioned life (often translated as suffering).
Cause: dukkha is not random; it has a cause—craving, thirst, clinging.
Cessation: remove the cause and dukkha can end—this is nirvana.
Path: there is a method—the eightfold path—that leads to freedom.

In this framing, “no-self” is not a metaphysical hobby. It is a medicine aimed at a particular illness: the compulsive clinging to an “I” that must be defended, gratified, and made permanent in an impermanent world.

Why Buddhism Challenges the Self: The Root of Clinging

Buddhism’s critique of self is not simply “there’s no you.” Rather, it targets a specific idea: an independent, unitary, permanent self—an inner owner who stays the same while experiences come and go. Buddhism claims that clinging to such an “I” fuels craving, fear, and suffering. When the mind insists, “I must be satisfied,” “I must not change,” or “I must not lose,” it is trying to freeze the world into something it cannot be.

Classical Buddhism analyzes the person not as an eternal soul but as a flow of processes—often described as the five aggregates:

form (physical body),
feelings (pleasant, unpleasant, neutral),
perceptions,
mental formations,
consciousness.

What we call “I” is, in this view, a label applied to a dynamic stream. The self is not discovered as an essence; it is constructed as an interpretation.

This is where later Buddhist philosophy becomes exceptionally sharp.

Nāgārjuna’s Radical Move: The Emptiness of All Views

Several centuries after the Buddha, Nāgārjuna emerged as a towering figure. His approach is famous for its relentless negation. He dismantles conceptual positions not to leave nothing, but to free the mind from mistaking concepts for reality.

Nāgārjuna’s method often uses a powerful logical device sometimes expressed as four alternatives: a thing is, is not, both is and is not, neither is nor is not. Any attempt to capture ultimate reality in rigid conceptual statements collapses under scrutiny. If you say “it exists,” contradictions arise. If you say “it does not exist,” contradictions arise. If you say both or neither, the same problem follows.

The point is not that reality is nonsense. The point is that language and fixed concepts cannot contain what is ultimately real. Nāgārjuna calls this insight śūnyatā—emptiness—not as a blank void, but as the emptiness of fixed essence in all conceptual constructions. Reality, he insists, is not grasped by clinging to a philosophical “view.”

Chandrakīrti’s Seven-Point Reasoning: The Chariot and the Self

A later thinker, Chandrakīrti, developed a famous argument that became especially influential in Tibetan Buddhism: the seven-point reasoning. Its target is the idea of a real, independent self. Its strategy is disarmingly simple: examine the relationship between a supposed “self” and the body-mind—just as one might examine the relationship between a chariot and its parts.

If a chariot exists, how does it exist in relation to wheels, axle, frame, and so on? Chandrakīrti argues that every possible relationship fails. This is meant to show that the “chariot” is a useful designation but not an independently existing entity. Likewise, the “self” is a useful designation but not a metaphysical substance.

The seven possibilities are:

The chariot is identical to its parts.
If so, why use the word “chariot” at all? You’d just say “wheels and axle.” Also, parts are many and changing; a chariot is spoken of as one.
The chariot is different from its parts.
Then where is it? If it exists apart from parts, show it. Remove the parts and display the chariot. It cannot be found.
The chariot is contained in its parts.
Like berries in a bowl. But a chariot is not located inside wheels and axles as a separate item.
The parts are contained in the chariot.
Like objects placed in a container. But again, there is no chariot “container” apart from parts.
The chariot possesses its parts.
As an owner might say, “my wheels.” But what is the possessor? There is no separate “chariot owner” apart from the parts.
The chariot is merely the collection of its parts.
A heap of components is not yet a chariot. A pile on the ground does not function as a chariot.
The chariot is the shape or configuration of parts.
The arrangement yields a recognizable form, but the form is not an independent entity. It depends entirely on parts and conditions.

Chandrakīrti’s conclusion is that “chariot” is a convenient designation for a functional arrangement. It exists conventionally but not ultimately as a separate essence. And the same analysis is directed at the Atman as conceived by many dualistic traditions: if you claim there is an inner, permanent self distinct from body and mind, the relationship cannot be made coherent. You cannot isolate it. You cannot locate it. You cannot demonstrate it as a separate entity.

At this point, many spiritual seekers feel shaken. If the self cannot be found, is everything just a void? Is awareness itself an illusion? Is liberation merely the collapse of meaning?

This is precisely where misunderstanding begins.

The Advaita Response: The Self Is Not a “Second Thing”

Advaita Vedanta agrees with the Buddhist critique in a crucial way: the self is not the body, not the mind, not a bundle of changing processes. It also recognizes the danger of reifying a soul as a separate “thing” sitting inside the body, like a passenger in a vehicle.

But Advaita draws a different conclusion. It says: the mistake is not only in identifying the self with the body-mind; it is also in imagining that the true Self must be a separate object you can display alongside the body-mind.

If you demand: “Show me pure consciousness without any content,” or “Show me content without consciousness,” you are treating consciousness as if it were one more object in the world—like a chair or a wheel. Advaita says that is category error. Consciousness is not an object to be held up; it is the light by which all objects are known.

And yet, Advaita also admits a subtle point: if you insist on demonstrating consciousness as separate in the way two objects are separate, you will fail—because consciousness is not separate in that object-like way.

So how does Advaita explain its position without falling into the traps that Chandrakīrti enumerates?

It does so by shifting the analogy.

Gold and Ornaments: How Advaita “Slips Through” the Seven Points

A classic Advaitic illustration is gold and ornaments.

A necklace, a ring, and a bracelet have different names, forms, and functions. But their substance is one: gold. The reality is not that gold is another ornament alongside necklace and ring. Gold is the material reality that appears as all ornaments.

Now apply Chandrakīrti’s seven-point net to this analogy:

Is gold the same as the necklace? Not exactly—gold can appear as many forms.
Is gold different from the necklace? Not in the sense of being a separate object next to it.
Is gold contained in the necklace? Not like berries in a bowl.
Is the necklace contained in gold? Not like a thing placed in a container.
Does gold possess the necklace? Gold does not “own” ornaments.
Is gold a collection of ornaments? No—melt all ornaments; gold remains.
Is gold the shape of an ornament? No—gold is not a particular configuration.

What Advaita is pointing to is a relationship unlike the chariot’s relationship to parts. A chariot is an arrangement. Gold is a substance; ornaments are names and forms imposed upon it. The ornament is not an independently existing entity that must be linked to gold through one of seven relations. The ornament is gold appearing as a particular name-form.

Similarly, Advaita says: the Self is not a separate inner entity related to the body-mind the way a chariot relates to wheels. Rather, the Self is the one reality in which body, mind, and world appear—much like waves appear in water, or ornaments appear in gold.

This is why Advaita often insists that the purpose of “not this, not this” analysis is not to create a second metaphysical object called “witness” sitting behind experience. The point is to dissolve mistaken identification with the body-mind. Once the false identification loosens, what remains is not a new object but the recognition of the ever-present ground: awareness itself, not as a thing, but as what cannot be objectified.

Emptiness and Fullness: Two Ways of Protecting the Same Mystery

At the high end of Buddhist philosophy—especially in Tibetan developments—one finds language that sounds strikingly close to Advaita: a vast “space” of awareness in which appearances arise and dissolve like clouds in a sky. This has sometimes been described as the “sky of awareness,” a basic luminous openness in which samsara and nirvana are seen as appearances.

From the Buddhist side, the danger is being mistaken for nihilism: “emptiness” misunderstood as nothingness. The tradition itself warns that this misunderstanding is like grabbing a snake the wrong way—you get bitten. From the Advaita side, the danger is being mistaken for eternalism: taking Brahman or Atman as a definite “thing,” a cosmic entity among entities.

Both traditions, in their own way, are trying to prevent the mind from turning ultimate reality into a graspable object.

One tradition uses negation—emptiness, no-self—to stop conceptual clinging. The other uses affirmation—Self, Brahman—to point to the undeniable presence of awareness. When misunderstood, the Buddhist can collapse into “nothing matters,” and the Vedantin can solidify into “Brahman is a super-object.” But when understood properly, each is a discipline of release.

A vivid line attributed to a devotional Vedantic voice captures the convergence: “What the Buddhists call emptiness, we call fullness.” The terms differ; the intended freedom can be deeply aligned.

A Final Word in the Spirit of the Great Teachers

There is a spiritual saying often attributed to a master: when you search for the “I” within body and mind, you do not find it as a thing. You peel layers—physical, vital, mental, intellectual—like peeling an onion, expecting a core “self” to appear. Instead, you find no separate entity. In that sense, it is “empty.”

But does the search end in blankness? The teaching adds: what remains is awareness itself—not as a personal ego, not as a hidden soul inside the body, but as the luminous fact of knowing by which all appearances are revealed.

Where is it between “it is” and “it is not”? Between eternalism and nihilism? Between clinging to a self and denying the reality of awareness? The most careful spiritual philosophers and the most realized mystics often point to that “between”—the middle that is not a compromise, but a transcendence of the false alternatives.

On Buddha Purnima, this becomes more than a debate. It becomes a living invitation. Suffering is real as experience. Clinging intensifies it. Liberation is possible. And the deepest freedom may require a humility of mind: the willingness to let language loosen its grip—so that reality can be known not as a concept, but as what is already present, shining through every experience.

May that vision—whether called emptiness or fullness, nirvana or moksha—turn the heart away from grasping and toward peace.