BUDDHISM FAMOUSLY SAYS that everything we are looking for—happiness, the end of suffering, even enlightenment—is found right here in this life. Chop wood, carry water, and all that.
But what is this life? It may be much vaster and deeper than we think, both less real and more real. And perhaps more importantly, what is it not? Because according to Buddhism, the whole problem is that we misunderstand the true nature of this life.
The Buddha said we make some fundamental cognitive errors about who we are and what we experience, and these cause our suffering. Looking at it that way, the whole Buddhist path is nothing but a way to get from who and where we think we are to who and where we really are.
The Buddha’s teaching on this path, and the insights behind it, are summarized in four simple statements. These four truths are called noble because they liberate us from suffering:
1. Our lives are pervaded by suffering, both obvious and subtle.
2. There is an identifiable cause of our suffering.
3. Because we know its cause, we can free ourselves from suffering.
4. There is a specific path we can follow to end suffering, which consists of meditation, wisdom, and ethical living.
This four-part logic is the world’s first, and to my mind still greatest, self-help formula. Buddhism is not only self-help. It’s the ultimate self-help.
I know this borders on heretical. After all, isn’t the very definition of Buddhism anatman—no self, no soul? Isn’t Buddhism famous for its doctrine of nonself? And if there’s no self, how can there be self-help?
But “no self” is a kind of shorthand. It doesn’t mean there’s no self at all. We exist, obviously. It means no mistaken self. It means that the type of self we deluded beings believe in doesn’t exist. In fact, this mistaken idea of self is the very problem. That’s why the truth of no self—no mistaken self—is the best self-help of all.
What is this false sense of self, what is often called ego? It’s the mistaken belief that we are a separate, independent entity with some sort of unchanging personal essence at our core. This self doesn’t exist. It’s a fiction we create based on our
