Leaving the Last of the Day

Buddhism does not say that you are nothing, nor does it say that the self is nothing, nor does it say that the self is a conglomerate of nothing. What it is saying is that there is no thing that can be identified as the self, no eternally unchanging core, no permanent object that makes up the self.

To extrapolate from that philosophy to the conclusion that you are nothing, I realize, is an easy step to take. However, it is going one step too far. The first hand realization of what the self is (if it is not a thing, nor nothing) is one of the points of Buddhist practice.

And it is the realization of this truth about the self that enables us to have the clarity to see the choices we are making, tempers our wishes and longings with wisdom, and reminds us that the illusions of the self that we identify with, and which entrances our attention so, is in reality, not the self that we truly are.