![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Ahh, the age-old burning question. And here is an interesting response from a Buddhist on my Discord. S says:
I've seen other Buddhist commentators also point out that the Buddha never explicitly denied the existence of the soul. It's just his teachings encouraged disciples to avoid fixating on that particular question.
The Pali Canon never denies the existence of the soul as such, only its identification with various psycho-physical attributes, i.e., the khandhas. Some will say that the latter, taken together, constitute a kind of impermanent soul, but the Buddha never says this either. The method in these scriptures is almost purely apophatic, designed to clear away false conceptions of the self. It is also Pyrrhonian, in that it warns of the dangers and futility of idle speculation on such matters as whether the soul exists and what nature it has.
It is not that these questions do not have answers, but that expressing them clearly is difficult and knowing them unnecessary to awakening, at which time one does gain full knowledge thereof. A buddha, for example, has perfect knowledge of his past lives and those of others, which is another tell that something akin to a soul is not categorically rejected. Look also at descriptions of Nirvana. The Hindu would rightly say that the descriptions of Nirvana basically match the descriptions of the Atman in Vedanta.
The point in all this, which is the point figures like Nagarjuna make, is not to be beguiled by words, which are inherently slippery. Look at the meanings of words, not the words themselves, and even after that, recognize that these meanings are necessarily limited and incomplete. As the Surangama Sutra says, mistake not the finger pointing at the moon for the moon itself.
Within the Mahayana, you find the positive use of the word soul in the tathagatagarbha literature as a synonym for buddha-nature, Nirvana, etc. These texts forthrightly make the connection mentioned above, that there are notions of the soul that practically correspond to Nirvana and the like.
I've seen other Buddhist commentators also point out that the Buddha never explicitly denied the existence of the soul. It's just his teachings encouraged disciples to avoid fixating on that particular question.
