No-self or not-self, by Thanassiro Bhikku:

People don’t often realize it but despite Thanissaro’s popularity, this presentation of anatta is a completely novel and arguably controversial interpretation of the principle on his part.

There is a group of individuals who interpret anatta in an apophatic way based on SN 44:10, and Thanissaro Bikkhu’s insistence on “not self,” but the conclusion drawn is illogical, given that the consequence of “not self” would still be absence of a self. They assert there is no outright negation of a self, even though the Pāli suttas state sabbe dhamma anatta repeatedly, these individuals sometimes even believe the prospect of some sort of self that is exempt from “all dhammas” is somehow plausible.

This idea from Thanissaro is not an official position given that other Theravadins like Bhante Sujato disagree. Bhante Sujato says this idea that the Buddha refused to answer is false and that Thanissaro’s assertion to that end is flawed or incomplete. Sujato cites Bikkhu Bodhi for clarification, and explains that the silence in that one particular instance was to keep Vacchagotta from adopting a view of annihilationism where a self currently exists and then ceases to exist.

But Thanissaro is very popular so people consider his view authoritative. Arguably, as I’ve witnessed, adopting this “not-self” view as a process that does not make an ultimate claim regarding the impossibility of a substantial self results in an indifferent, indiscriminate no-man’s land of a position on anatta that injures the import and intention of the view.

The real meaning of anātman is selflessness, lack of self, without self, no self, absence of self and so on. The realization of anātman, which is the absence of the background substrate which the self or entity is imputed onto is the insight that brings about the species of awakening that the buddhadharma champions.

If the consequence of “not self” is not “no self,” as in an absence of a substantial selfhood, then “not-self” as a gloss and principle is an inadequate exercise in apophatic theology which will not go the distance. Still, the logical consequence of “not-self” is the same if the import of anātman in both conditioned and unconditioned dharmas is properly understood. Thus even if not-self is the exercise one chooses, then all phenomena and non-phenomena should be understood to be “not self” and then there is then no self to be found anywhere, and the same consequence is made apparent.

A lack of an inherent self is not annihilation, but the doorway to actualizing our true modality of cognition as gnosis [jñāna]. As Śākyamuni Buddha states in the Śatasāhasrikā-prajñāpāramitā-sūtra:

If it asked what is the samadhi known as the lamp of gnosis [jñāna], abiding in that samadhi is clearly explained as the absence of self in phenomena and persons.

The definition of anātman in Mahāyāna is pretty unambiguous, the Bodhisattvayogacaryācatuḥśatakaṭikā:

Ātman is an essence of things that does not depend on others; it is an intrinsic nature. The non-existence of that is selflessness [anātman].