The Buddhist ass's bridge
Buddhism has its own version of the ass's bridge (L., pons asinorum). The term 'ass's bridge', to refresh the reader's memory, is about the fifth proposition of the first book of Euclid, namely, "The angles at the base of an isosceles triangle are equal to one another." Believe it or not, some students of geometry didn't understand this and so, couldn't cross the bridge having to remain asses, as far as geometry was concerned.
In Buddhism, the ass's bridge is the failure to understand that when the Buddha is referring to the Five Aggregates of form, feeling, perception, volitions, and consciousness, saying of each one, "This is not my self" his words are not meant to be taken as a denial of self or atman. Far from it. The Buddha is simply denying that his self is psychophysical, i.e., the Five Aggregates.
In Buddhismthe old cannonthere are three ways the idea of self is used. First, there is the view that the self is one of the Five Aggregates which then makes an aggregate eternalan atman, in other words. This is eternalism which the Buddha didnt buy. The second way self is used is that there is no self or in Pali, nattha att. This is annihilationism (nattha att is not to be confused with anattthe two expressions are quite different). The Buddha was dead-set against the annihilationist view like the view of eternalism. The third, and correct use of self is that we regard each of the Five Aggregates this way: This is not mine, this I am not, this is not my self (netam mama, neso'hamasmi, na me so atta).
The third use of self is obviously Buddhisms version of the via negativa. The reason for this particular use of self is explained by George Grimm.
What I am not, can be determined with certainty, at all events; but a positive answer to the question as to what I am, may easily raise doubts as to whether I actually am that wherein the answer assert! s my ess ence to consist, as is amply proved by our divers philosophical systems. Therefore it must, from the outset, inspire us with confidence in the Buddha that he prefers the safer indirect way. (The Doctrine of the Buddha (1926), p. 120).
Presently, it seems to me that many Western Buddhists are unable to cross the asss bridge, that is, grasp the simple methodology of the via negativa in Buddhism that I am not this psychophysical apparatus which, I hasten to add, implicitly affirms the self. What appears to add to the confusion and the impossibility of crossing the asss bridge is Western materialism with its hatred of the transcendent. The Buddhist materialist cannot see beyond the armature of the psychophysical apparatus, that is, the Five Aggregates which, incidentally, belong to the Buddhist devil, Mara.
