ABSTRACT
In a previous chapter it was suggested that for Buddhism the essence of liberation (Buddhist salvation) is the resolution of the problem of selfhood. Indeed, more than any other major religion Buddhism gives itself directly and specifically to this problem. The scriptural canon of Southern Buddhism gives an overwhelming amount of its attention to questions that have to do with the destruction of false ideas of the self and with the weaning of man away from the delusions clustering about “self.” Much attention is given to the development of a “true” self, the self of enlightenment. But language betrays us here, since Southern Buddhism seldom if ever speaks of a true self even when describing methods of self-control necessary to liberation. Even these latter are spoken of in the context of the total destruction of all selfhood, the achievement of complete selflessness. It sometimes takes considerable penetration to find the lineaments of that “positive” selfhood which comes to light only through the negation of all selfhood.
