The Ultimate Self-Help

HERE IS A HERESY: Buddhism is not only self-help, it’s the ultimate self-help.

Many people would consider this a heresy because it appears to violate one of Buddhism’s central principles—nonself. If there’s no self, how can there be self-help?

But nonself doesn’t mean there’s no self. We exist, obviously. What nonself really means is non self. The “mistaken self”—sometimes called “ego”—is a single, separate, unchanging entity. It doesn’t exist. But because we believe it does, we generate anger, greed, and indifference to protect it, and cause ourselves and others endless suffering.