THE ANATTA OF JESUS CHRIST

Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ

Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not
regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but
emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and
being made in the likeness of men. Being found in
appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming
obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
PHILIPPIANS 2:5-8 (NASB version)
The text says Jesus emptied himself of the self. The Christian concept of
kenosis is consonant with the Buddha's teaching of anatta (no-self) a concept
that even professed Buddhists have difficulty in grasping. As the Zen legend
goes, one day the founder of Zen Buddhism Bodhidharma was summoned before
Emperor Wu.
What is the holy teaching? asked the Emperor.
Vast nothingness, nothing holy, replied Bodhidharma.
Then who is this that stands before me? asked the
dumbfounded emperor.
I don't know, said Bodhidharma. sa
This is the ideal of Buddhism: to be emptied of self, to be nobody.
Why did Judas give up on Jesus? Because of Jesus's no-self persona as
described in Isaiah 53:7.
He was oppressed and He was afflicted,
Yet He did not open His mouth;
Like a lamb that is led to slaughter,
And like a sheep that is silent before its shearers,
So He did not open His mouth.
- (NASB version)
St. Paul says that Jesus emptied himself to the point of dying a
humiliating death on the cross in Philippians 2. This is anatta a la Jesus
Christ. Paul exhorts Christians to nail their egos to the cross. I am crucified
with Christ (Gal. 2:20).

How many Christians give currency to the no-self-ness of Jesus? Perhaps

only the Christian contemplative in a desert retreat. The popular version of
Christ as the Messiah is to be found in the lyrics of Handel's Messiah:
The kingdom of this world is become
The kingdom of our Lord,
And of his Christ.....
King of kings, and Lord of lords
And He shall reign for ever and ever.
That's precisely what Judas expected Jesus to be a King of Kings and Lord of
lords of this world. The world can only think of the messiah as a superstar and
a conquering hero. But as Jesus told Pilate: My kingdom is not of this world.
If my kingdom were of this world, then my servants will be fighting so that I
would not be handed to the Jews; but as it is, my kingdom is not of this world
(John 18.34-36, NASB version). In other words, the kingdom of Christ is the
kingdom of no-self.
In his The Supersensual Life Jacob Boehme points out that the one
thing necessary in order that one may see and hear God is not to have the self
stand in the way, for it is the self that hinders one from seeing and hearing God.
STUDENT: How may I come to the supersensual life so
that I can see God and hear him speak?
MASTER: When you remain silent from the thinking and
willing of the self, the eternal hearing, seeing and speaking
will be revealed in you, and God will see and hear through
you.
As the Buddha has said:
Where self is, truth is not. Where truth is, self is not.
T. S. MONG
May 20-21, 2015