  3. Not-self (anātman). This Buddhist view of the  impermanence of all phenomena works against the natural tendency to  assume that knowledge and experience are attributable to a self that  is permanent, stable, and unchanging. Instead of reifying each moment of existence, and operating with the assumption that continuity is  the hallmark of our lives, the Buddhist view presents a fluid account of experience as an ever-changing stream of psycho-physical events.  This dynamic model of human existence comprises the five classes  of phenomena the Buddha referred to as the “aggregates of  grasping” (upādāna-skandha), on account of  our tendency to grasp after and identify with them (see   §2.3).  These classes of phenomena are to be understood purely in causal  terms, and not as the attributes and activities of a substantive  self. There is no self or substantive mind that either supervenes on or  exists apart from these aggregates. Rather, as the term  ‘aggregate’ suggests, the Buddhist tradition introduces a new and unique way of talking about human experience by avoiding the  metaphysical pitfalls of reification.