The "empirical self" in Buddhism Is it right to say that all Buddhists both do and don't believe in the "empirical self", as in the conscious mind and its concomitants?

And in order I might make sense of your answer, can the latter "not self" be thought of as an absence of any conscious mind from reality itself?

Finally, does that reality include or consist of the Buddha and how can we unenlightened beings confirm that, besides confirming suchness, when it seems we cannot confirm suchness is known?



Peter Harvey in the selfless mind says:


  an empirical self strictly speaking neither exists nor does not exist
In advance stages of Buddhist mediation the exercise is to reduce non conducive notions (see: Girimananda Sutta for such notions). The notion of self or not self is a notion, and it is these preconceived notion you should eliminate as clinging to them causes misery when reality does not match with you notion.

If you have a self image that I am so and so and when this gets shattered it causes pain. If you do not hold into such notion then there is no pin.