²⁵While the no-self philosophy is widely associated with Buddhism, different Buddhist schools actually approach it in very different, even contradictory ways, and several interpretations exist. In fact, the philosophy of no-self has perhaps as many facets as the very concept of “self”. We already saw the interpretation of no-self as lack of control in Chapter 11. Another approach is to see “no-self” as a suggestion not to worry about self-evaluation or self-preservation, which was the interpretation of “self” in Chapter 6; rumination may not be possible without some concept of self to which the bad things are happening. In this latter sense, it may not be so much a “truth” describing the world, but rather a useful way of thinking, as we will see in Chapters 14 and 15. The ontological interpretation we have in this quote by Hume is yet another approach, probably the most well-known in Buddhist philosophy. At the risk of greatly oversimplifying this complex issue, I would venture to say that the Theravadan school is more in line with Hume here; Theravada considers self as an illusion, as something that does not exist. In contrast, Mahayana schools, with the possible exception of Madhyamaka, emphasize the primacy of consciousness, like Descartes, and do not deny the existence of self—although they do point out that our ordinary conception of self is mistaken in various ways. See Verhaeghen (2017) for a short, readable overview emphasizing some practical implications of such a philosophy; Vago and David (2012) emphasize how mindfulness works largely through self-related mechanisms. Harvey (2009) and Williams (2008b) give book-length expositions of the philosophy.