Selfless Care? Heidegger and anattā

Abstract

This chapter asks whether and in what sense(s) the un-self-centred way of being that Heidegger develops in his later writings under the description Gelassenheit parallels the Buddhist doctrine of anattā.  The term Gelassenheit is adopted from Meister Eckhart, for whom it meant a relinquishing of the appropriating desire that constitutes the ordinary self. It does not per se involve a denial of the reality of the individual self in every respect. Yet Heidegger’s thought, both early and late, has been compared with Buddhist positions both because of its critique of the Cartesian notion of the self as an underlying substance, and because Gelassenheit as a way of being seems similar to Buddhist ideals of liberation that rest on seeing through the fiction of the self. At the same time, though, one should notice that Heidegger came to affirm the idea of Gelassenheit through a critical confrontation with Nietzsche, who denies the ultimate reality of the self as a single entity but nonetheless affirms the value of assertive will to power, an ideal that is the opposite of Buddhist selflessness. An exploration of these themes through a comparative focus on Heidegger and anattā helps to identify various senses in which the self could be said to “be” or exist. It also raises questions about the relation between metaphysical views on this subject and existential, ethical or soteriological ideals.