Tag Archives: Doctrine of the Buddha

Surprisingly little is written about the German Pali scholar, Dr. George Grimm (1868-1945), yet his contribution to analyzing the ātman/anātman dichotomy is unsurpassed. His writings, in particular his monumental “Doctrine of the Buddha: The Religion of Reason and Meditation”, finely nuances the True Self as a radiant bliss, “Our I or self, rid of all transient and sorrowful attributes, is eternal, complete in itself, and full of bliss.” The Zennist writes that for most modern Buddhists “Grimm’s words are a hard slap,” indeed a slap in the face of those who have “lost the ability to distinguish the psychophysical organism from himself because there is no self for him—he is all organism.” When the Self clings to what it is not, the “psychophysical organism” becomes dominant, a much misaligned characteristic that triggers perpetual re-genesis of the skandhic hosts. The modern Buddhist is so enamored with the anātman (or the great No-Self) that he refuses to acknowledge the actual teaching on the great dichotomy as reported by Grimm: read more