The spiritual teaching of Vedanta, in common with many other Indian belief systems, is characterised by its claim that individuals possess a spirit (atman) which is the soul or self. This self is eternal, unchangeable and part of Brahman or God. This is similar to the notion of 'soul' in other beliefs. This notion is central to Vedanta for the soul is viewed as the seed of all being. It clothes itself in various forms and experiences things. The spiritual quest is seen as a casting-off of all the mundane things with which the soul clothes and obscures its real nature. The blossoming and opening up of the soul which results from this casting off of its fetters will reveal its true nature as part of an eternal Brahman.
The Buddhist teaching is distinct from this and is characterised by three core principles known as the three 'seals' of its teaching.
In Sanscrit these are called Dukkha, Anitya and Anatman.
Dukkha refers to the fact that all life experiences suffering;
Anitya that all things are continually changing; and Anatman that there is no Atman or soul which is unchanging.
Buddhism teaches that although an Atman may appear to exist whatever it consists of is continually changing and cannot therefore be said to have a permanent nature. In fact, how its very existence is viewed or experienced is dependent upon the type of change taking place within the person who lays claim to experience it.
As this change is continuous, it is not possible to say truly that there is any fixed, unchanging reference point anywhere in the universe which we can come to know.

In Buddhism, consciousness is viewed as a continuum, a stream of mental and physical events which continue whether it be coincident with life or death. What we call 'Life' is that stream of mind/body events which are coincident with physical, sensorial existence; Death is that stream of mind/body events not coincident with physical sensorial existence. The continuity of this process is both what life is and what we are aware of. The Buddha taught that it is neither possible to know the exact beginning or end of this stream of consciousness nor is it useful to search for it.
Although one may become aware of particular parts of this continuous stream that part of us which is aware of it is but one of many other parts which go on and on and can never be completely known.
It is like trying to find a fixed point within the flow of a river.
Our minds are always trying to find such a point and place it somewhere within or without ourselves because by doing this we are reassured concerning our existence. It gives us a sense of constancy in a very inconstant world. It is from such a mistaken sense of constancy and permanency that we develop the idea of our 'self' and almost simultaneously the idea that we possess this self, it is 'ours' alone. From then on we seek to preserve, to extend and tirelessly prolong it.
In fact the only we ever have direct access to are our experiences of life as we experience them, no matter what we term them. They are fleeting and continually altering. If we try to examine these moments we are aware of only their changing features. If we try to halt this process of change we soon come to realise we cannot.
This may seem a laboured point, but it is a very necessary to recognise it because understanding the momentariness of our experiences means that you can regard consciousness in a different way, specifically in a way which is not possessive.
You do not say "this consciousness is owned by me" because you realise that that very 'me' is always developing. Change does not have a permanent nature which is unchangeable because change is its very nature and that is not permanent.
It is because we have got used to mistakenly seeing the impermanent as being permanent or the unpleasant as being pleasant that much of our suffering, be it subtle or obvious, arises. Such suffering may range from mild discomfort, irritation, annoyance, anger or outright blind hatred but each of these arises from our unawareness or deliberate avoidance of the fact of change.

Once this is properly understood we can begin to develop a different type of relationship towards the idea of consciousness, one that realises it is really only a relationship between moving parts. It may seem very important to us, or very valuable, but that is really what it is and nothing more. Because we tell ourselves that this relationship between moving parts is 'ours' we construct a hypothetical and strategic point of reference to focus it within, and this we term our 'identity', 'ego' or 'personality' etc.
It is that 'personality' which the followers of the Vedic teachings mistakenly call the 'soul' or Atman, the unchanging and eternal self.
The Buddha reminded us that the only constant characteristic of such a self is that there is nothing unchanging within it. It is quite easy to verify this within our ordinary day to day experience.
He pointed out that a great many of our problems in life come from creating a false view of ourselves as static i.e. "I am that, and as I am always that I shall conduct my life accordingly". In this way, we build up a pattern of structured, rigid and often selfish values.
With such a view we could hardly do anything else. By positing the creation of our 'soul' upon a deity we can avoid responsibility for its existence and pretend that because we were born with it so we have to live with it. If we didn't do this we would have to admit to inventing it and be totally responsible for all the events we and others experience, particularly those natural disasters we often create ourselves and call 'acts of God'.

Much of our suffering arises when our personal fixities and myths clash with how events turn out to be or when things appear to be taken away from us. This is often coincident in the external world with trauma - as when something changes unexpectedly within a person or their environment. Change is itself a type of suffering for which we are not usually prepared, therefore when it does occur we find it difficult to comprehend.
It is not enough to simply accept a changing world whilst still maintaining a concept of someone or something constant at its centre observing it. It is not really possible to have such a relationship since that which is creating it is itself changing.
Any static view of the relationships between things is misleading because it is that which is changing which is creating it. In order to create such a relationship, 'it' has to pretend it exists and therefore that 'it' can look at itself. It is this pretence which is largely responsible for the sense of inner alienation that many of us experience in our lives. It is well to recall here the Chinese saying 'The eye that looks cannot see itself nor can the sword which cuts slice itself'.
The self is like a flowing stream, with all its eddies and rivulets, currents and bubbles, continually moving and altering until it loses itself within the great ocean.
What is required is a different manner of seeing things or a different manner of understanding what 'seeing' consists of. Otherwise, although we may try very hard to see things properly, we will never succeed. If we look in the right way but at the wrong time or in the wrong way at the right time we will not understand what it is we see and, in the end, we will not see anything.
The Buddha says that we must understand what it is that we are looking at when we are looking for or at ourselves - and then we will not try to look in an ordinary manner.
This 'extra-ordinary' manner of looking is called in Buddhism - meditation.

Shifu Nagaboshi