According to the Buddha's teaching, it is as wrong to hold the opinion "I have no self" (which is the annihilationist theory) as to hold the opinion "I have self" (which is the eternalist theory), because both are fetters, both arising out of the false idea I Am. The correct position with regard to the question of Anatta* is not to take hold of any opinions or views, but to try to see things objectively as they are without mental projections, to see that what we call I, or being, is only a combination of physical and mental aggregates, which are working together interdependently in a flux of momentary change within the law of cause and effect, and that there is nothing permanent, everlasting, unchanging, and eternal in the whole of existence.
---Walpola Rahula, in What the Buddha Taught---
* Anatta: In Buddhism, the term anattā (Pali) or anātman (Sanskrit) refers to the doctrine of "non-self", that there is no unchanging, permanent soul in living beings.
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