Thus ANatman, no soul.

It finally occurred to me one day, that when Buddhists speak of attachment as the major source of suffering in the world (this is the Second Noble Truth in a common understanding), they don’t so much mean attachment to the things we possess, whether physical or social. It’s not in the first place about pride or ego in that sense. It’s attachment to the self as such. Hard for a Westerner to give up the idea of soul or self. We are OK with a need for modesty, less pride, a smaller ego in that sense. But this other thing is way hard for us even to conceive.

I actually think it is equally hard for the East Asians to think this way. The most popular form of Buddhism in Asia is called Pure Land, in reference to a kind of heaven that is said to await the faithful after death.

Walpola Rahula, What the Buddha Taught, Grove Press 1959, 2nd and enlarged ed, 1974. Paperback.