Buddhism offers one of the most radical critiques of identity: the doctrine of anatta or no-self, which holds that what we call the self is not a thing but a process — a constantly changing stream of experience to which the mind incorrectly attributes a fixed, enduring identity. This is not nihilism but liberation: if the self is not a solid thing to be defended, it cannot be diminished or threatened in the ways the ego fears. The paradox is that loosening the grip on identity often produces the very stability and equanimity that the grasping self was trying to secure.
Juana