To alleviate dukkha, we must train the mind to see, in each moment of experience, that what we take to be a self is a flow of many mental events, arising, interacting, & passing. What seems like a solid self is more like a flock of birds, individual mental events maintaining position with each other, buffeted by the winds of external events, memories, & habits. Our tendency to grasp at this flock & cling to it for solace is the cause of suffering & dissatisfaction. The energy for this anxious, endless flight is our unconscious fear about our mortality, which creates unhappiness for all beings—ourselves & others. The Pāli anattā means “not self” literally. Along with anicca, “impermanence,” & dukkha, “suffering” or “unsatisfactoriness,” it is one of the “three characteristics of human experience” in Gotama’s teachings. All of Gotama’s teachings, ultimately, are designed to train us to observe the effects of these three realities of human experience. We observe that our experience—clearly & closely seen in meditation—equals constant change, & that there is nothing solid, nothing in experience that can be seen as a self to which experience occurs: the arising experience is, in fact, what we take for self. Self is the name we give to how we explain our experience. But since it constantly falls apart, it provides no lasting solace, nothing but continuous dissatisfaction, hidden even in moments of pleasure. This is dukkha, suffering & stress.