Verhoeven, Martin. "Buddhist Ideas about No-Self and the Person." Religion East & West 56, no. 4 (Oct. 2006): 33-51.

Abstract

The author argues that the doctrine of no-self, although fundamental to Buddhist teaching, is widely misunderstood as a form of nihilism. The essential teaching is that all phenomena, including the human self, are composites, and that therefore they have no permanent essence of their own. The Buddha did not, however, discount the experience of a self; on the contrary, he held that our attachment to self is the ultimate cause of suffering.