I said no "such" self exists, for Buddhists, the word "such" referring to what I said in the previous paragraph about the egoist's narrow sense of self. What isn't supposed to exist is an essence of anything that corresponds to our concepts, including the concept of ourselves. This is similar to Heraclitus's view that only the incomprehensible flow of events exists. This is an empiricist, anti-rationalist view of ontology. So what exists are the particular mental events which are better sensed than conceptualized, which flow by, and about which we can be mindful, attaining the negative state of nirvana, of tranquil, detached observation.

I say this amounts to the advocacy of neutrality towards a known monstrosity, but it's known especially to us, to those who live after the Scientific Revolution. I have another article coming out on this point in a week or so.

I take the question of Buddhism's motivation to be an important and mysterious one. The early Buddhists are careful not to outright recommend Buddhism as a therapy. They emphasize only that their process works, not that everyone has a moral obligation to be happy. The problem is that the focus on causality threatens to undermine any moral stance with nihilism.