Ever since birth, without anyone telling us who we are as individuals, we have a particular notion of ourselves. We immediately see ourselves as discrete, unique individuals. That, according to Buddhism, can be reinforced through education. If we are then taught to believe in some kind of metaphysical notion of the self, or an immutable, immortal soul, etcetera, we will have completely lost our real perspective on how we see ourselves. According to Buddhism, that is an erroneous view of the ‘self.’ Our psychophysical constituents (skandhas) are the only things that serve as the basis for our self-identity, nothing more and nothing less. If we think that there is something more to ourselves than that, we have fallen into one of the principal wrong views. We have to learn to dismantle and transcend that view.
Traleg Rinpoche,
“The Ten Primary and Twenty Secondary Defilements of Mind,” Ordinary Mind Buddhist Review.