SNAKE IS THE ROPE
Now the teaching does not deny the existence of the person taken as a psycho-physical complex. What it denies is that the person exists as a 'self', as a lasting, simple ego-entity.

The person exists, but the person is anatta. The individual is a complex of five aggregates, and to say that a person exists is to say that this unified compound of the five aggregates exists. To say that a person is Anatta is to say that no inner nucleus of selfhood can be found within or behind the personality made up of the five aggregates.

Perhaps one can make this point clearer with an example. Suppose we are walking down the country road at night. We look down at the ground and suddenly we see a snake and become frightened. Then we turn our flashlight on it. We look again and we see that there is only a rope, no snake. The rope was there all along, never a snake, but the rope appeared to us to be a snake because our sight was obscured by the darkness, because we did not focus our light on it. As a result of seeing a snake we became filled with fear and worry. When we found that it was only a rope, the appearance of the snake dissolved. We can compare the snake to the idea of self or ego, the flashlight to wisdom, and the rope to the complex of five aggregates.