Only by Reducing Attention to the Physical Body Can One Eradicate the View of Self

Whether one can eradicate the view of self (satkāya-dṛṣṭi) and realize the first fruit up to the fourth fruit depends on whether that person's view of the body and view of self are slight or severe. A person with a slight view of the body rarely cares about or attends to how the physical body is, does not spend much thought on deliberately taking care of it, is not overly concerned about the body's safety, and has little sense of fear. Such a person, because they are not very attached to the physical body and the five aggregates (pañca-skandha), can easily eradicate the view of self and realize the fruits. Because they do not pay much attention to the body and the five aggregates, there are few mental obstructions, making it easy to attain meditative concentration (samādhi); their contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā) of the five aggregates can proceed ever deeper, and when the contemplative practice is effective, eradicating the view of self becomes easier.

Practitioners of the past had deep roots of goodness and merit. Living in a world where material life was underdeveloped, they were not controlled by material desires, had fewer cravings, did not covet enjoyment and entertainment, and did not squander their merit without cause, so they could make continuous progress single-mindedly in their cultivation of the Path. People today are different: they crave comfort and a pleasant life too much, their minds are obscured by all kinds of desires, their karmic obstructions are not only eliminated very slowly but actually increase, and it is very hard for them to make any progress in the Path.

The arhats of the past were able to practice ascetic disciplines (dhūta-guṇa) because they had no view of the body or view of self, and had eradicated attachment to self; in their minds there was no fear for the safety of the self, they paid no attention to the environment surrounding the physical body, and only wished to extinguish all kinds of mental activities in order to attain Nirvāṇa without remainder (Anupadhiśeṣa-nirvāṇa). Modern people, by contrast, care deeply about the physical body—nutrition, maintenance, health preservation—yet due to karmic obstructions, one does not see many people who have maintained their bodies particularly well; instead they have increased the view of the body, so breakthroughs in cultivation are very difficult. Meticulous care of the physical body turns out in the end to be not worth the cost—gaining little and losing much, not knowing which is light and which is heavy. All of this is due to the influence of the modern living environment, coupled with insufficient roots of goodness and merit, which leads people to blindly and carelessly squander their own merit.

Therefore, if you wish to eradicate the view of self and attachment to self as quickly as possible, do not always be preoccupied with your own physical body and five aggregates; do not take too much care of yourself; try to see yourself and your living environment lightly, and devote your mind to the cultivation of the Path. At the same time, be careful not to squander your merit without cause. Merit is extremely important for cultivating the Path. Even if you have the merit of all the great bodhisattvas, do not casually deplete it; only by accumulating merit bit by bit can you ultimately achieve the Buddha's merit.