The True Meaning of the Selflessness of Persons

The view of no-self in persons (pudgala-nairātmya) is the view held by both Hīnayāna and Mahāyāna noble ones; they have, to varying degrees, realized that the five aggregates are not the self yet not different from self. Those who have completely realized that the five aggregates are without self are the arhat of the fourth fruit, the pratyekabuddhas, and the great bodhisattvas of the eighth bhūmi and above. The opposite of no-self in persons is the self in persons—the belief that the person of the five-aggregate body has a self-nature and is the self. This is the view of ordinary sentient beings, and it belongs to wrong view (mithyā-dṛṣṭi), which can invite the suffering of birth and death in the six realms of saṃsāra. If sentient beings take the five-aggregate body as the five-aggregate body, regarding it as truly existent, that is the ignorant wrong view of birth and death; if sentient beings do not take the five-aggregate body as the five-aggregate body, but instead regard it as born of the eighth consciousness, as the functions and operations of the eighth consciousness, whose essence is the eighth consciousness itself, then such a being has eradicated the view of self that takes the five aggregates as the self, and has realized that the five aggregates are not the self—the five aggregates have no real attributes of their own; all their attributes belong to the eighth consciousness. This is the view of the Mahāyāna bodhisattvas. In this way, the karma, afflictions, and delusions of birth and death in the six realms of saṃsāra are gradually brought to an end, and one can be liberated from the cycle of the three realms; yet the bodhisattvas will not leave the three realms.

A bodhisattva who has eradicated the view of self has realized no-self in persons: he no longer takes the person as a person, no longer takes the aggregate of form as the aggregate of form, no longer takes the aggregate of feeling as the aggregate of feeling, no longer takes the aggregate of perception as the aggregate of perception, no longer takes the aggregate of volitional formations as the aggregate of volitional formations, no longer takes the six faculties as the six faculties, no longer takes the six sense-objects as the six sense-objects, and no longer takes the six consciousnesses as the six consciousnesses; rather, he regards all of them as attributes of the eighth consciousness, as the functions and operations of the eighth consciousness. The five aggregates and eighteen realms are precisely the eighth consciousness itself; therefore, "the five aggregates are not the self" does not mean that the five aggregates are not the eighth consciousness.

Thus the true meaning of no-self in persons is not that the person is not the eighth consciousness, but that the person lacks any attributes of a "person"—the person is not the self called "person"; the attributes of a person do not hold up, the functions of a person are not real, for the functions of a person are impermanent, subject to arising and ceasing and to change, and are also bestowed by the eighth consciousness. After eradicating the view of self in this way, one no longer takes the five-aggregate body as the self or as possessing a self, and no longer regards the five-aggregate body as belonging to the self; then there is no so-called "self" in the mind. It is precisely because sentient beings take the five aggregates as the self that they have self-grasping and the suffering of birth and death in saṃsāra; if all sentient beings recognized the five aggregates as the eighth consciousness, they would realize no-self, and there would no longer be a self in their minds. Once there is no self in the mind, the grasping at the self will gradually lessen, until finally self-grasping is completely eradicated. Where there is no grasping, there is no birth and death, and one will be freed from the suffering of saṃsāra.