Why Is It Said That the Five Aggregates Are Not the Self?

Because the five aggregates and the eighteen realms, arising and ceasing moment by moment, are illusory false appearances, lacking any self-mastery of their own, they are not the self. For example, a pile of wood, earth, and water mixed together according to a certain principle forms a house; this house is an illusory false appearance subject to arising and ceasing, without autonomy—it falls apart the moment it is meant to fall apart—and cannot be taken as a truly existent dharma capable of self-mastery, to be grasped as a "house." Likewise, the so-called self of the five aggregates is also composed of the combined seeds of the seven great elements; it is also a dharma of constant arising and ceasing, unreal, without autonomy, without self-mastery; it cannot be taken as the self, nor can it be taken as belonging to the self. Therefore the five aggregates are not the self nor what belongs to the self; there is no self and nothing belonging to the self, so there is no need to crave and cling, to grasp and seize—do not take a dharma assembled from various components as a self that can be relied upon and depended on. Then, after no longer relying on and depending on dharmas that are composed and combined together, what happens? One no longer grasps at the five aggregates and the eighteen realms—what else is there? If this thought exists in the mind, thinking "what else is there?", then I have not fully eradicated the view of self; there is still grasping, still seeking, and thus there is still birth and death, still suffering. 

If one does not clearly understand the "self" in the eradication of the view of self (satkāya-dṛṣṭi-prahāṇa), one cannot truly eradicate the view of self. If one arrives at a conclusion such as "the five aggregates are not the eighth consciousness—they are not the eighth consciousness, yet they are not different from the eighth consciousness"—then the view of self has not been eradicated, nor has there been any contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā) upon the five aggregates and eighteen realms in accordance with reality and principle. The mind still holds the self of the five aggregates and eighteen realms as existing; the self of the five aggregates and eighteen realms has not been abolished—the conscious mind merely believes that the five aggregates and eighteen realms are not the eighth consciousness, that is all.