Is Eradicating the View of Self Easy?

Here are a few excerpts from A Short History of Nearly Everything introducing material particles. Particles are not only extremely small and extremely fast, but also fleeting and transient. A particle can appear and vanish within a time as short as 0.000 000 000 000 000 000 000 001 seconds.

Think about it—is the tathāgatagarbha busy? Extremely busy, yet it has no feelings and no notion of busyness. Is the arising and ceasing of matter fast? Because it is so fast—extremely fast—it exceeds the range that the conscious mind can know, so the conscious mind cannot observe it, and therefore people believe that material changes are slow and that there is always enough time for everything.

All sentient beings are in ignorance: whatever they cannot observe themselves, they believe does not exist. They forever trust their own observation and are unable to trust the facts.

For something that arises and ceases and changes with such extreme rapidity, what reality does it have? What obstructive quality does it have? Yet we firmly cling to the material body, believing that the physical body is real, solid, unchangeable, and cannot be freely passed through. Because of the firm clinging of the manas, the body—which by nature can accommodate and admit all things—is obstructed by all things, with no freedom at all. In reality, it is the mind obstructing the mind itself. Let the mind melt away!

Therefore, never think that the eradication of the view of self (satkāya-dṛṣṭi-prahāṇa) is easy, something that can be obtained at one's fingertips—that by reading a couple of books one eradicates the view of self, that by listening to a few hours of lectures one eradicates the view of self, that by having the mind consciousness ponder it a bit one eradicates the view of self, and that from then on one is forever cut off from the three evil destinies. There is no such simple matter, no such easy matter. If the world were full of people who had attained the first fruit and eradicated the view of self, that would be sheer fantasy—something that perhaps would not even appear in a dream.

Cultivation means diligently and honestly applying effort to practice and permeation; there is no shortcut, and one must not resort to opportunism.