The Process from Eliminating Self-View at the First Fruit to Eliminating Self-Grasping at the Fourth Fruit

The depth of the wisdom by which the manas eliminates self-view varies, and this is divided into different levels. It is like learning to cook: after becoming a chef, one still needs continuous hands-on practice to master the techniques of cooking, and then one becomes a first-grade chef, a second-grade chef, and eventually a special-grade chef. The manas eliminating self-view is likewise like a student who has just entered the school gate and can only graduate after several years of study. Of course, this does not rule out outstanding students skipping grades—that is, among Buddhist practitioners, those with exceptional wholesome roots may, at the time of realizing the fruits, attain the second, third, or fourth fruit in varying degrees.

The degree to which the mind consciousness and the manas understand the principle of no-self in the five aggregates differs, their views differ, and thus the fruits they realize differ. After attaining the first fruit, one needs to continually engage in ever-deeper contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā) on the suffering, emptiness, impermanence, and no-self nature of the five aggregates and the eighteen realms. As understanding deepens continuously and the reversal of one's views becomes more and more thorough, the wisdom of no-self grows ever deeper, and self-grasping becomes ever lighter. Finally, when one reaches the utmost of the Small Vehicle principle of no-self, self-grasping is completely eliminated, various wisdoms arise, and one gains the ability to transcend the three realms, attain liberation from birth and death, and enter nirvāṇa without remainder (anupadhiśeṣa-nirvāṇa). To whatever degree wisdom is realized, afflictions are eliminated to that degree, self-grasping is lightened to that degree, and the fruit attained is of that degree.

For example, when the World-Honored One beheld the morning star at midnight and suddenly awakened, He eliminated the last portion of ignorance and attained the greatest and most ultimate wisdom, and thus instantly became a Buddha, needing to wait for nothing and to cultivate nothing further, because ignorance had already been completely eliminated and there was no dharma left to cultivate.

As for a person of the first fruit, the manas's wisdom of no-self is still shallow, and the fundamental ignorance is still heavy, so the self-view has not been completely eliminated. When continuing observation and cultivation, the understanding of no-self in the five aggregates becomes ever more profound, wisdom becomes ever deeper and more penetrating, and ignorance becomes ever lighter. All this is the result of step-by-step cultivation. When wisdom reaches its ultimate, there is no need to cultivate any further; ignorance and afflictions are simultaneously eliminated completely, and the fourth fruit, the stage of being beyond training (aśaikṣa), is attained at the same time.