The Most Crucial Point in Attaining the Fruit Is Changing One's Mindset

Breaking the view of self first requires changing old thought patterns and establishing new ones, forming a new cognitive system. One must have a clear understanding of impermanent phenomena, fully and lucidly recognizing the impermanence of the five aggregates in the worldly realm—their arising, ceasing, and changing. Thereby, one establishes the dharmas of arising, ceasing, and changing as empty and without self. However, establishing such a thought pattern is extremely difficult. Phenomena are easy to observe, but thought patterns are not easily changed. Establishing correct and proper concepts is many times more difficult than observing the impermanence of worldly dharmas. Impermanence is actually easy to observe; it is simply due to habitual attachment to existence that it is hard to confirm emptiness. Even knowing emptiness, one cannot necessarily confirm non-self, precisely because the old concept of "self" is not easily overcome.

This requires intentional training to change one's concepts. How to train? For example, take a toy car: disassemble it, reassemble it, disassemble it again, and reassemble it again. Then observe: within this process, is there a real toy car? Is the thing assembled from pieces of sheet metal the toy car? Does the thing called "toy car" truly exist? The toy car is a conditioned dharma—it cannot exist autonomously. It arises, abides, changes, and ceases; it arises, ceases, and changes. It is inherently empty, lacking the nature of self. Similarly, one can disassemble and reassemble a plastic doll, observing the conditioned nature that forms the doll, the impermanence of arising, ceasing, and changing inherent to the doll itself, and its emptiness. Through repeated experimentation and observation, one gradually breaks the concept of existence, establishes the concept of emptiness, and forms a new conceptual understanding. Only then can the view of self be effectively broken.