Realizing the Non-Self of the Five Aggregates in Sotāpanna Attainment and the Purification of the Dharma Eye

Since beginningless kalpas, the manas has been clinging to the Five Aggregates and the Eighteen Realms. Why does it cling? Because the manas perceives these dharmas as the self and as belonging to the self, thus giving rise to attachment. If the manas no longer perceives these dharmas as the self or as belonging to the self, it will cease to cling, knowing that clinging is futile, craving is useless, and that these cannot be grasped—being empty, suffering, illusory, and unreal. Upon realizing this truth, one gradually relaxes this clinging, growing increasingly liberated and at ease. When the first fruit of enlightenment is attained, realizing the non-self of the Five Aggregates, the dharma-eye is purified. The mind’s eye then becomes purified, perception becomes purified, and conduct becomes purified. When afflictions are completely severed, conduct becomes supremely pure.