The Five Aggregates Are Not Self, Not Different from Self, and Not Located Within Each Other

Many people say that the "self" in "the five aggregates are not self, not different from self, and not dwelling mutually with self" refers to the eighth consciousness. However, this is the contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā) of the Mahāyāna Dharma, which is undertaken on the basis of having already eliminated self-view (ātma-dṛṣṭi). At the stage of eliminating self-view in the Small Vehicle, one cannot yet engage in this contemplative practice.

The entire contemplative practice of the Small Vehicle is to enable the manas to eliminate self-view, not to enable the eighth consciousness to eliminate self-view. The eighth consciousness does not regard the five aggregates as He, nor does He grasp at the five aggregates. Therefore, when the contemplative practice reaches its end, if one says that the five aggregates are not the eighth consciousness, such a statement has gone off topic and is meaningless; it shows that this person has not genuinely done the work of contemplative practice and has not eliminated self-view.

The World-Honored One taught the Āgama sūtras for over ten years, guiding his śrāvaka disciples to attain the fruits and obtain liberation. Within this, there was no involvement of the specific contemplative practice content of the prajñā and Yogācāra portions, because the conditions of Small Vehicle practitioners were not yet complete; for them, merely knowing that there exists a true, imperishable self was sufficient. The prajñā portion was taught after more than ten years of teaching the Āgama sūtras; only then could one investigate Chan and awaken to the eighth consciousness, and only after that could one engage in contemplative practice of the eighth consciousness, and only at the very end was the Yogācāra portion taught. It was merely that when the Buddha taught the Four Noble Truths of suffering, its arising, its cessation, and the path, he implicitly told the śrāvaka disciples that there is something unborn and unceasing which is the true self. The disciples trusted and accepted the Buddha's words, knowing that when they attained nirvāṇa in the future, there would still be something that does not perish; only then could they cultivate the path with an assured mind, heading toward nirvāṇa.

When the śrāvaka disciples cultivated the Four Noble Truths, they only contemplated and deliberated upon the suffering, emptiness, impermanence, and non-self of the five aggregates and the eighteen realms; they could not contemplate and deliberate upon the eighth consciousness. So could the result of such contemplative practice lead to realizing the eighth consciousness? Could they know the nature of the eighth consciousness, and contemplate the relationship between the five aggregates and the eighth consciousness? Without having cultivated and contemplated that Dharma, of course they could not realize it. Since they could not realize it, how could there be the realized result that the five aggregates are not the eighth consciousness, that the five aggregates are not different from the eighth consciousness, and that the five aggregates and the eighth consciousness do not dwell mutually within each other?

As long as one has not realized the eighth consciousness through contemplative practice, it is impossible to know exactly what the relationship between the five aggregates and the eighth consciousness is. In fact, the śrāvakas of the Buddha's time initially did not understand much of the principle of the eighth consciousness. The bodhisattvas of secret practice are an exception, but they absolutely would not speak of it; they all fully cooperated with the World-Honored One—Dharmas the World-Honored One had not taught, they would not reveal, so as not to appear very capable themselves; their minds were all very subdued.

People nowadays, although they have studied some of the tathāgatagarbha Dharma, if they have not actually engaged in contemplative investigation, have not realized the tathāgatagarbha, and merely keep contemplating and deliberating upon the suffering, emptiness, impermanence, and non-self of the five aggregates and the eighteen realms, likewise they cannot truly know the actual relationship between the five aggregates and the tathāgatagarbha. Even if they know of it, it is only knowledge and scholarship, without the realization attained through present observation; then they cannot truthfully draw the conclusion of the relationship between the five aggregates and the eighth consciousness, the tathāgatagarbha. This conclusion can only be directly realized through present observation by a true bodhisattva who has realized the tathāgatagarbha. Those whose enlightenment is shallow, or who have only intellectual understanding, still cannot observe it; they can only have a similar understanding, and the conclusions they draw are not conclusions from direct observation (pratyakṣa), containing a great deal of learned knowledge.