Dharma Teachings

25 Oct 2019 Friday 4th Teach Total 1981

How to Determine Whether One Has Truly Eliminated Self-View (ātma-dṛṣṭi)?

<h2 style="text-indent: 2em;">Question: After sequentially contemplating the five aggregates as impermanent, suffering, and not-self, so that no self-view or view of ownership arises toward feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness anymore, how can one progress further? What is the subsequent direction? Or is it that after maintaining this state of non-fabrication and stillness for a period of time, one will automatically realize for oneself that "birth has been ended, the task has been done, and there will be no more rebirth"? Because in actual practice, within a very short time after emerging from meditation (one or two hours), the monkey mind comes back again, wanting to grasp and fabricate. I am going around in this cycle, and I feel that perhaps somewhere I have not fully connected with the Buddha's teaching.</h2>

Answer: Realizing for oneself that "birth has been ended, the task has been done, and there will be no more rebirth" can only be attained when one has cultivated to the stage of the fourth fruit, the great arhat—so let us not even think about that. First, securely and genuinely obtaining the first fruit, and only then talk about what comes after. For those who have not eliminated self-view in past lives, attaining the first fruit is already extremely difficult.

When contemplating the five aggregates of grasping as suffering, empty, impermanent, and not-self, one must correctly judge whether one truly regards the five aggregates of grasping as indeed suffering, empty, impermanent, and not-self. This is extremely important and is the crucial point. You cannot simply assume that because you think it is not-self, it is therefore not-self.

During contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā) and deliberation, the mind seems very pure; but after emerging from meditation and ceasing contemplation, there is still a self in the mind, and the mind is no longer pure. This shows that self-view has not been truly eliminated—it is not genuine not-self. Then you must continue the contemplative practice and keep up the work.

——Master Sheng-Ru's Teachings

The Attachment of the Manas to the Body

The Relationship Between the Four Great Seeds of the Tathāgatagarbha and the Human Essence, Qi, and Spirit