Are the Functions and Operations of the Five Aggregates the Real Self?

Only when the seeds of consciousness arise do the functions and activities of the five aggregates (pañcaskandha) come into being; when they do not arise, the functions and activities of the five aggregates do not exist. So are all these functions and activities of the five aggregates real? Are they the self? Am I thus fixed and confined, thus governed and controlled? Am I something arising and ceasing, unstable and uncertain? Can these ungraspable functions and activities of the five aggregates be the real self?

The five aggregates that survive only by eating and would starve to death without food—can they be the self? The five aggregates that can sustain life only with air, and whose life activity would cease without air—are they the self? The five aggregates that can walk, sit, and lie down only when vital energy and blood are replenished, but become stiff as firewood without them—the five aggregates so rigidly bound and limited by all kinds of conditions and causes—can they be the self? Such a five-aggregate body, lacking self-mastery and autonomy—what is there in it to crave and treasure?