Are the Functions and Effects of the Five Aggregates the True Self?

Only when the seeds of consciousness arise do the functions and activities of the five aggregates (pañca-skandha) come into being; when they have not arisen, there are no functions and activities of the five aggregates. So are all these functions and activities of the five aggregates real? Are they the self? Is the self thus fixed and confined, dominated and controlled? Is the self subject to constant arising and ceasing, unstable and uncertain? Can these functions and activities of the five aggregates, so impossible to grasp and hold onto, be the real self?

The five aggregates that can only stay alive by eating, and would starve to death without food—can they be the self? The five aggregates that can only sustain their life activities with air, and whose life 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, bound tightly by all kinds of conditions and causes—can they be the self? Such a body of five aggregates, lacking self-mastery and autonomy—what is there in it to crave, cherish, and treasure?