One Must Realize the Dependent Nature (paratantra-svabhāva) Before Eliminating the Imputed Nature (parikalpita-svabhāva)

Without knowing the dependent nature (paratantra), how can one break through the imputed nature (parikalpita-svabhāva)? Once one knows the dependent nature, one gradually ceases to grasp at it. Knowing the true characteristics, the grasping nature gradually loses its power. Having realized the dependent nature, one gradually deepens one's contemplation and observation of all dependent natures, knowing them to be conceptual proliferation (prapañca), no longer being stained by them; the grasping nature becomes lighter and lighter, until in the end it is exhausted without remainder. The contemplative practice after the elimination of self-view (ahaṃkāra-mamakāra-parityāga) is still very important. Because the manas has not realized the dependent nature, it universally deliberates and grasps at all dharmas as truly real and unarising and unceasing. It is precisely because it grasps them as real that it takes charge and creates wholesome and unwholesome bodily, verbal, and mental actions, leaving behind karmic seeds, receiving retribution in future lives, and thus birth-and-death continues without end.