Contemplative Practice on the Five Aggregates to Eradicate the View of Self

External form is jointly manifested by the tathāgatagarbhas of many beings, while internal form is manifested by one's own tathāgatagarbha; the eye faculty is manifested by the tathāgatagarbha, and eye consciousness is manifested by the tathāgatagarbha. The function of eye consciousness seeing form is the joint operation of the tathāgatagarbha, the seventh consciousness (manas), the sixth consciousness, and eye consciousness, which displays the internal form within eye consciousness and mind consciousness. Among these, the four consciousnesses each have their own functions, and they also have functions that operate in conjunction. Faculty, sense object, and consciousness—all three are manifested, upheld, and supervised by the tathāgatagarbha. Apart from these three, there are no sentient beings and no five aggregates. So what are the five aggregates and sentient beings? Where is the self, where are the five aggregates? Which one is the self?

Seeing forms, hearing sounds, smelling scents, tasting flavors, feeling tangibles, and discerning dharmas—all seeing, hearing, awareness, and knowing, all functions of feeling and perception, all thoughts and sentiments—what are they? Find out the dharmas upon which the five aggregates depend, and contemplate what these dharmas are, and what these dharmas in turn depend upon. Whatever has dependence is not real; it lacks self-mastery (avaśatā), is not autonomous, is suffering, empty, impermanent, subject to arising and ceasing, illusory, false, and without self.

Following this line of thinking, enter meditative concentration (samādhi) for contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā), sort out your thinking, and let the manas perceive, awaken, and personally realize it through contact. In the end, a voice within will tell you: all these dharmas truly have no real existence; it is all a farce. Where is the self? Which one is the self? None of them is. Then you weep bitterly, body and mind drop away, and nothing remains to obstruct you.

There is a process involved in this. When the manas is gradually about to recognize this fact, the mind will feel intense pain and distress. The self that has been grasped for so long is about to vanish before one's eyes; naturally the mind feels hollow and fearful, like standing at the edge of a cliff, terribly worried about falling off—hesitant, anxious, afraid—knowing there is nothing there, yet fearing that nothing can be grasped anymore. That state of mind is extremely agitated and turbulent. After a while, one can accept it, settle into peace, and return to normal. This is the process that one who is about to eradicate the view of self (satkāya-dṛṣṭi-prahāṇa) for the first time in this life must undergo. For those who have eradicated the view of self over many lifetimes in past lives, it will be very easy—joyful and delightful.

Whatever each person can come into contact with is privately owned by the individual; this private ownership represents a second layer of illusory manifestation—illusion upon illusion. Whether external and shared or internal and private, everything is illusory and false, without real existence; all are images reflected in a mirror. Of course, truly realizing the mirror-image contemplation occurs at the full mind-stage of the first bhūmi, when all the dharmas to be cultivated at the first bhūmi have already been completed.