The Most Crucial Aspect of Attaining Fruition Lies in Changing One's Views

Eliminating the view of self (ātma-dṛṣṭi) first requires changing old ways of thinking and establishing new ones, building a new cognitive framework. One must have a clear understanding of the phenomena of impermanence, fully and lucidly recognizing the impermanence of the world of the five aggregates (pañcaskandha)—its arising, ceasing, and transformation—and thereby establish that conditioned things marked by arising, ceasing, and transformation are empty and without self. But establishing such a mental framework is extremely difficult. Phenomena are easy to observe, but views are not easy to change. Establishing correct, reason-based views is many times harder than contemplating the impermanence of worldly phenomena through contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā). Impermanence is actually easy to observe; it is precisely because we are habituated to existence that it is hard to confirm things as empty, and even when we know emptiness, we still cannot confirm non-self—precisely because the old, ingrained notion of "self" is not easily broken through. 

This requires deliberate training to change one's views. How to train? For example, take a toy car, take it apart and reassemble it, assemble and disassemble it again, and then observe: in all this, is there a real toy car? Is a thing assembled from a pile of metal pieces a toy car? Is there such a thing as a toy car at all? A toy car is a dharma produced by causes and conditions; it has no autonomy, it arises, abides, changes, and perishes—arising, ceasing, and transforming—empty in itself, without any nature of self. You can likewise take a plastic doll apart and put it back together, observing the conditioned nature of its formation, and the impermanence and emptiness of the doll itself—its arising, ceasing, and transformation. Through repeated experimentation and observation, one gradually breaks down the notion of existence and establishes the notion of emptiness, forming a new cognitive framework. Only in this way can the view of self be eliminated.