Eliminating self-view (ātma-dṛṣṭi) enables one to realize the tathāgatagarbha through direct experience

Before directly realizing the tathāgatagarbha, the stages of warmth, summit, patience, and the highest worldly dharma will first appear. Warmth, summit, patience, and the highest worldly dharma refer to the process whereby, through investigating the tathāgatagarbha, or through studying the principle of the non-self of the five aggregates in the Āgama sūtras, one gradually negates the five aggregates as self within the mind; wisdom gradually becomes clear and bright, until one finally fully accepts that the five aggregates are not self and not different from self (na m’eso attâ ti), eliminates the self-view (ātma-dṛṣṭi), transcends ordinary worldlings, and becomes the foremost person in the world.

Only after completely negating the five aggregates, negating the seven consciousnesses as self, and negating the six sense bases, six sense objects, and six consciousnesses, can one realize the true self, thereby becoming enlightened and seeing one’s true mind. Past Chan patriarchs said: “打得五阴死许汝法身活”, which means precisely this: only by first negating the reality of the five aggregates and severing the self-view that takes the five aggregates as self can the pure and true Dharmakāya (dharma-kāya) vividly manifest in the mind, whereupon one immediately confirms that this is self-nature (svabhāva), this is the tathāgatagarbha, this is the Dharmakāya. After this one death and one life, the foundation for attaining buddhahood is established.

Although it is possible that between the two, within an extremely short time—even in the very instant of negating the five aggregates—one finds the tathāgatagarbha, that too is something that occurs after the elimination of self-view. People generally say that self-view is eliminated at the time of seeing one’s true mind or afterwards, but in reality, without negating the five aggregates and the seven consciousnesses, one cannot realize the tathāgatagarbha, because the fog of the five aggregates and seven consciousnesses obscures the manifestation of the tathāgatagarbha—fish eyes are mixed in with pearls, and for the time being one cannot yet distinguish the true from the false.

Once self-view is eliminated and the false is negated, the true leaps forth, and one realizes the tathāgatagarbha. If the false five aggregates have not been negated, the eye of wisdom cannot arise, and one cannot recognize the tathāgatagarbha; one must continue investigating until self-view is eliminated, and only then can one find the tathāgatagarbha, which does not belong to the five aggregates and the eighteen realms (dhātus)—perhaps this is a matter of a single instant.