Methods for Eliminating the Identity View (satkāya-dṛṣṭi)

Answer: This method of returning things can help eliminate the view of the body; the Buddha taught this in the Śūraṅgama Sūtra. However, the material form within the body has been returned to the wrong owner. The Earth and the Sun are also material form, and they too have an owner to whom they must be returned. If one regards the Earth and the Sun as the owners of material form, this is still a wrong view and cannot eliminate the view of the body. The owner of the material form within the physical body is the tathāgatagarbha. It is the tathāgatagarbha that uses the seeds of the four great elements to form the particles of the four great elements, and these particles continuously aggregate and condense into the physical body—from a single fertilized egg to the fetus's body, to the body of an infant after birth, then continuing to condense into the body of an adolescent and an adult, and the body of an elderly person. Finally, the seeds of the four great elements return to the tathāgatagarbha, and the physical body perishes and disappears. The entire process demonstrates that the tathāgatagarbha is the owner of material form. The physical body as a whole is something that is produced and transformed, and is therefore empty, and thus is without self. In this way, the view of the body can be eliminated. However, the process by which the seeds of the four great elements form the physical body cannot actually be contemplated directly in practice. Although such contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā) can be carried out very thoroughly and exhaustively, if one's meditative concentration and wisdom are insufficient, it is still easier to eliminate the view of the body from the perspective of the Four Noble Truths.