The Method of Eradicating the View of Self

Question: Suppose the ownership of all the tiny particles (matter) that make up the body belongs to the Earth, and the ownership of the energy that enables movement belongs to the Sun. If we remove the borrowed matter and energy, what remains is an empty, vacant state, and one does not know what the self is. Can this kind of contemplation help in eradicating the view of self (satkāya-dṛṣṭi)?

Answer: This method of returning things can help in eradicating the view of self; the Buddha spoke of it in the Śūraṅgama Sūtra. However, the material form (rūpa) 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 takes the Earth and the Sun as the owners of material form, this is still a wrong view, and the view of self cannot be eradicated. 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; these particles then continue to gather and accumulate, condensing into the physical body—from a single fertilized egg to the physical body of a fetus, then to the physical body of an infant after birth, continuing to condense into the physical body of an adolescent and an adult, then the physical body of an elderly person, and finally the seeds of the four great elements return to the tathāgatagarbha, and the physical body ceases 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 generated and subject to change, all of it is empty, and therefore it is selfless (anātman). In this way, the view of self can be eradicated. However, the process by which the seeds of the four great elements form the physical body cannot actually be observed directly through contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā). Although contemplating in this way can be extremely thorough and ultimate, if meditative concentration (samādhi) and wisdom are insufficient, it is still easier to eradicate the view of self from the perspective of the Four Noble Truths.