The Method for Eradicating the Innate View of Self as Taught in the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra

Original text:大慧。俱生者。须陀洹身见。自他身等。四阴无色相故。色生。造及所造故。展转相因相故。大种及色不集故。须陀洹观有无品不现。身见则断。如是身见断。贪则不生。是名身见相。

Explanation: The Buddha said, "Mahāmati, the so-called innate view of self is the view of self that the srotāpanna eradicates, by observing one's own body and the bodies of others, and so forth. Among these, the four aggregates of feeling, perception, volitional formations, and consciousness have no form-mark; they are not the physical body. The physical body is what possesses form-marks. When form-marks arise, the physical body is formed, created by the seeds of the four great elements. Form-marks are the marks that successively give rise to the physical body, and are the causal marks that form the physical body. The seeds of the four great elements cease immediately after arising and cannot accumulate to form form-marks, and thus form-marks cannot accumulate to form the physical body. Therefore, when the srotāpanna observes the physical body, he realizes that the physical body is neither existent nor non-existent, neither existent-and-non-existent, and thus the view of self is eradicated."

After the view of self is eradicated in this way, craving and attachment no longer arise. What is stated above is the true mark of the view of self: neither existent nor non-existent, and also neither existent-and-non-existent. "Existent" means it is visible as a mark; "not existent" means the mark is empty, disintegrating, and subject to arising and ceasing; "non-existent" means the four great elements do not accumulate, so the mark does not accumulate; "not non-existent" means it is visible as a mark; "neither existent nor non-existent" means it is neither existent nor non-existent—existence and non-existence mutually encompass each other; it has a false, illusory function, and even its function is not real.

The physical body is composed of various material forms (rūpa-dharma), and these various material forms are the various form-marks. The various form-marks are composed of the subtle particles of the four great elements, and the subtle particles of the four great elements are composed of the seeds of the four great elements. What was discussed earlier concerns the surface appearance; what is discussed later concerns the substance and the facts. On the surface, the mark of the physical body seems to exist, to have function, and to be real; in actuality, there is no real mark of a physical body—it is illusory, empty, and false. For example, a person who is dizzy sees black spots wildly flying and dancing before his eyes, when in fact there are no black spots at all—he has seen wrongly. One cannot say the black spots are existent or non-existent, nor can one say the black spots are neither existent nor non-existent. The mark of the physical body is the same: one cannot speak of the existence or non-existence of the physical body, nor of neither existence nor non-existence, nor of neither-neither-existence-nor-non-existence. All dharmas transcend the four propositions and are beyond the hundred negations.