The Method for Eliminating the Innate Identity View (sahaja-satkāya-dṛṣṭi) 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 identity view is the identity view that a Srotaāpanna eliminates by contemplating one's own body and the bodies of others, and so forth. Among these, the four aggregates of feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness have no form-mark; they are not the physical body. The physical body possesses form-marks. When form-marks arise, the physical body is formed, created by the seeds of the four great elements. The form-marks are the marks that successively give rise to the physical body, and are the causal marks for forming the physical body. The seeds of the four great elements cease immediately after arising and cannot accumulate to form form-marks; thus the form-marks cannot accumulate into a physical body. Therefore, when a Srotaāpanna contemplates the physical body, he realizes that the physical body is neither existent nor nonexistent, neither existent-and-nonexistent, and thus the identity view is severed."

After the identity view is severed in this way, craving and attachment no longer arise. What has been said above is the true characteristic of the identity view: neither existent nor nonexistent, and neither existent-and-nonexistent. "Existent"—the mark is visible; "not existent"—the mark is empty, disintegrating, and subject to arising and ceasing; "nonexistent"—the four great elements do not accumulate, so the marks do not accumulate; "not nonexistent"—the mark is visible; "neither existent nor nonexistent"—it is neither existent nor nonexistent; existence and nonexistence mutually encompass each other, having a false and deceptive function, and even that function is not real.

The physical body is composed of various kinds of material form, and these various kinds of material form are the various form-marks. The various form-marks are composed of 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 follows concerns the substance and the actual facts. On the surface, the physical body's mark 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 dots wildly flying and dancing before his eyes, when in fact there are no black dots at all—he has seen wrongly. One cannot say the black dots exist or do not exist, nor can one say the black dots are neither existent nor nonexistent. The mark of the physical body is also like this: one cannot speak of the existence or nonexistence of the physical body, nor of neither existence nor nonexistence, nor of neither-neither-existence-nor-nonexistence. All dharmas transcend the four propositions and cut off the hundred negations.