All Various States of Consciousness Are Without Self (anātman)

To contemplate the non-self of the five aggregates and the eighteen realms, the main focus is contemplating the non-self of the mind consciousness. The mind consciousness has many states—some coarse, some subtle, some tranquil (praśama), some not tranquil, some empty, some not empty. To contemplate the mind consciousness, one must experience the arising, ceasing, impermanence, suffering, emptiness, and non-self of its various states. The mind consciousness has various state-marks, such as various marks of affliction, various marks of purity, various marks of emptiness, various marks of knowing, various marks of discernment, marks with language and words, marks without language and words, marks with sound, no sound, the mark of silence, the mark of clamor, and so on. All these marks and states are conditioned phenomena subject to arising, ceasing, and impermanence; none of them is self; all are empty.

This includes when the mind settles down and not a single thought arises—that is the mark of silence of the mind consciousness. Seeing through its illusory nature and not taking Him as real, as self, as the Dharmakāya Buddha (dharma-kāya-buddha), or as the Tathāgata, one eliminates the self-view (ātma-dṛṣṭi) of the mind consciousness at that moment. But there are still self-views of the mind consciousness at other times: in the gap between the previous thought having ceased and the next thought not yet arisen, it seems tranquil, yet in substance it is still a state of the mind consciousness. Only by seeing through Him can one eliminate the self-view of the mind consciousness.