Why the Five Aggregates Are Without Self and Belonging to Self

The capacity that can feel and perceive is the conscious mind. There are eight consciousnesses. If the conscious mind were the self, then when the consciousnesses cease, where would the self have gone? What arises and ceases is an illusory false appearance, lacking any self-mastery of its own, and therefore is not the self. For example, a pile of wood, earth, and water mixed together according to a certain principle forms a house. This house is an illusory false appearance that arises and ceases; it has no autonomy—it falls apart the moment it is said to fall apart—and cannot be taken as a truly existent dharma capable of self-mastery, to be grasped as a "house." 

Likewise, the so-called self of the five aggregates is also composed of the combination of the seven intrinsically existing great seeds; it too is an unreal dharma that constantly arises and ceases, without autonomy or self-mastery. It cannot be taken as the self, nor can it be taken as belonging to the self. Therefore the five aggregates are not the self nor what belongs to the self; there is no self and nothing belonging to the self. There is no need to crave and cling to them, no need to grasp them; do not take a dharma assembled from various components and treat it as a self that can be relied upon and depended on. Then, after no longer relying on or depending on dharmas that are composed of combinations, what happens? One no longer grasps at the five aggregates and the eighteen realms—and then what remains? If such a thought arises in the mind, thinking "what remains?", then the self has not been fully eliminated; there is still grasping and still seeking, and thus there is still birth-and-death and still suffering. 

If one fails to understand clearly what the "self" means in the elimination of self-view (ātma-dṛṣṭi), one cannot truly eliminate self-view. If one arrives at a conclusion such as "the five aggregates are not the eighth consciousness, are not the eighth consciousness, yet are not different from the eighth consciousness," that is merely imagination and inference—not even emotional thinking or intellectual interpretation, let alone anything more. Of course, self-view has not been eliminated, and no contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā) has been carried out on the five aggregates and eighteen realms in accordance with reality and principle. The mind still holds the self of the five aggregates and eighteen realms as existent; the self of the five aggregates and eighteen realms has not been abolished—it is only that the mind consciousness believes the five aggregates and eighteen realms are not the eighth consciousness. Emptiness (śūnyatā)—this meaning is extremely important. When contemplative practice reaches its end, one knows that the five aggregates and eighteen realms are empty. What is emptiness? Traced to its root, emptiness is none other than no-self. If there were something not empty, there would be a self. Who could take an empty dharma as the self? Only someone who has not contemplated the emptiness of the five aggregates [could do so].