Before Breaking the Imputed Nature, One Must Realize the Dependent Nature

If one does not understand dependent arising (paratantra), how can one break through the imputed nature (parikalpita-svabhāva)? Once one knows dependent arising, one gradually ceases to grasp at it. Knowing the true reality, the grasping nature gradually loses its power. Having realized dependent arising, one gradually deepens one's contemplation and observation of all dependently arisen natures, knowing them to be conceptual proliferation (prapañca), no longer being stained by them; the grasping nature becomes ever lighter, until in the end it is exhausted without remainder. Contemplation after the eradication of the view of self (satkāya-dṛṣṭi-prahāṇa) remains very important. Because the manas has not realized the dependently arisen nature, it universally deliberates and grasps at all dharmas as truly unarising and unceasing; because it grasps them as real, it takes charge and creates wholesome and unwholesome bodily, verbal, and mental actions, leaving behind karmic seeds, receiving retribution in future lives, and thus birth-and-death continues without end.