釋禪波羅蜜次第法門 9.70

9.70

Third, the notion of non-self: The practitioner should deeply contemplate: if conditioned phenomena are all suffering, then suffering is non-self. Why is that? Within the five grasping aggregates, all is suffering. If it is suffering, then it lacks self-mastery; if it lacks self-mastery, this is non-self. Why is that? If there were a self with self-mastery, it should not be oppressed by suffering; knowing suffering is precisely non-self. Furthermore, within the five aggregates, twelve sense bases, and eighteen realms, phenomena arise from conditions and thus lack self-nature. If one seeks the sixteen views of knower and seer—whether identical to the aggregates or apart from the aggregates—none can be found. Having found no self, one abandons all views and attachments, the mind grasps nothing, and one attains liberation. This is called the notion of non-self. These three notions—impermanence, suffering, and non-self—involve deep and subtle contemplative practice, and will be explained extensively below in the explanation of the truth of suffering.