Also,

For you the yogi seeing selflessness would not
Then realise the reality of form and such.
Not having seen its nature, when perceiving form
They’re caught by it, creating passion and so forth. (6.131)

Someone who has not savoured the nectar found in the centre of the flower cannot gain an experience of it merely by saying that there is a cuckoo upon the flower. And once its flavour is known, the experience will not go away, and one cannot rid oneself of the accompanying clinging, just by saying there’s no cuckoo upon flower.

It’s the same in this case. If a yogi sees that phenomena like forms and so forth lack a permanent self but does not come to understand their nature, what will he have gained? And, although by perceiving the nature of forms and so forth the attachment to such perceptions are relinquished, what effect will that have on the non-existent self? Nobody who understands its lack of existence and abandons attachment to these objects is doing this so that it may experience pleasure, thinking, ‘May the inner soul be happy!’; or, worrying that it will suffer, avoids those things that are uncomfortable to it. Since perception of form leads to this involvement, attachment and so forth will be the outcome. And since coming to understand its nature will not lead to the destruction of attachment and so forth, this approach may be considered equal to that of non-Buddhist schools.

One might think, ‘We accept the validity of the scriptures, and will not be harmed by these logical measures. And the scriptures do state that the aggregates constitute the self:

O mendicants, those ascetics and brahmins who perceive things in terms of ‘I’, are in fact only perceiving the five assimilated aggregates.¹

‘And so, this is the case here too.’

That aggregates are self, you base this claim upon
The Teacher’s statement that, ‘The aggregates are self.’
But this refutes a self distinct from aggregates,
As other sutras state that form is not the self. (6.132)

This sutra where it is recognised that, ‘The aggregates are the self,’ is not in fact saying that the aggregates constitute the self. What does it then say? The intent of the Illustrious One was to indicate that there is no self whatsoever separate from the aggregates, in order to refute the scriptures of the misguided using the relative truth, and to clarify what is the unmistaken relative truth. If you ask how one can be certain that this is a refutation of a self that is distinct from the aggregates, the reason is that other sutras refute the idea that form and so forth constitute the self.

‘How so?’

That neither form nor feeling constitute the self,
Nor do perception, formations, or consciousness,
Has been proclaimed in various other sutra quotes.
In brief, that aggregates are self is not affirmed. (6.133)

It is therefore certain that when this sutra states, ‘[when they] regard these five assimilated aggregates as the self…,’² it is in fact refuting that there is a self that is something other than the aggregates. While instances when form and so forth constituting a self is refuted, should be taken to express a refutation of the self that is the object of the view of identity, as dependently imputed in relation to the assimilated aggregates, since these are contexts where one is considering the actual reality of things. And it makes sense that one will be freed from attachment to form and so forth since, ‘When the assimilator is not observed, what it assimilates will likewise not be present.’ As this is what is stated in other sutras, the previous sutra quote is not therefore claiming that the aggregates are the self.

Also, although this sutra statement is phrased as an affirmation, it wouldn’t serve to indicate that the aggregates constitute the self. And why? As,

When saying it’s the aggregates that are the self,
It’s their collection, not the aggregates themselves.

For example, when saying that the trees make up the forest, it is the collection of trees that are a forest. It is not the trees themselves, since it would then follow that the forest is present in each individual tree. Likewise, it is the collection of the aggregates that make up the self.

And since a collection isn’t actually anything whatsoever:

But this does not exist, and so it cannot be –
Can’t be protector, cannot tame, nor serve as judge. (6.134)

The Illustrious One spoke of a protector and a judge in the statement:

Oneself is one’s own protector.
Oneself is one’s own enemy.
Oneself is one’s own judge
Of one’s good and bad deeds.³

And of a tamer in the statement:

The wise attain the higher realms
By properly taming their self.⁴

A collection however, not being something substantially existent, cannot logically be a protector, a tamer, or a judge, and the collection is therefore not the self.

One may think, ‘Because the collection is not anything apart from the collected parts, one identifies the result as the collection of parts. It is hence permissible to speak of a protector, a tamer and a judge.’

This cannot be, since the problems with that have already been explained. And also,

A chariot would be the presence of its parts.
As with a chariot, the same goes for the self.

From a sutra:

‘A self’, you say, O demon mind;
A fancy you thus entertain.
It’s void this heap, of factors formed.
There is no being present here.

As with a gathering of parts
One may speak of a chariot,
Contingent on the aggregates
Convention grants a sentient being.⁵

Thus,

‘Contingent on the aggregates,’ the sutra states.
The self is thus not just the aggregates combined. (6.135)

Something that is contingently imputed cannot be reduced to the assembly of its perceived parts, because a dependent labelling is taking place, just as when elements combine to form a product. Although things may be produced from the elements and receive labels such as blue and so forth, or eye and so forth, these two types of phenomena are not just the mere assembly of the elements. Similarly, although the self has the characteristic of being an imputation made in relation to the aggregates, that it is just the assembly of the aggregates does not suffice.

One might object, ‘That is inconclusive owing to things such as pots.’

No it isn’t, since one cannot prove that such things as pots are reducible to the gathering of form and so forth, and because of similar criticisms.⁶

One could ask, ‘If the mere collection of wheels and so forth is not the chariot, then what is?’ And it might then be supposed that only when the wheels and so forth assume a certain shape does the term chariot become applicable. And likewise, that the self is just the arrangement of form and so forth.

But that is not so. And why?

‘It is the shape,’ you say, but shape belongs to form.
So though you say it’s these that constitute the self,
The mental groups cannot then be what this self is

And why is that?

Due to the fact that these cannot assume a shape. (6.136)

Meaning that this is so because they have no physical form.

Furthermore,

It makes no sense that grasped and grasper are the same,

Why?

Since act and actor then would be identical.

The grasper means the one who assimilates by performing the grasping, while the act is the assimilation that takes place when something is grasped. And here, the grasper is a reference to the self, while the grasped refers to the five aggregates. If the self is the mere collection of form and so forth, then the grasper and the act are identical. But this would not be acceptable, since it would then follow that the elements and the material components they make up, and the pot and the potter, are identical. As stated:

If fuel were the fire,
Act and actor are identical.⁷

And,

The fire and the fuel thus fully clarify
All such relationships,
The self and what is assimilated, along with things
Like earthen pots, woollen cloths and such.⁸

Here it is saying that, just as fire and fuel cannot be claimed to be identical, this claim does not hold for the self and the assimilated either.

One might think, ‘There is no existent assimilator doing the acting, there is nothing more than the mere collection of the assimilated.’
But to explain how this is unreasonable:

‘There is no actor, just the act,’ you might then think.
But no, since without actor there can be no act. (6.137)

Thus it can’t be like that: if one does not accept an actor, the act which is then unfounded cannot be accepted. As the Treatise states:

And assimilation should thus be understood,
As act and agent is then excluded.
Through the case of agent and action
All remaining things can be made clear.⁹

Here, the verb root has been combined with the lyuṭ-suffix¹⁰ , making upādāna, with reference to the act of assimilation. But since a verb root cannot occur isolated from its function, the way it functions implies that which is assimilated and the assimilator; since in the word in question, assimilation (upādāna), the verb has been supplied with a lyuṭ-suffix, by the rule which states, ‘kṛt and lyuṭ are inclusive,’¹¹ it is also expressive of that which is assimilated.

Thus, just as it is in relation to an actor that the acted is designated, and in relation to the acted that an actor is designated, the assimilator is similarly designated in relation to the assimilated, and the assimilated in relation to the assimilator. It states:

So it is neither distinct from the assimilated,
Nor the same as the assimilated.
There is no self without the assimilated,
Still one can’t conclude that it does not exist.¹²

This is saying that there cannot be an act in the absence of an actor. And when it is stated that, ‘Though the actor is not apprehended, the act still exists, as does its result,’¹³ this is meant to refute an inherently existent actor. It is not to be understood as saying that conventional norms of what is dependently designated should be discarded. As stated:

A person affected by ignorance generates meritorious formations…¹⁴

Also,

The Sage states that the self is recognised
With reference to earth, water, fire, wind,
To consciousness and space – six elements –
And six supports of contact, such as eyes; (6.138)

And is assumed from mind and mental states.
And it is therefore these though not the same,
Nor just the mere collection they make up.
One cannot find the sense of self in these. (6.139)

From the sutras:

O Great King. The person, the individual, is the six elements, the six fields of contact and the eighteen movements of the mind.¹⁵

The six elements are earth, water, fire, wind, consciousness and space, and it is in relation to these that the self is imputed. The six supports of contact, such as eyes, refer to the sense field of visual perception and so forth, up to the sense field of mental perception, and it is in relation to these that the self is imputed.

The eighteen movements of the mind refers to the six ways the mind can be pleasantly involved with visual, audible, olfactory, palatable, tactile, or mental objects, the ways it can be unpleasantly involved with these, and the ways it can have a neutral involvement with these; and in relation to these, and assumed from the mind and mental states, the self is imputed.

Since it is stated that, ‘the self is imputed in relation to the elements and so forth,’ it here states, it is these though not the same, meaning that it is not anything other nor is it the same. It neither makes sense that is it just the mere collection of these. Since it cannot be that the self is these aforementioned phenomena, it does not stand to reason that the ego mind is found in them. And when the aggregates cannot be the abode of the ego, and is not something other than the aggregates, the ego then has no abode; and the yogi seeing no ‘I’ comes to understand that neither does ‘mine’ have any essence, eliminates every conditioned phenomenon and transcends to the state free from adoption, illustrating how brilliant this analysis is.

If those saying the aggregates, or the mind, are the abodes of the self were right, a sense of self would remain as long the aggregates were present, since they constitute the actual basis for the sense of self. To explain:

That seeing selflessness would shed the lasting self
While not believing it to be ego’s support,
I find it quite astounding then to hear you say
That knowing selflessness uproots the view of self. (6.140)

If the ego is based in a permanent self, and without it the ego is shed, yet you claim the abode of the self to be something other than that, and that only through seeing that something else is lacking that the sense of ego is halted – my goodness! How extraordinary!