Kegon presents the self as something far more fluid and relational than ordinary experience suggests. What is usually taken to be a solid, enduring “I” is described as a temporary aggregation of the five skandhas—form, feeling or sensation, perception, mental formations, and consciousness—arising and passing away according to causes and conditions. From this standpoint, there is no fixed, independent, or permanent entity that could rightly be called a separate self. The doctrine of non-self (anatman) is therefore affirmed: the self, as commonly imagined, is an illusion constructed upon ever-shifting processes.

Yet Kegon does not stop at negating a separate self; it places this insight within the vision of universal interdependence and interpenetration. All phenomena, including what is conventionally labeled “self,” are seen as mutually containing and reflecting one another, like jewels in Indra’s Net, each distinct in appearance yet inseparable from the totality. The individual self is thus understood as a temporary manifestation or point of intersection within a vast web of interdependent arising, ultimately inseparable from the all-encompassing Dharma-realm and the universal Buddha-nature. From this perspective, what might be called the “true self” is not an isolated ego, but the boundless Dharma-realm itself, empty of independent existence yet expressing infinite relational potential.

Realization of this view has profound spiritual and ethical implications. As the illusion of a separate, self-enclosed identity loosens, the practitioner comes to see that self and others are not two fundamentally opposed realities, but interrelated expressions of the same Dharma-body. Harming others is then understood as harming what is not truly other, and benefiting others as inseparable from one’s own deepest good. In this way, insight into non-self and universal interpenetration naturally gives rise to compassion and wisdom, allowing life to be lived in harmony with the dynamic, all-embracing field of awakening that Kegon describes.