After examining the impermanence, unsatisfactoriness, and the changing nature of the five aggregates, the Buddha teaches how to see them with proper wisdom, as not being suitable to identify with.

|Perception::The mental process of recognizing and giving meaning to experience. It marks things by signs, labels, or associations drawn from memory and the field of contact. Perception shapes how one experiences the world; third of the five aggregates [sañña]|, bhikkhus, is not-self. And if, bhikkhus, this perception were self, then this perception would not lead to affliction, and it would be possible [for one] to say with regard to perception: ‘Let my perception be like this, let my perception not be like that.’ But because, bhikkhus, perception is not-self, therefore perception leads to affliction, and one cannot truly say regarding perception: ‘Let my perception be like this, let my perception not be like that.’

The Buddha instructs Rāhula on how to regard the five aggregates as not-self which he immediately applies to practice. The Buddha then teaches Rāhula on how to meditate on the elements, the divine abodes, unattractiveness, impermanence, and mindfulness of breathing to abandon unwholesome mental qualities and cultivate wholesome mental qualities.

Rāhula, cultivate meditation on |recognition of impermanence::perception of instability, inconsistency [aniccasaññā]|. For when you cultivate meditation on recognition of impermanence, the |conceit ‘I am.’::egotism, self-conceit, self comparison [asmimāna]| will be abandoned.

The Buddha explains the five lower fetters and the way of practice for abandoning them.

Furthermore, Ānanda, with the complete surpassing of |perceptions of form::recognition of matter, concept of materiality [rūpasaññā]|, with the disappearance of |perceptions of sensory impact::recognition of sense impression [paṭighasaññā]|, and non-attention to |perceptions of diversity::recognition of diversity, perception of multiplicity [nānattasaññā]|, a bhikkhu enters and dwells in the |base of boundless space::field of boundless expanse, sometimes translated as dimension of infinite space [ākāsānañcāyatana]|, aware that ‘space is boundless.’ Whatever phenomena are present there, whether pertaining to sensations, perceptions, formations, or consciousness - he perceives as impermanent, suffering, a disease, a boil, a dart, misery, an affliction, alien, disintegrating, empty, and not-self. He turns his mind away from these phenomena. Having turned his mind away, he directs it towards the deathless element, reflecting: ‘This is peaceful, this is sublime, namely the stilling of all formations, the relinquishment of all attachments, the wearing away of craving, dispassion, cessation, Nibbāna.’ If he is steady in that state, he experiences the wearing away of the mental defilements. But if he does not experience the wearing away of the mental defilements because of that desire for the Dhamma, that delight in the Dhamma, then, with the wearing away of the five lower fetters, he becomes one due to reappear spontaneously in the Pure Abodes, and there he will attain final Nibbāna without ever returning from that world. This, indeed, Ānanda, is also the path, the way of practice for the abandonment of the five lower fetters.