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The reasonings on the selflessness of persons try to find the true person. They search by trying to isolate the inherent existence of the person in relation to the parts the body/mind. For purposes of one's meditation, the parts of the body/mind include everything related to what one thinks of as one's self. It can be any physical, mental, moral or psychological phenomenon whatsoever. We might think of ourselves as a body, a mind, set of memories, or a collection of character values, or something that essentially includes all of these. The reasonings go like this. With a firm sense of this inherent existence in mind, we try to isolate it – is the inherent existence of the self exactly the same as the parts of the body/mind? Is it different from the parts? These first two steps of the Sevenfold Reasoning logically cover all the bases. The self is either inherently the same as, or different from, the parts. The other steps of the reasonings are valuable to go into because they keep the meditation from being purely an intellectual exercise. We might, for example, truly feel that the self owns the body/mind. This is the conception to get at, even though it is logically entailed by the self being different from the body/mind. Once all the reasonings are gone through in depth and the inherent existence of the self is not found anywhere, this can upset one's conception of the way things are. At first it is disorienting and perhaps scary. Later, it can be the source of great joy.
1. The self is not inherently the same as the parts of the body/mind.
2. The self is not different from the parts of the body/mind.
3. The self is not dependent upon the parts of the body/mind.
4. The self is not inherently the substratum upon which the parts of the body/mind depend.
5. The self is not inherently the possessor of the parts of the body/mind.
6. The self is not inherently the mere collection of the parts of the body/mind.
7. The self is not inherently the shape of the parts of the body/mind.
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http://nonduality.com/goode6.htm#seven
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