We practice from the perspective of Buddha, not from the perspective of the Self. But that doesn’t mean you are Buddha. Buddha is the state when the You has fallen from a central position.
The congealing of experience into a You is the primary grasping. All other grasping follows from it. It is the lodestone of suffering.
An asthmatic thinks he can’t breathe in, when really he can’t breathe out. His lungs are too full to allow any air in. Buddha is like breathing out. Mara is like breathing in.
We affirm the Self. We cast off the Self. This is our life, and this is why practice isn’t an ego project; isn’t a vassal territory of psychological imperialism, where the thought may arise that one more in-breath might do it