From Ciaran Healy I learned the concept of a philosopher's rule of thumb, a basic principle which one applies to philosophical work to keep it sound and progressing smoothly, rather than veering off into deep and basic errors. One of his favourites is "there are no paradoxes in reality", meaning that there is only one reality and it does not get split in two by things that contradict each other happening at the same time. If you spy a paradox, it can only be in your mind, not in reality (i.e. your understanding of reality is flawed).

Now, I have one too. "If you have established something to be true, and your explanation of a phenomenon contradicts that truth, then the explanation must be wrong. Something else must be going on."

The obvious example is the self. Many people discover that "the self exists" is false. Try this for yourself, it's quite neat. However, when attempting to account for various aspects of human behaviour, they stick to their old ways of thinking which are based on the existence of the self.

For example, when trying to explain human suffering, they say it is because the false self identifies with various objects and ideas.

Picture me slamming my hands down on the desk Phoenix Wright-style. "Hold it!"

There is no self, not even a false one. That means that the self cannot be identifying with anything. So if you see anything which seems like a process of identification by the self, you are wrong. Something else must be going on.

You might have no idea at first what that something else is. Investigate. Look at reality. Make theories and test them. But whatever you do, don't pretend that if a foundational belief about reality turns out to be false, other beliefs which rely on its truth can still be true.