Antidotes for Clinging
October 07, 2007
There are some places in the Pali Canon where the Buddha says that the five aggregates are stressful, and others where he says the five clinging-aggregates are stressful. It’s important to notice here that he’s talking about two different kinds of stress. The sense in which the five aggregates are stressful is related to stress in terms of the three characteristics. They’re inconstant and so they’re stressful. That’s simply the way they are, whether you hold on to them or not. But if you don’t grab on to these things, your mind doesn’t suffer. It’s when you grab on, it’s when you cling, that stress comes into the mind. You create a clinging-aggregate. You create a connection. This is stress in terms of the four noble truths. Wherever there’s craving, there can be clinging, and the clinging to the aggregates is the stress that really weighs on the mind.