Search results for: "Aggregates"

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  2. Consciousness, Awakened & Not
     … He points out how you start taking apart your practice of concentration in terms of the aggregates, discerning how they all are fabricated — including the aggregate of consciousness — and then you incline the mind to the deathless. But then you have to watch out. The perceptions that incline you in that direction, such as the three perceptions of inconstancy, stress, and not-self: Those … 
  3. The Buddha’s Wisdom
     … Desire and passion also created those five aggregates that you were clinging to. When there’s no more passion, there’s no more drive to fix those aggregates. You can think of fixing food: As long as you think you’re going to eat, and it’s good food, you fix it. But when you see that it’s bad food and not worth … 
  4. Stick to Your Duties
     … As you try to comprehend the suffering that comes from these things—and there is suffering—you begin to see that it’s focused on perceptions, thought constructs—all of the five aggregates. The aggregates themselves are not the problem. The problem is, as the Buddha says, the desire and passion you feel for them. So you want to figure out: Why is there … 
  5. Worldly Narratives
     … When the Buddha analyzed suffering in his first sermon, he said that it comes down to clinging to the aggregates. In the second sermon, he brought in the aggregates back again, but now as topics of reflection. The process of reflection itself is a mental fabrication. In this case, the reflection was to take these things apart: Exactly what in there is you or … 
  6. Look at Yourself
     … At the same time, in getting the mind to settle down, you’re dealing with what? You’re dealing with the aggregates. You’re going to have to be using the aggregates or the sense media or the properties as the terms you use to analyze things with your discernment. You get to know these things really well—what’s a perception, what’s … 
  7. The Buddha’s Encouragement
     … All the aggregates are right here. They’re all doing their thing. And of course, we want to learn about the aggregates, so this is a good place to learn about them—to see them on their subtle level. There are a couple of passages in the Canon where the Buddha talks about his own problems in getting the mind into concentration. We read … 
  8. Fear & Insecurity
     … So you’re looking at these aggregates not so much as “me” but as something you can do to create good results. Of course, even discernment will involve the aggregates. You use your perceptions and thought-fabrications to probe and ask questions, to figure things out: Why is it that there in the mind you’re creating suffering when you don’t have to … 
  9. The Power of Intention
     … So you can see, you start out with some ordinary aggregates, or potentials for aggregates, and you can turn them into a state of concentration through the power of your intention. Now, the point will come when you begin to realize that, okay, the intention to maintain the concentration is good, but it still has its drawbacks. It requires constant nourishment, requires constant feeding … 
  10. The Desire for Things to Be Different
     … Back in medieval India, when they introduced the four noble truths in the basic textbooks for Buddhist doctrine, they would start with the five aggregates; move quickly to the three characteristics, and then get to the four noble truths. In other words, they started with a picture of reality: Reality is composed of aggregates, and the aggregates are marked by the three characteristics. The … 
  11. Respect for Tranquility & Insight
     … And they pointed out that just being with awareness is what? It’s your aggregate of consciousness. If you’re staying there, you’re clinging to consciousness. You’re clinging to the aggregates. The stress may be subtle, but it’s there. In that case, you want to learn how to peer into it and see: What are you doing? When does the stress … 
  12. To Escape the Prison of Time
     … Then there’s the fact that there is an awareness that’s there even as the aggregates fall away. After all, the aggregates are, as the Buddha said, “near and far, past, present, and future.” In other words, they’re in the coordinates of space and time, but there’s still an awareness even after those coordinates fade away. So there’s no reason … 
  13. Reflect on What You’re Doing
     … It’s also the principle by which you gain discernment, as ultimately you get to the point where you see that no matter what the level of concentration, it’s made up of aggregates. In the case of the form jhanas, you’ve got the body, which would be the breath. Feelings would be a feeling of ease, well-being, or equanimity. The perception … 
  14. Mind Reading
     … The forest ajaans talk a lot about how we don’t need to contemplate all five aggregates. You can focus on one, and the lessons you learn about one particular aggregate will then seep into the others. Perception tends to be the aggregate they focus on most. What image are you holding in mind? How do you understand what’s going on there? Which … 
  15. Long-Term Welfare
     … This is why we have the teachings on the five aggregates, the three characteristics. You look at whatever pleasure you’ve been depending on, and you take it apart, to see what it’s made of. The more carefully you look at it, the more you realize there’s really nothing there in the building blocks for this big edifice of whatever happiness you … 
  16. Even Animals Can Be Trained
     … You’re on this side of the river where he says you’ve got the dangers of your attachment to the aggregates and sense media: the way you identify things on this side of the river as your self. And then they turn on you. But then there’s the other side of the river, where you’re safe. There’s no nibbana raft … 
  17. In Times of Danger and Fear
     … the five clinging-aggregates. What are the aggregates? They’re activities, activities of the body and of the mind. They’re things we’re doing, habits we’ve developed, and as with most habits, we tend to cling to these things without really knowing what we’re doing. The Buddha’s solution is to observe carefully what you’re doing so that you don … 
  18. For the Sake of the Deathless
     … There’s a passage where he defines the different aggregates as verbs. Even form deforms. We know form through its activities. And fabrication fabricates all the aggregates for a purpose, for the sake of something. And as the Buddha saw rightly, it’s for the sake of happiness. The thing is, we have to keep on fabricating because the happiness we’ve gained from … 
  19. Moods Are Not-Self
    Moods Are Not-Self April 4, 2022 Sometimes you wish the Buddha had included moods as the sixth aggregate because they’re something we hold on to really tightly. Of course they’re there in the aggregates. They come under fabrications. These are states of mind and body that get put together. But we’re so used to our moods that we don’t … 
  20. Uncertainty
     … The Buddha taught people who have five aggregates. You’ve got five aggregates. The Buddha taught people who were tired of suffering. You have to ask yourself: “Have you had enough?” Listen for the voice that says, “Yes, I’ve had enough. I want to find a way out.” That’s the voice you hold on to.
  21. Friends with the Dhamma Wheel
     … So what are the duties? With regard to the first noble truth, the truth of suffering—which is that suffering is basically the five clinging-aggregates—the duty is to comprehend that. That means understanding it so well that you have no more passion, aversion, or delusion around it. We don’t think that we’re passionate for suffering, but after all, the Buddha … 
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