Search results for: "Aggregates"

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  2. Hold a Mirror to Your Mind
     … If you reflect on that, you’ll learn an awful lot about all the aggregates, because wherever there’s pain, there’s going to be the issue of the form of the body. Is the form of the body the same as the pain? Well, no. The form of the body is made out of the elements or properties of earth, water, wind, and … 
  3. The Need for a Purpose
    There’s an interesting passage in the Canon where the Buddha talks about how we fashion the aggregates. The language is kind of strange, but the point is that we want to have aggregates and we fashion them for the sake of something. It doesn’t say what the sake is for, but that’s how we ordinarily engage in the present moment. We … 
  4. Think Outside the Ruts
    Think Outside the Ruts March 26, 2022 There’s a strange passage in the Canon where the Buddha talks about how we take the potential for a form, feeling, perception, fabrication, or consciousness, and we fabricate it into an actual aggregate of form, feeling, etc., for the sake of having that aggregate. It’s expressed in a strange way in the Pali, but the … 
  5. What Are You Doing in the Present?
     … There’s a passage where the Buddha’s talking about the five aggregates, and how fabrication fabricates all the other aggregates, including itself, for the purpose of something: maybe for the purpose of entertainment, for the purpose of whatever: gaining a livelihood, finding pleasure. There’s always a purpose in the way we shape the present moment. The problem is that our purposes are … 
  6. Attention & Intention
     … Because it’s undependable and painful, the question is, is it worth laying claim to as your self when you go around engaging in I-making and my-making? Is it really worthwhile? With some things, at some stages in the path, the answer is actually Yes, because we use some of the aggregates to make the path. So you hold on there. But … 
  7. Own Your Actions
     … the aggregates are not self, your senses are not self. On other hand there’s that phrase in the chant we had just now: “I’m the owner of my actions.” He said that this is an important distinction. If you’re going to identify with anything, identify with your actions. There comes a point, of course, at the end of the path, where … 
  8. The Six Properties
     … The forest ajaans make the point that you don’t have try to understand all five aggregates, all at once. You find one that really seems to be the key to everything else, and you focus there. And often the key aggregate, as they explain it, is perception. So as we’re working with the breath, we’re going to perceive the breath in … 
  9. Admirable Friendship
     … When the Buddha talks about suffering, he starts out with things we’re all familiar with and then he goes into the five clinging-aggregates, which are not so familiar. He says that they’re the actual problem there. So we have to look, “Okay, what is the clinging? What are these aggregates?” It’s not something that would immediately occur to us, that … 
  10. Discernment Performs
     … You have to notice that sometimes certain insights—insight into the elements, insight into the aggregates—if you use them in the wrong way, you start thinking, “Well, there’s nobody there. It’s just aggregates, just elements.” If there’s nobody here, nobody there, then you start wondering about what use it is to be good to people if there’s no real … 
  11. No Extra Arrows
     … When the Buddha talks about suffering in the four noble truths, it’s the clinging to the aggregates. Clinging, he says, is desire and passion. It’s focused on form — the form of the body — feelings, perceptions, thought constructs, acts of consciousness. And it comes from craving. Craving, too, is desire and passion. The relationship between the two is like this: The word for … 
  12. Respect Opens Possibilities
     … The Buddha identifies it as clinging to the aggregates. The aggregates are activities we indulge in. We chanted about them just now. Form—your body is constantly in action. Feeling—feelings of pleasure, pain, feelings of neither pleasure nor pain. Perceptions—the labels you apply to things, the meanings you give to them, how you identify them. Thought fabrications—the way you put ideas … 
  13. The Noble Truths of the Breath
     … It’s the five clinging aggregates. And what are those aggregates? One of them is perception. And a good way to see how you cling to perceptions is to experiment with new perceptions, to see where they are useful. This is why we listen to the Dhamma to begin with. The Buddha gives us new ways of perceiving our lives to try on. And … 
  14. The Kamma of Self & Not-self
     … What is this “me,” what is this “I” made up of? Five types of things, the five aggregates. The Buddha never says that the aggregates are what you are. He says they’re the raw materials that you use to create your sense of self. You take the potential for form, the potential for feeling, perception, fabrication, and consciousness, all of which come from … 
  15. The Karma of Pleasure
     … As the Buddha says, it’s a pleasure that doesn’t come under the five aggregates. It’s known by a consciousness that doesn’t come out of the five aggregates, and isn’t known by means of the sense media. That’s something really special. But the only way to find that is, first, to develop this ability to create a sense of … 
  16. What’s Relative, What’s Constant
     … He says you experience the aggregates because of this intentional activity. The process of fabrication here and now takes the potential for form, the potential for feeling, perceptions, thought-constructs, even consciousness, and turns it into actual aggregates. I was listening to a Dhamma talk the other day in which someone was saying, “Consciousness has to be unconditioned. After all, how could one conditioned … 
  17. A Concentration Diet
     … It starts with: “What is one?” “What is two?” “What is three?” and it goes all the way up to, “What is ten?” For example, “What is four?” The four noble truths. “What is five?” The five aggregates. “Eight?” The noble eightfold path. The most interesting answer, though, is the answer to, “What is one?” And that is, “All beings subsist on food.” And … 
  18. Question Your Perceptions
     … The forest ajaans talk often about how, with all the five aggregates, you don’t have to analyze all five at once. Choose one. As you really get to know that one, that knowledge spreads to the others. I think it was Ajaan Chah who said that his own efforts at gaining discernment really got going when he started looking into this issue of … 
  19. A Post by the Ocean
     … After all, you’re building your path here out of what are called aggregates. And as the Buddha said, all these aggregates are inconstant, stressful, and not-self. When we’re resisting that to some extent, we know that we can’t ultimately make our state of concentration permanent. But what we are doing is giving the mind the strength it needs to let … 
  20. Only Natural
     … As the Buddha said, when we’re suffering, it’s the five clinging-aggregates. And how do we identify ourselves? We identify ourselves with the five clinging-aggregates. We’re identifying ourselves with suffering. But there’s an alternative. Our problem is that we identify with suffering and we don’t imagine any other way. The Buddha’s allowing us to imagine something else … 
  21. No One Size Fits All
     … from the five aggregates, the six sense media, the six properties, dependent co-arising. A monk once went to see a several different arrahants, one at a time, and asked them, “What were you focused on when you gained insight and gained awakening?” One monk said the five aggregates, another one said the six properties, another said the six sense media, and another said … 
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