Search results for: "Aggregates"

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  2. Taking Stock
     … Realize that all of these aggregates play a part in the path. You’re sitting here focusing on the breath: That’s form. You breathe in ways that give rise to a sense of ease, fullness, pleasure, refreshment: That’s feeling. You hold the perception of breath energy in mind and look for the sensations that correspond to that. You evaluate how things are … 
  3. Learning by Doing
     … All the different forms of fabrication, all the different aggregates: They’re right here. You’ve got the form of the body, you’ve got the feelings of pleasure or pain or neither-pleasure-nor-pain. Hopefully you can work with the breath so that you can give rise to a greater sense of pleasure. Then there are the perceptions that hold you here … 
  4. Owning Your Actions
     … that the aggregates are not you. But then the passage on karma: We’re the owners of our actions. That’s something we’re responsible for: what we choose to do. And it’s good to make a distinction. A lot of things happen to us, and we have to write that off as past karma. But we don’t want to focus on … 
  5. Issues of Control
     … Even though the Buddha says that, in ultimate terms, the five aggregates of form, feeling, perceptions, thought constructs, and consciousness do not lie under your total control, still you do control them to some extent. If it weren’t for that “some extent,” you wouldn’t fall for them. The question always is, with your sense of self: Is it worth identifying with them … 
  6. The River Gauge
     … You’re putting it together with your thoughts, your words, your deeds, all the five aggregates we chanted about just now. Your concentration is going to require form—the form of your body, the breath. It’s going to require feeling. You have to develop feelings that they call feelings not-of-the-flesh, pleasure not-of-the-flesh. Part of the motivation though … 
  7. Goodwill as Right View
     … You’re dealing with five aggregates, and when you have another person, it’s like five more, although it’s more like multiplying than adding. It feels like you’ve got twenty five aggregates when there are just two people. Then it goes up from there. We’d like good rules of thumb that would apply in all cases to give us some idea … 
  8. Appropriate Attention
     … You know that in those two things—the craving or the passion and desire on the one hand, and these aggregates of form, feeling, perception, fabrication, and consciousness on the other—the craving is to be abandoned, while you have to comprehend those aggregates that you’re clinging to. When you think in these ways, that’s called appropriate attention. So, as you go … 
  9. Factors for Awakening
     … Where are the five aggregates right now? They’re right here in your concentration. Breath is the body. Feelings of the pleasure are feelings. Perceptions, the images you hold in mind, are perceptions. The way you talk to yourself, the intention to stay here, is fabrication. And then there’s consciousness, which is aware of all these things. So you’ve got all five … 
  10. Safety in Awareness
     … As you focus on the different aggregates and as you began to see past them, he said, then you turn on this knowing awareness in the mind. He said that you decide that you can’t trust it anymore. And this was at a point when I was just beginning to learn how to trust it! That teaching came at the wrong time for … 
  11. A Rite of Passage
     … Suffering is clinging-aggregates—and the clinging is the real problem. The aggregates on their own are not that much of a problem. But we cling to these things. A thought comes in and we just go for it, take it on. A feeling comes in, an emotion comes in—something comes in, and we just take it on without really thinking. So you … 
  12. Training Wheels
     … You’ve got the aggregates, which are neutral, but then they become part of suffering when they become clinging-aggregates. You’ve got the sense media, which are neutral, too, but they become the topic for suffering when you start developing fetters around what you see and hear and smell and taste; or simply fetters around the fact that you like having these senses … 
  13. Timeless Dhamma
     … And that’s the solution to the problem, because this happiness lies beyond the aggregates of the body, aggregates in the mind, lies beyond all conditions entirely, so it’s not in any place where it can be touched by aging, illness, or death. This is why the Buddha’s teachings have lasted all these years. Even though he often talked about the inconstancy … 
  14. Together but Separate
     … You have to realize that your sense of self can be composed of any combination of the aggregates. You can latch on to a feeling. You can latch on to a perception. You can latch on to a thought construct, or just latch on simply to awareness—or any combination of these. And even within a particular perception, it’s not always the same … 
  15. Learning from Labor
     … You want to get so good at it that you no longer feel any desire or passion for any kind of aggregates at all. But notice: The Buddha said it’s not that you’re going to abandon the aggregates; you abandon the desire and passion. The only way you’re going to do that is to develop a sense of enough. And the … 
  16. 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 … 
  17. 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 … 
  18. 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 … 
  19. 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 … 
  20. 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 … 
  21. 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 … 
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