Search results for: "Aggregates"

  1. Page 19
  2. Clinging, Addictions, Obsessions
    Clinging, Addictions, Obsessions December 27, 2015 As the Buddha said, suffering is the clinging-aggregates. The aggregates themselves are related to the way we feed, and clinging is related to the way we feed as well. The word for clinging—upadana—can also mean sustenance and the act of taking sustenance from things. Of course, we don’t usually think of feeding as suffering … 
  3. Self View & Conceit
     … There’s no longer any holding onto teachings about the self because however you could define a self would have to be around the five aggregates, and you’ve now had that experience that had nothing to do with the five aggregates at all. There’s not even any desire to want to define yourself in any way, as a separate self or a … 
  4. Interdependence & Death
     … identifying themselves around the aggregates. See if you can let go of that. At the same time, there’s another perception that goes along with this: seeing the undesirability of any world. So if you catch yourself identifying with your thoughts or your perceptions, try to be very careful about which perceptions you hold on to, like the perceptions that tell you that you … 
  5. Heedfulness
     … That’s the consciousness aggregate. So all the aggregates are right here. In the beginning, we use them to create a good state of concentration. Then, when the concentration is solid, we can begin to let them go. As you can see, there’s a lot to be interested in here. There’s a lot going on. Even as you try to get the … 
  6. A Healthy Attitude Toward Happiness
     … Then he boils it down to five clinging-aggregates. We hear that and it sounds very strange. The word aggregate—khandha in Pali, or khan in Thai—just means “groups” of things. They’re activities that we do over and over again, that we feed on. That’s what the clinging is. We feed on these things because we hope to get pleasure from … 
  7. Questioning Your Unconscious Actions
     … What kind of ignorance is it? The way you normally hear the Buddhist teachings explained, our ignorance is the kind of ignorance of someone coming out of amnesia whose questions are: “Who am I? Where am I?” The answers that are usually given to those questions are these: “Who are you? – You’re a bundle of five aggregates. Where are you? – You’re in … 
  8. The Uses of Concentration
     … That’s when you truly understand, as the Buddha says, that such is the origination—say of form or feeling, any of the aggregates—and such is their passing away. This is what the aggregates are all about: nothing but grass. This may sound depressing, but it’s actually liberating. It’s like the passage we chanted just now: “The world is swept away … 
  9. The Path of Mistakes
     … In fact when you look at the factors of the path you realize that they’re made up of the aggregates: form, feeling, perception, fabrication, consciousness. These all have to play a role in the path, which means we have to learn how to change our attitude toward the aggregates. Instead of just clinging to them as us or ours, we learn how to … 
  10. The Karma of Pain
     … This is one of the reasons why the Buddha divided things into aggregates, so that you can take them apart. What’s the perception? What’s the feeling? What are the thought-fabrications you’re building around these things? What’s the body in relationship to the pain? What is your basic awareness in relation to the pain? If you put these things together … 
  11. Focus on What’s Important
     … It was clinging to the five aggregates of form, feeling, perceptions, fabrication, and consciousness. Its cause was the three kinds of craving: for sensuality, for becoming, for non-becoming. Sensuality is your mind’s fascination with thinking about sensual pleasures. Becoming is the act of taking on an identity in a world of experience. You see something that you want, you see the world … 
  12. Becoming
     … For example, we all know the teaching that you create a sense of self out of any of the five aggregates, all of which are activities. Well, you can watch yourself as you meditate: Exactly how do you create a sense of me or mine around what you’re doing? One thing you tend to see very quickly is the way your sense of … 
  13. Enlightenment is Not a Hot Dog
     … There’s a sutta called The Riddle Tree, where a monk goes around and asks various monks who are reputed to be arahants, What was the key insight that led to awakening? And one monk says, it was seeing things in terms of the five aggregates. Another one says, it was seeing things in terms of the six sense media. Another one said, dependent … 
  14. Free from Buddha Nature
     … The Buddha said that part of comprehending suffering is to see that we cling to these five aggregates of form, feeling, perception, fabrication, and consciousness. Each of the aggregates is defined by a verb; it’s an activity. We build a sense of who we are around the activities, and that gets in the way of seeing which activities are skillful, which ones are … 
  15. The Same but Different, but the Same
     … The suffering itself is clinging to the five aggregates, feeding on them. Then there’s the general thirst and desire to feed on things: That’s the cause of suffering. This is true across the board. The path also contains the same elements for everyone: virtue, concentration, and discernment. So regardless of your nationality, regardless of the type of mental illness you suffer from … 
  16. The Steps of Breath Meditation
     … Particularly when you look around to ask, “Who am I producing this for? Exactly who is consuming this?” You come to see that your sense of who you are, who this consumer is, is difficult to pin down, because it’s all made out of the aggregates, and the aggregates themselves are inconstant, stressful, and not-self. This consumer is something produced as well … 
  17. Be Bigger Than Your Pains
     … As the Buddha said, if there weren’t some pleasure in the aggregates, we wouldn’t fall for them. Remember the aggregates are not things; they’re activities. They’re certain ways of thinking, ways of feeling. And even in the painful ones, there’s a certain amount of pleasure. That’s why we indulge in them. So you’ve got to look for … 
  18. Timeless Practice
     … The Buddha equates that kind of suffering or stress with clinging, clinging to the five aggregates. There’s something counterintuitive about that. We tend to like the things we cling to, and here’s the Buddha telling us we’re suffering because of those things. The word for clinging in Pali, upadana, can also mean to feed. This gets even more counterintuitive. For most … 
  19. The Dhamma Wheel
     … In this case, it’s clinging to what the Buddha calls the five aggregates. Of course, he didn’t use the word “aggregate.” The Pali term, khandha, means “heap” or “pile.” Five categories of activities: Your sense of the form of the body as you feel it from within. Feelings of pleasure, pain, neither pleasure nor pain. Perceptions, where you put labels on things … 
  20. Three Stages in the Practice
     … Ultimately, you learn how to develop dispassion for your concentration by seeing that it, too, is made out of the aggregates, and those aggregates are inconstant, stressful, and not-self. There are subtle vacillations in the pleasure, subtle vacillations in the sense of clarity of your concentration, and you realize that those variations show the element of inconstancy and stress. Then you ask yourself … 
  21. Lessons from Jhana
     … And you’re letting go of different aggregates. You’re letting go of fabrication, stage by stage. You’re letting go of certain perceptions. You’re letting go of certain feelings. And you’re letting go of the sense of the body. You can even work up to where you let go of your sense of the oneness of your consciousness. That happens when … 
  22. Load next page...