Search results for: "Clinging aggregates"

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  2. Right Questions in the Right Order
     … What is suffering? What is its cause? What is its cessation, and how do you bring about that cessation? He defines suffering as the five clinging-aggregates. Notice, he’s not saying life is suffering, or just that there is suffering. He says suffering is the five clinging-aggregates. Now, the transcript of the talk that we have now doesn’t explain clinging or … 
  3. The Noble Truth of Suffering
     … Actually, when the Buddha talks about what suffering is, he doesn’t say it’s the five aggregates, it’s the five *clinging-*aggregates. He points to problems that people recognize in their lives: the suffering of aging, illness, death, being separated from what you love, having to be with things you don’t love, not getting what you want. Then he boils the … 
  4. 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 … 
  5. The Questions of Suffering
     … Five clinging-aggregates: That’s the essence of suffering. That doesn’t sound so familiar. If you go in the street and ask people, “How are your aggregates?” they’ll think, “Are you talking about the gravel in my driveway?” It’s not a term people are familiar with. But it’s something we’re doing all the time. The Buddha defines each aggregate … 
  6. Happiness is a Skill
     … When he analyzes all those forms of suffering down to their common denominator, he defines suffering as the five clinging-aggregates, a point that’s not immediately obvious. When he assigns a duty to this suffering, he says it’s something you want to comprehend. It’s because we don’t really comprehend suffering that we keep on suffering. When he defines right view … 
  7. Questions of Skill
     … It’s defined as the five clinging-aggregates. Where are you going to find those aggregates? You find them as you’re doing concentration. You’ve got the body here: That’s form. You’ve got the feeling of pleasure that you’re trying to create. You’ve got the perceptions, the images you hold in mind of what the breath does as it … 
  8. Four Noble Questions
     … He starts with a long list of different things that we’re all familiar with in terms of the pain they cause, but then he says the common thread among them is the five clinging-aggregates, an observation not all that immediately apparent. But we take his guideline here. When you ask yourself what’s the suffering right now, where’s the stress, he … 
  9. Battling Negativity
     … After all, the Buddha said, suffering comes from the clinging-aggregates. And the clinging-aggregates are also what we create our sense of who-we-are out of. Our sense of “I am this” or “I am that” can be centered on form, feeling, perception, thought-constructs, or consciousness. And as soon as we slap the label of “I am this” or “I am … 
  10. The Battle of Your Selves
     … Because when you first read the Buddha’s analysis of suffering, the five clinging-aggregates, first he starts talking about the suffering of birth, aging, illness and death, being separated from what you love, having to be with things you don’t like, not getting what you want. It all sounds very familiar. And he says the five clinging-aggregates are what lie at … 
  11. Antidotes for Clinging
    Antidotes for Clinging October 7, 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 … 
  12. The Equanimity of a Victor
     … When the Buddha says suffering is the five clinging-aggregates, our immediate reaction is “What? What does that have to do with my suffering?” It seems abstract, far away, technical. But it really has to do with what you’re doing. Because the aggregates are activities. They’re actions. Even form is something you actively maintain. Your perception of form is something you have … 
  13. Appropriate Attention
     … The clinging-aggregates, as the Buddha said, are the first noble truth, and that’s something to be comprehend—in other words, something you should comprehend until you develop dispassion for it—that kind of comprehension. This is where the Buddha brings in what are usually called the three characteristics. In the Canon they call them perceptions. There’s the perception of inconstancy, the … 
  14. Clinging & the End of Clinging
    When the Buddha formulated his first noble truth—the truth of suffering and stress—he didn’t say something useless like, “Life is suffering.” He didn’t say something vague and obvious like, “There is suffering.” He said something more specific, useful, and insightful: “Suffering is the five clinging-aggregates.” As he pointed out elsewhere, the problem isn’t with the aggregates of form … 
  15. Clinging & Feeding
    When the Buddha defined suffering or stress in the four noble truths, he gave lots of examples and then summarized them all as the five clinging-aggregates. Notice he didn’t say five aggregates. It’s the clinging-aggregates that are suffering. It’s because we cling to them that the mind suffers. The aggregates may have stress simply in the fact they arise … 
  16. Nostalgia for Suffering
     … When you look at the Buddha’s teachings about suffering, he gives a long list of the different kinds of suffering there are, but then he boils them down to five clinging aggregates. It’s not an intuitive summary but it gives you the basic principles, and from there you work out the details. If there’s suffering in the mind, you’re clinging … 
  17. Feeding the Mind
     … Four is the four noble truths, five is the five clinging-aggregates, and so on up through ten. The most interesting question, though, is, “What’s one?” Some teachers might answer that there’s the oneness of the world, or the oneness of the underlying principle of all things. But the Buddha’s answer was something totally different. “What’s one” is “All living … 
  18. The Need for Right View
     … He gives you a pragmatic definition, the five clinging aggregates, which means that you’ve got to look for the clinging. The way you’re feeding on something entails stress. You’re trying to figure out what is it you’re feeding on, and why you want to feed on it. Keep looking at that until you get a sense of dispassion, a sense … 
  19. Wise Endurance
     … All the forms of suffering that are listed there boil down to the five clinging-aggregates: clinging to form, feeling, perception, thought fabrications, or consciousness. In particular, what are your perceptions, what are your thought fabrications about a particular issue? Remember that even with the aggregates, there’s an element that comes in from the past and an element of fabrication in the present … 
  20. Refuge in the Dhamma
     … the five clinging aggregates. Now, those are not personal things. When you think about your thoughts, or your mind states in terms of aggregates, that way of thinking helps to pull you out of your narratives. You see the mind state as an activity. There’s a feeling going into it, a way of breathing that goes into it, perceptions, fabrications, consciousness. Seeing things … 
  21. The Bright Tunnel
     … Where is it? How is it happening? The Buddha says, basically, that it comes down to what he calls the five clinging aggregates. There’s form affected by clinging, feeling affected by clinging, perceptions, thought fabrications, consciousness, all of which are affected by clinging. The clinging is what turns them into suffering. The clinging is what tries to wring a happiness out of them … 
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