Search results for: "Aggregates"

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  2. Seriously Happy
     … He says that the aggregates of form, feeling, perception, fabrication, consciousness—the things out of which we create our sense of self—have their pleasures and their pains. He says that it’s because of their pleasures that we get stuck on them. It’s because of their pains that we look for a way out. So when you find yourself missing a particular … 
  3. Training the Whole Mind
     … Get so that it really does know how to deal with the aggregates as they arise, how to deal with pain so it doesn’t turn it into suffering, how to deal with pleasure so it doesn’t turn it into suffering. Get so that the mind develops a basic intelligence in sorting itself out, managing itself, so that all your mental powers suddenly … 
  4. Everything Comes Together Right Here
     … oh, there are aggregates there; there are different fabrications. They’re all there: all the things you’re going to need for insight. They’re right there. You don’t need to go anyplace else. So you’ve got mindfulness, concentration, and discernment, all in one convenient location. And just that thought should help get you even more focused. You don’t have to … 
  5. Passion for Nostalgia
     … You’re clinging to these different aggregates. And what are you getting out of them? You’re placing ruts in the mind, or as the Buddha would say, you’re bending the mind. We would say they’re ruts. You get into the rut and it’s hard to get out. This is one of the reasons why the Buddha said that lack of … 
  6. Surveying the World
     … events in the body, in terms of the four properties; events in the mind, in terms of the four mental aggregates. And what can be done with these things?” Try to use good perceptions of the breath. They give you an anchor. Then you apply acts of attention and intention. As they stick here, they pay careful attention to what’s going on, and … 
  7. Peace vs. Clinging
     … All this, he says, boils down to clinging to the aggregates. We’re trying to feed off of things that can’t give us really good food. So when you’re looking for peace, you also have to look for what’s disturbing your peace. And the disturbance lies in the act of having to feed. What kind of feelings are you feeding on … 
  8. Noble & True
     … Seeing the act of clinging to the aggregates not as a source of happiness or a source of who you really want to be, but as suffering, something to be comprehended so that you can abandon its cause: That’s a noble act as well. When the mind has a good sense of the present moment and how to stay with the present moment … 
  9. Disenchantment & Dispassion
     … All the teachings—the teachings on the five aggregates, the six sense media, the properties of earth, water, wind, fire, space, and consciousness; and his more poetic teachings, the images in the poetry, the images in the suttas: They’re all aimed at this direction—to induce that sense of dispassion, disenchantment. And through the dispassion, release. Not that you’re hoping to be … 
  10. No Who or Where
     … There’s a point where he’s talking to the monks, saying, “Let go of what is not yours”—he talks about the five aggregates—he says, “It will be for your long-term welfare and happiness.” So he’s going back and forth on the line there. On the one side there’s a “you” who’s going to benefit, and the other … 
  11. Dispassion Is Freedom
     … The duty with regard to the first truth, suffering, which is clinging to the aggregates: You have to comprehend that, and part of comprehension is getting past passion for them. The duty with regard to craving—the cause of suffering—is that you’ve got to abandon it. How do you abandon it? By developing dispassion. The third noble truth itself is dispassion. It … 
  12. True, Beneficial, Timely
     … twigs and branches here in these aggregates you’ve got. Your habit of talking to yourself is a pile of twigs and branches, and you can make that into a raft if you’re skillful. What the Buddha’s teaching us is that we can master these habits as skills, so that instead of creating suffering for ourselves, we can use them to put … 
  13. Evaluating the Practice
     … He wants you to step back from your clinging to the aggregates so that you can see, “What is this all about?” The world teaches us to go with our craving. “Obey your thirst,” they tell you. Then, of course, they try to take advantage of your thirsts in that way. But the Buddha’s saying, “Step back. This person you think you are … 
  14. Balancing Effort & Patience
     … There’s a sutta where the Buddha says even in just your basic experience of form, feeling, perception, and the rest of the aggregates, there’s an intentional element in all of them. So you’ve got to learn how to make those intentions skillful. You can do that only by watching what’s going on, and experimenting with the way your mind is … 
  15. Assumptions
     … As Ajaan Lee once said, “A wise person can get good use out of anything.” We’re told that the aggregates, if you cling to them, are the essence of what’s stressful, the essence of suffering. So what the Buddha has you do is take these things that are the building blocks for suffering and put them together in a new way. Which … 
  16. Not-self in Context
     … In that discourse, the Buddha gives two arguments for why the aggregates should be seen as not-self. One is that you can’t really control them: You can’t tell them not to grow old, you can’t tell them not to get sick, you can’t tell them not to die. The second argument is, if these things are inconstant and stressful … 
  17. Feeding on the Breath
     … And remember that this process of fabrication is very closely related to the process of feeding on all the aggregates from which we make our sense of self. They are parallel in the process of feeding physically. Form would be the form of the body and also the form of the food we want for the body. Feeling would be the feeling of hunger … 
  18. Take Care of Your Tools
     … Because the things you need to understand—the five aggregates, the processes of fabrication—are all happening right here. It’s just a matter of getting more sensitive to them right here. And how are you going to do that? By taking very good care of your concentration right here. If you look after your tools, your tools will look after you.
  19. Your Main Foundation
     … You have hands-on experience with these different frames of reference, or the different aggregates. This means that concentration is not something just to step on and then immediately jump off and go someplace else in search of insight. You want to stay here. This is your foundation. Everything else will have to stand on this foundation. So don’t let yourself do a … 
  20. Shoulds & Desires
     … But then he boils it down to the five clinging-aggregates. The important word there is the “clinging.” The Pali term for clinging, upadana, can also mean “to feed.” This is where things get counterintuitive, because for most of us, our relationship to the world is that we want to feed off it. We like to take in not only physical food, but also … 
  21. When This Is, That Is
     … In other words, you take all the aggregates, which normally you lug around as your sense of self, and you turn them into a path—by the way you use them, by the way you shape them. It’s up to you. That’s the power you have. So as we meditate, we’re learning how to get a sense of our powers and … 
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