Search results for: "Clinging aggregates"

  1. Clinging-Aggregates
  2. Clinging-Aggregates in Context
    When the Buddha talks about the five clinging-aggregates, it’s always in the context of the four noble truths. In fact, it’s his definition of the first noble truth, the truth of suffering, or stress: Clinging to the five aggregates is stress. It’s important to keep that context in mind because sometimes you hear the five clinging-aggregates defined as the … 
  3. Chewed Up by Your Food
     … He talks about how suffering boils down to the five clinging-aggregates. You’ve got the form clinging-aggregate, the feeling clinging-aggregate, the perception clinging-aggregate, fabrications and consciousness clinging-aggregates. The word for “clinging,” upadana, can also mean sustenance. We try to feed off of these things. Particularly, we try to feed off the pleasure that these things have to offer. We … 
  4. Feeding on Feeding
     … It’s the five clinging-aggregates: the form clinging-aggregate, feeling clinging-aggregate, perception clinging-aggregate, fabrications clinging-aggregate, consciousness clinging-aggregate. People have often asked: Where did the Buddha get this analysis? Because you don’t see it in any pre-Buddhist teachings. He mentions it in his first discourse, explains a little bit more in his second, and the people that were … 
  5. Three Parts of Right View
     … He calls them clinging-aggregates. The word for clinging, upadana, can also mean taking food or taking sustenance. This is where it’s easy to see how the clinging-aggregates work together as a set, because they’re activities that we engage in as we feed. There’s the form of the body, which needs to be sustained. Then there’s the form of … 
  6. Give Before You Get
     … After all, the Buddha’s analysis of suffering is the clinging-aggregates. The clinging-aggregates are how we define who we are, so we’re going to have to give up how we define who we are. That’s a pretty radical giving up. You have to work at it gradually from the beginning. Anything that you see is obviously unskillful, you give it … 
  7. Feeding Instructions
     … All this comes down to the five clinging-aggregates—form as a clinging-aggregate; feelings as a clinging-aggregate; perceptions, fabrications, consciousness as clinging-aggregates. And the real problem is the clinging. The word for clinging, upādāna, can also mean “to take sustenance,” in other words, to feed. We’re feeding off of our sense of our body as we feel it from within … 
  8. Beyond Natural Suffering
     … He started with a long list of the various things that are suffering, and then he came to a synopsis, which is that the five clinging aggregates are suffering: form as a clinging aggregate, feeling, perception, fabrication as a clinging aggregate, consciousness as a clinging aggregate. The usefulness of the synopsis is that you realize that clinging to these five things: That’s suffering … 
  9. The Fourth Frame of Reference
     … You analyze things first in terms of the first noble truth—the five clinging-aggregates—to understand where’s the stress here, where’s the suffering here, where and how you’re clinging to these things. In particular, you want to learn how to identify each of the clinging-aggregates—form, feeling, perception, fabrication, and consciousness—as events, activities, to see what spurs them … 
  10. Habits & Practices
    It’s something we chant every day—the Buddha’s formula for comprehending suffering, the five clinging-aggregates—but it tends to go right past us even if we read the translation: the form clinging-aggregate, the feeling clinging-aggregate, perception, fabrications, consciousness clinging-aggregate. That’s because we’re not familiar with our clinging on this level. It’s easier to relate to … 
  11. Understanding Aggregates
    In the Buddha’s first sermon, he defines suffering—or stress, the word dukkha—as the five clinging-aggregates. He states that our duty with regard to those five clinging-aggregates is to comprehend them. Elsewhere, he says that comprehension means getting rid of all passion, aversion, and delusion around them. In his second sermon, he shows how to do that. He talks about … 
  12. Analyzing Suffering
     … He talks about suffering in various terms in different contexts, but his most condensed analysis is the five clinging-aggregates. Form as a clinging-aggregate, feeling as a clinging-aggregate, perception, fabrication, and consciousness as clinging-aggregates. He talks about the aggregates to help make suffering a bit more impersonal. We tend to identify so much with our sufferings. Our strongest sense of our … 
  13. Borrowed Goods
    We read about how the clinging-aggregates are suffering, so our first reaction is that we want to get rid of them, but it doesn’t work. Remember the Buddha’s statement that our duty with regard to them is to comprehend them. You get rid of craving, but with the clinging-aggregates you’ve got to know them, really understand them, to the … 
  14. The First Noble Truth
     … It’s as if he’s putting out a sign that says, “If you have any of these problems, I’ve got the solution.” The solution is seeing these things as five clinging-aggregates. All these pains and sufferings you have: Try to see where there’s clinging. Are you clinging to a form or a feeling, perceptions, fabrications, consciousness? He puts these in … 
  15. The Noble Eightfold Path to the Deathless
     … When the mind is still, it can see itself a lot more clearly, and you begin to see that the suffering the Buddha identified as the clinging-aggregates is there even in the concentration. Remember the other image the Buddha has of the path, which is that it’s like a raft, a raft made out of twigs and branches. In other words, you … 
  16. The Three Perceptions as Tools
     … We apply the three perceptions to the five clinging-aggregates to induce dispassion for the aggregates so that we can let go of our clinging and stop suffering. Now, as the Buddha said, the five aggregates do have their good side. They do offer pleasure. If they didn’t offer any pleasure, we wouldn’t latch on to them. But they can also be … 
  17. Three Noble Truths Versus Four
     … the five clinging-aggregates. He identifies the cause of suffering as the three types of craving: for sensuality, for becoming, and for non-becoming. He points out the cessation of suffering, which is dispassion for those kinds of craving. Then there’s the path to develop that dispassion, starting with right view and ending in right concentration. What’s interesting in those factors of … 
  18. Deconstruction
     … The suffering is the clinging-aggregates altogether. Think of this in terms of the image of feeding. You’re hungry: That’s the craving; that’s the desire and passion. You find something you want to eat, so you latch on to it, hold on to it as you eat it. There’s still desire and passion involved in the feeding. That’s the … 
  19. The Middle Way
     … This means that the craving is still there in the clinging aggregates. After all, while you’re feeding, it’s a sign that you’re still hungry. If you were totally satisfied, you’d stop. The main point here is that if you’re going to put an end to the cause of suffering, you’ve got to look inside. This is why we … 
  20. Appropriate Attention Always
     … As for the clinging-aggregates, those are to be comprehended. That’s the duty with regard to the first noble truth. What does comprehension mean? It doesn’t mean you’re simply notice, “Oh yes, there is suffering,” or “This is what suffering is like.” You understand that suffering lies in the clinging to the aggregates. And why do you cling to the aggregates … 
  21. Load next page...