Week Eight – Dependent Origination and Five-Clinging Aggregates
This week the teachings on Dependent Origination and The Five Clinging-Aggregates is presented. These are key understandings to develop and there is much information to absorb. You may want to take more than one week to study and integrate these teachings. Please do so.
This week two key understandings will be developed. The Five Clinging-Aggregates and Dependent Origination (Dependent Co-arising) are the Buddha’s teachings on what constitutes the mental/physical form that appears to be the self and the environment necessary for not-self, or the ego-self, to arise. The Five Clinging-Aggregates are the impermanent components that through clinging cause the appearance of an individual form. Dependent Origination describes the 12 causative links that are the actions, or karma unfolding, that occur as the environment for the phenomenon of a self to arise.
As all dukkha originates from the 12 links of Dependent Origination, we will start there.
Metaphorically the Five Clinging-Aggregates are the vehicle of an ego-self and Dependent Origination is the factory where the vehicle takes shape and the environment the vehicle travels.
The importance of these teachings is to understand the origination of all views of self and clinging (ignorance) and to experience dis-assembling, or unbinding, the vehicle of the ego-personality.
The Buddha awakened to the profound understanding that from ignorance, through twelve observable causative conditions the whole manner of stress and suffering is formed. He summarized this understanding when he presented his first teaching.
The Buddha’s first discourse was the foundational teachings of The Four Noble Truths. The Four Noble Truths summarize the entire Dhamma. The first noble truth describes the condition caused by ignorance, the noble truth of dukkha (stress, unhappiness, disenchantment). The second noble truth describes the truth of the origination of dukkha. The third noble truth explains that cessation of dukkha is possible. The fourth noble truth is the truth of the path leading to the cessation of dukkha.
It is the development of The Eightfold Path that unbinds attachment, ends dukkha and brings awakening.
Nibbana (Pali), Nirvana (Sanskrit), describes the awakened mind state that means extinguished or unbinding. Cessation of dukkha is the extinguishing of all wrong views and the unbinding of all clinging attachments.
As explained in the previous chapter, the Buddha taught three linked characteristics of life in the phenomenal world. These three characteristics are Anicca, Anatta, and Dukkha – impermanence, not-self, and stress.
All things in the phenomenal world are subject to impermanence, including what appears as self. All things in the phenomenal world arise and fade away WITHIN the phenomenal world. Nothing is permanent and nothing arises of its own accord.
All things that arise in the phenomenal world are dependent on an infinite number of other impermanent phenomena for existence. This includes what appears to be an individual and eternal self.
The Buddha avoided any attempts to define a self based on an ego in any manner. The Buddha never addressed questions directly that would not lead to ending craving and clinging and cessation of dukkha. Questions about the nature of self originating from a deluded belief (in self) could lead to only more confusion and were left unanswered as they were improper questions rooted in ignorance.
The Buddha called these questions arising from “Inappropriate views not fit for attention. These views will continue to generate confusion and suffering.”
He teaches what is fit for attention: “Understanding Stress, Understanding the Origination of Stress, Understanding the Cessation of Stress, Understanding the path leading to the cessation of Stress. As one attends appropriately in this way, three fetters are abandoned in him: identity-view, doubt, and grasping at precepts & practices.” [1]
The continued preoccupation with defining and maintaining a self creates ongoing confusion and suffering. Understanding what it is that is perceived to be a self brings liberation.
The Buddha’s second discourse, the Anatta-lakkhana Sutta or the Sutta on Non-Self, teaches that the elements that make up a self are all impermanent. He further teaches that the arising and clinging of these elements all have a cause and that the cause can be abandoned. Enlightenment in the context of the Second Noble Truth means that the origination of stress and unhappiness, craving and clinging to objects, views, and ideas has been abandoned.
Dependent Origination
As one develops an understanding of the Dhamma, it is important to always be mindful of the context and intent of the teachings of the Buddha. The Buddha consistently impressed to be mindful of what he taught and why: “I teach the origination of Dukkha and the cessation of Dukkha, nothing more.”
The Buddha avoided any issues that would prove to be a distraction to his stated purpose. In fact, The Buddha could have just as accurately stated “I teach the origination of distraction and the cessation of distraction.”
It is the preoccupation with stress and unhappiness that distracts one from awakening. It is the distraction of dukkha that prevents liberation and freedom.
As stated in the previous chapter there are three linked characteristics of phenomenal life, Anicca, Dukkha and Anatta. Anicca describes the impermanent environment that a self arises within. Dukkha describes the experience of self within the environment of impermanence. Anatta describes the impermanent and insubstantial nature of self or the ego-personality.
Life in the phenomenal world is often experienced as arbitrary and personal while at the same time pre-determined and unavoidable. Dependent Origination explains the process of the formation of a personality, a “self” and the process of maintaining the self. Dependent Origination also explains the impermanent environment in which the distraction of dukkha arises and the steps necessary through heightened wisdom, heightened virtue and heightened concentration, to refine thinking and reverse the formation of the ego-personality.
Dependent Origination is the Buddha’s teaching on how personal phenomenon arises within the environment of anicca, impermanence.
The entirety of the Dhamma is to bring understanding of The Four Noble Truths. It is within the context of The Four Noble Truths that understanding of Dependent Origination develops.
Understanding Dependent Origination brings awareness of the relationship between the five clinging-aggregates and the phenomenal world. The five clinging-aggregates are physical and mental factors that cling together to form a personality identified as self. Dependent Origination explains the 12 causative links that determine the experiences of the ego-personality.
In the Paticca-Samupadda-Vibhanga Sutta [2] the Buddha presents the 12 causative links of dependent Origination. Each of these 12 links are required to cause the “self” to experience confusion, disappointment, sickness, old age, death and rebirth:
- “From ignorance as a requisite condition come fabrications.
- From fabrications as a requisite condition comes consciousness.
- From consciousness as a requisite condition comes name-and-form.
- From name-and-form as a requisite condition comes the six sense-bases.
- From the six sense-bases as a requisite condition comes contact.
- From contact as a requisite condition comes feeling.
- From feeling as a requisite condition comes craving.
- From craving as a requisite condition comes clinging and maintaining.
- From clinging and maintaining as a requisite condition comes becoming.
- From becoming as a requisite condition comes birth.
- From birth as a requisite condition comes aging, sickness, death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress and despair.”
Then the Buddha describes in slightly more detail, and in reverse order, each of the 12 links:
“Now what is aging and death? Aging is decrepitude, brokenness, graying, decline, weakening of faculties. Death is the passing away of the aggregates, the ending of time, the interruption in the life faculties.
Now what is Birth? Birth is the descent, the coming forth, the coming to be. Birth is the appearance of the six sense-bases and the five clinging-aggregates.
Now what is becoming? Becoming is sensual becoming, form becoming and formless becoming.”
(This is explaining that the belief in a self is reinforced by sensual contact and is proliferated by believing in an individual personality being born, i.e.: becoming form, and the same individual personality becoming formless at death but surviving as the same personality, either in an eternal formless state or being reborn as the same “soul.”)
Becoming, birth, sickness, old age, death and non-becoming is the environment of dukkha caused by ignorance. The links of clinging, craving, feeling, contact, the six sense-bases, name-and-form, consciousness and fabrications are all part of the process of a self arising from ignorance. This process is maintained by continued ignorance, furthering karma.
The Buddha then describes how clinging to the notion of self maintains this feedback loop of senses establishing a self and maintaining the cycle of birth, death and rebirth.
“And what is clinging and maintaining? There are four types of clinging: Clinging to sensual stimulus, clinging to views (conditioned thinking), clinging to precepts and practices, and clinging to a doctrine of self.”
The Buddha here is cautioning against developing or maintaining practices that are given validity simply from the feeling developed or the views reinforced. Engaging in rituals or practices that continue a doctrine of self in any realm, physical or otherwise are also to be abandoned.
The Buddha here has taken a methodical route from the ultimate unfolding of ignorance, suffering arising from birth (dukkha), back to the second noble truth or the origination of dukkha, clinging. Along the way he describes what is clung to: a self that is dependent on continued craving and continued sensory stimulus to be maintained.
Profound understanding of any one of these links begins to unravel the entire causative chain. For example, a profound understanding that name-and-form (anatta, the Five Clinging Aggregates, Not-Self, the ego-self) are a requisite condition for the six-sense base causes contact to be seen as a consequence of the belief in an ego-self and not an inevitable life experience. From this understanding life experience no longer will describe and maintain the ego-personality.
It is important to remember now that the teachings on Dependent Origination are given to develop understanding of The Four Noble Truths. This sutta explains the process of how all personal phenomenon arises so that understanding of the distraction of dukkha can be realized. It teaches Right View while pointing out that holding wrong (ignorant) view is the cause of all confusion and suffering.
The environment of anicca, dukkha and anatta is not an arbitrary or chaotic environment from which there is no escape. Understanding Dependent Origination within the context of The Four Noble Truths is the key to unbinding from the endless kammic entanglements caused by the desire to maintain a self.
Now the Buddha describes how craving arises from feeling, and how feeling is caused by contact.
“And what is craving? There are six classes of craving: craving for forms, craving for sounds, craving for smells, craving for tastes, craving for physical sensations, and craving for ideas.
“And what is feeling? Feeling has six classes as well: feeling arising from eye-contact, from ear-contact-from nose-contact, from taste contact, from body-contact, from intellect-contact. This is called feeling.
“And what is contact? Phenomenon contacting the eye, the ear, the nose, the tongue, the body, and the intellect. This is contact with the six sense-base.
“And what is name and form? Feeling, perception, intention, attention (all mental aspects) and contact. Discriminating consciousness is name. The elements of water, fire, earth and wind, that which makes up physical forms is called forms. Name-and-form is discriminating consciousness bound to, or clinging to, physical form.
“And what is consciousness? There are six classes of consciousness: eye-consciousness, ear-consciousness, nose-consciousness, tongue-consciousness, body-consciousness, intellect-consciousness.
Through the six-sense base contact with the world is made and mental fabrications, including objectifying the the self-referential ego-self, is formed.
“And what are fabrications? There are three fabrications: Bodily fabrications, verbal fabrications, and mental fabrications.”
All three fabrications are caused by a wrong view of self. Fabrications result in a personality bound to physical form that is perceived as “I” or “me”.
The Buddha describes ignorance:
“And what is ignorance? Ignorance is not knowing stress, not knowing the origination of stress, not knowing the cessation of stress, not knowing the (Eightfold) path leading to the cessation of stress. This is called ignorance.”
The Buddha brings his teachings back to his first teaching on the The Four Noble Truths and teaches that from ignorance of The Four Noble Truths comes all confusion and suffering.
Gaining understanding of The Four Noble Truths is true wisdom. Wisdom brings an end to ignorance and an end to the distraction, confusion and suffering caused by ignorance, and the delusion of an independently arisen self.
When all ignorance is abandoned awakening arises:
“Now from the remainder-less fading & cessation of ignorance comes the cessation of fabrications.
“From the cessation of fabrications comes the cessation of consciousness.
“From the cessation of consciousness comes the cessation of name-and-form.
“From the cessation of name-and-form comes the cessation of the six sense-bases.
“From the cessation of the six sense-bases comes the cessation of contact.
“From the cessation of contact comes the cessation of feeling.
“From the cessation of feeling comes the cessation of craving.
“From the cessation of craving comes the cessation of clinging and maintaining.
“From the cessation of clinging and maintaining comes the cessation of becoming.
“From the cessation of becoming comes the cessation of birth.
“From the cessation of birth comes the cessation of sickness, aging, death, sorrow, pain, distress, despair and confusion. Wisdom brings the cessation to the entire mass of stress and suffering.”
The Eightfold Path is a path that develops heightened wisdom, heightened virtue and heightened concentration. All three qualities of mind are requisite conditions that end ignorance. Developing these three qualities creates the condition for the cessation of ignorance.
Notice that the entire process of ignorance ultimately causing birth unfolds in an instant. Once birth arises from becoming, it can be said that time begins. The mental/physical (name-and-form) process of self becomes observable. The ego-self has become established within an environment that it cannot possibly maintain. Stress (dukkha) arises.
Dependent Origination describes the ongoing process rooted in ignorance that the ego-self arises and is maintained by craving and clinging. This is perhaps the most significant difference between the Buddha’s teachings and religions and philosophical systems, including most later-developed Buddhist schools.
A modern example of this is the misunderstanding and misapplication of Dependent Origination used to develop a doctrine of interdependence, interconnectedness, and inter-being between individual and insubstantial ego-personalities. Looked at closely these doctrines only encourage and maintain craving and clinging.
All human beings are connected through the common problem of delusion and suffering. This is described as The First Noble Truth. Creating something more of this simple fact leads to contradictory and confusing doctrines that perpetuate continued “i-making.”
Notice that there is no actual beginning in time nor birth of a “soul” or any individual entity. The process of becoming an ego-self begins in ignorance, produces delusion and suffering, and (the process) can be brought to cessation through wisdom and understanding.
Having arisen from ignorance, only continued ignorance can sustain ignorance and perpetuate dukkha. Wrong views are formed and deluded beliefs created to provide substance to what is inherently insubstantial.
Dependent Origination shows that from a wrong or ignorant view the seeming chaos of an impermanent environment is fabricated. It is within this impermanent environment that a sense-based consciousness arises. Here stress arises as consciousness continually struggles to maintain a permanent and substantial view of self while with each moment, in every instant, all things pass away, and all things are reborn.
It is the stress of maintaining wrong views, known as dukkha, that distracts from recognizing the mirage-like nature of these views. Through dependent Origination clinging to a view of self occurs. Keeping this self comfortable, safe, engaged and most importantly continually re-established, then becomes the sole purpose for existence.
The Eightfold Path provides the framework and Right View, or right perspective, for observing and interrupting Dependent Origination. In order to see this process clearly any notion if “I” or “me” being the cause of Dependent Origination, of being the ignorant individual that begins the process must be abandoned. The developed skills of concentration and mindfulness and the ongoing direction and guidance of the Eightfold Path diminishes “I-making” or conceit. It is from this perspective that Dependent Origination can be usefully and effectively understood.
The Buddha was asked on one occasion “is the one who acts the same one who experiences the result of an act?” (Notice the self-identification in the question)
The Buddha responds “To say the one who acts is the one who experiences is one extreme. To say the one who acts is someone other than the one who experiences is the other extreme.” (This is the belief in outside forces such as creation, reward, or punishment bringing individual experiences.)
The Buddha continues: “I teach the Dhamma from the middle, a middle way. I avoid those extreme views and teach that from (individual) ignorance brings all manner of delusion and suffering. Whoever declares that pleasure and pain are self made, whoever declares that pleasure and pain are other made, are deluded. All experiences are dependent on contact and contact is (initially) dependent on ignorance.” [3]
This brings up another contradictory teaching of later-developed schools that misunderstand or mis-apply Dependent Origination. The ego-self, anatta, has no inherent nature. There is no Buddhahood or Buddha-nature for the ego-self to aspire to. This doctrine creates confusion and further establishment of the ego-self in the idea of achieving a repository for the ego-self in an inherent superior being. If there is an inner Buddhahood or Buddha-nature how could it succumb to ignorance?
It is the ego-self that has no substantial nature and it is developing understanding of what is perceived to be an ego-self so that all attempts at continuing to establish anatta are abandoned.
There is nothing in the Buddha’s teachings that support the notion of an inner Buddha-nature. Once awakened a human being is free of craving, clinging, delusion and ongoing suffering. This is what the Buddha taught. This is enough!
In the Simsapa Sutta the Buddha explains what the refined purpose of the Dhamma is: “And what have I taught? ‘I teach the nature of dukkha (stress). I teach the origination of dukkha (craving and clinging originate dukkha). I teach that cessation of dukkha is possible. I teach that The Eightfold Path is the path leading to the cessation of dukkha: This is what I have taught. “
The Buddha describes the insubstantiality of the mental/physical form in the Dhammapada, v.46 as “Having known this body likened unto foam and understanding thoroughly its nature is mirage-like.”
Dependent Origination shows that continued confusion and suffering is dependent on continued ignorance. Developing wisdom and understanding through the Eightfold Path brings an end to ignorance.
Jhana meditation is very effective in interrupting the compulsion to continually maintain ignorance and the establishment of an ego-personality. Mindfulness of the breath settles the mind and develops deep and useful concentration. As distraction lessens and samadhi develops it becomes possible to observe Dependent Origination as it occurs. True insight is insight into the formation of self arising from ignorance.
Aversion to the Dhamma often arises as the Dhamma points directly to seeing clearly the insubstantial nature of self. All manner of adaptations and accommodations have been made to the Buddha’s original teachings to avoid this aversion. These general hindrances were discussed in chapter two. Hindrances arise from the ego-personality’s need to continually establish and maintain its existence in every object, view, and idea that occurs.
Hindrances to maintaining a Dhamma practice is explained in week ten.
Of course, it is the fabricated ego-personality’s obsession with maintaining views that is put aside through the the Eightfold Path. This is often experienced like annihilation because it is. Awakening is abandoning all views of self that have arisen from ignorance.
As seen through understanding Dependent Origination, clinging and craving are necessary if an ego-self is to be maintained. Clinging and craving subsides by remaining mindful of the virtuous aspects of The Eightfold Path. As clinging and craving subside, concentration develops and deepens. As concentration deepens, the distraction caused by ignorance ends and wisdom arises.
Awakening occurs through understanding The Four Noble Truths and within the moral, ethical and concentrative framework of The Eightfold Path.
Through ignorance as the cause, the conditions of distraction, confusion and suffering occur. Through wisdom as the cause, the condition of awakening occurs. The Eightfold Path is a path of virtue and concentration which develops perfect wisdom.
Dependent Origination describes the impersonal process resulting in confusion and suffering founded in ignorance. The Five Clinging-Aggregates describe the impersonal nature of the perception of an individual, permanent, personal self. Remember that the Dhamma is taught in the context of the Four Noble Truths. The Five Clinging Aggregates do not seek to explain a “self.” The Five Clinging-Aggregates describe the clinging vehicle that experiences suffering. When viewed from this Right View, The Five Clinging Aggregates are anatta, not-self, anicca, impermanent, and so dukkha. The Five Clinging Aggregates are also known as the Five Kandhas.
The Five Clinging-Aggregates,
The Five Kandhas
Due to impermanence the Buddha teaches: “Form is not-self, feelings are not self, perception is not self, mental fabrications are not self, and consciousness is not self.”
The first two discourses the Buddha presented are considered to be two of the three essential discourses of the Buddha. The third, “The Fire Discourse,” given a month or so later, addresses the issue of self from a slightly different perspective.
An article on the Fire Discourse is included at the end of this book.
The five elements that combine to give the appearance of a self the Buddha called “The Five Kandhas” or “The Five Clinging-Aggregates.”
In the language of the Buddha, Kandha had many meanings: Heap, pile, mass, a trunk of a tree. Nibbana, final release from clinging and awakening, is described as “extinguishing the fires of passion” and relates to the burning away of a tree trunk. Also, as will be seen, Heap, pile, and mass also help describe the Five Clinging-Aggregates. The Buddha, as he often did, used common terms (of his day) to explain the Dhamma.
The five clinging-aggregates explains that from ignorance a deluded view is formed. This ignorant view obscures reality and creates distraction. This results in the combining of five disparate parts to objectify and provide a vehicle for the ensuing confusion and suffering.
This is a key concept of the Dhamma. If this is unclear at this point, remember that the Eightfold Path develops the wisdom and understanding to see this reality clearly.
From the point of view of an ego-personality this often sounds like nonsense. This is wrong view. An aspect of ignorance is the ego-personality’s inclination to ignore anything that would challenge its existence.
When faced with truths that would bring wisdom to the ignorance that the ego-self is dependent on for continuance, questions such as “what am I?” and “what happens to me?” (when I awaken, when I die, etc.) arise.
These are inappropriate questions as they are rooted in ignorance and the ego-self. The result of ignorance cannot diminish ignorance. Clinging to views that have arisen from ignorance will only further ignorance and the ensuing confusion and suffering. These are questions the Buddha consistently refused to answer, often replying “I teach suffering and the cessation of suffering. I teach The Four Noble Truths, nothing more.”
The Five Clinging-Aggregates are taught to develop the understanding of suffering, not to describe and establish a self.
Understanding the five clinging-aggregates within the context of this course and within the context of The Four Noble Truths begins to diminish attachment to these ignorant views allowing for wisdom and Right View to arise.
The Buddha was also cautious in discussing any mental fabrications that would likely generate more confusion and stress.
The wanderer Vacchagotta had many questions about the nature of the cosmos, eternity, infinitude, the self and the soul, existence after death, and others. After he put these questions to the Buddha, the Buddha responded: “You are confused (by your own questions). The phenomenon you question is hard to understand and realize. This phenomenon is tranquil and subtle and beyond discriminating thought. Realization only comes to the awakened.” [4]
Anicca, impermanence, shows that what is perceived of as a substantial and eternal self is in truth insubstantial and impermanent. Being impermanent, the ego-self is subject to stress and unhappiness due to craving and clinging to views of a permanent and substantial self.
It is ignorance that brings suffering. It is the belief in an individual soul or personality that provides the vehicle for the experience and continuation of suffering. It is the constant preoccupation and distraction of dukkha that obscures liberation and freedom. One can’t know what is not known until what is believed to be true is abandoned. Insisting on maintaining the delusion of an individual self is a wrong view that is blocking Right View.
The Five Aggregates:
Form, matter (Pali: Rupa) The physical body and the physical domain. Included in the physical body are the senses and the thinking conditioned mind. The physical or phenomenal domain is all that we perceive through contact with the senses. Any form is called the form aggregate.
Feeling (Pali: Vedana) Feeling is the experienced reaction to mental or physical stimulus. When bound to form through perception mental fabrications occur further conditioning consciousness. Any emotional or physical feeling is called the feeling aggregate.
Perception (Pali: Sanna) Perceptions are views formed by discriminating thoughts. Reaction to perceptions further integrates the perception and further conditions the mind. Perception bound to a false view of self results in unskillful or deluded understanding. It is through perception that we convey permanent and individuated reality where none exists. Delusion arises by believing that simply because we think something is as it appears to be, it is. This is discursive thinking, much like “I think therefore I am.” This is also mental/physical sleight-of hand and you are the magician. Any perception is called the perception aggregate.
Mental Fabrications (Pali: Sankhara) Mental fabrications are thought constructs and held views. Mental fabrications provide motivation to wrong views creating unskillful actions. It is unskillful volitional actions originating in deluded intentions that cause karma. Sankhara is a component of consciousness. Any mental fabrication is called the fabrication aggregate.
Consciousness (Pali: Vinana) That which arises within form due to contact with the six senses (Sadayatana, five physical senses and thought). This is not to be taken as a part of an awakened mind. Consciousness bound to the clinging-aggregates is also impermanent. Consciousness is the active and reactive process of an ego-personality continually establishing itself. Any aspect of consciousness is called the consciousness aggregate.
Notice the close relationship between the five aggregates and the causative links of Dependent Origination. The aggregate of form relates to the last eight factors. The aggregate of feeling is the requisite condition for craving (and indirectly relates to name & form, the six-sense base and contact.) The aggregate of perception relates to fabrications as does consciousness.
The significance of this is to understand that the five clinging-aggregates are dependent on ignorance. End ignorance and the vehicle for continued confusion and suffering unbinds and unravels. Penetrating (complete understanding) of the five clinging-aggregates, or any single component of Dependent Origination, begins to unravel clinging and bring an end to ignorance.
When any aggregate binds to any other element through clinging it is called a clinging-aggregate. It is through these aggregates of observable phenomenon that a perception of a self arises. For example: when a physical form binds to a mental fabrication called John it is now a clinging-aggregate. John has a pleasant (or unpleasant) experience. Perception evaluates the feeling and further conditions consciousness to crave more (or less) of the experience.
Life becomes an endless experience of sensory input followed by discrimination. Each experience is filtered through discriminating and conditioned thought. Each experience provides more validity to the arisen form and further conditioning the consciousness of the form.
Notice that each of these factors is impermanent and uncertain. Through unskillful and deluded intention to establish a self based on these five impermanent factors your ego-personality is formed. From a wrong, or ignorant view, your ego-personality is established. Due to clinging to objects and views your ego-personality is defended and maintained. It is your ego-personality, or not-self, that is subject to endless unhappiness, disappointment, stress and suffering.
Being mindful of the Right Intention to recognize and abandon craving and clinging begins to unbind the five clinging-aggregates. Dependent Origination shows that it is from the condition of craving that the condition of clinging arises. Understanding the five clinging-aggregates begins to unbind the aggregates and brings the refined mindfulness to see the individual components for what they are and to (eventually) abandon the need to continue the ego-self through continued clinging.
The Buddha is not using the concept of the five clinging-aggregates to prove the existence of an individual self. This would only lead to more confusion and does not agree with anicca. The Buddha is using the concept of the five clinging-aggregates to show the insubstantial and impermanent nature of what is perceived as an individual:
“The five aggregates are anicca, impermanent; whatever is impermanent, that is dukkha, unsatisfactory; whatever is dukkha, that is without self. What is without self, that is not mine, that I am not, that is not my self. Thus should it be seen by perfect wisdom as it really is. Who sees by perfect wisdom, as it really is, his mind, not grasping, is detached from fabrications; he is liberated.” [5]
The Eightfold Path provides the framework for developing mindfulness and concentration. Mindfulness and concentration brings insight into the truth of the five clinging-aggregates giving rise to the appearance of a self. Upon investigation it becomes clear that none of these aggregates are what we would call a self. All are impermanent manifestations of psychological and physical phenomenon given substance by conditioned thinking.
What we perceive as an individual self is a mental/physical personality that has arisen from conditioned mind by ignorance. Individuality or an individual personality should be understood as a combination, or an aggregate, of phenomena. The desire for an individual and permanent form is the cause of suffering. This is craving for existence.
All conditioned thoughts and fabrications arise from this initial thirst. The concept of a substantial and eternal self endowed with a soul arises from craving for existence. Acquiring a view of a soul brings a belief of eternity to the temporary phenomenon of the ego-personality or non-self, continuing delusion and suffering.
The skillful view here is to not get too analytical as analysis does not develop insight. It is enough to recognize that by phenomenal contact with your six senses reaction occurs and is interpreted by the four aspects of consciousness. The Five Clinging-Aggregates experience this reaction and a personality is affirmed and established.
Reaction to sensory stimulus seems to give an experience validity. The experience is only “validated’ within the impermanence of the five clinging-aggregates. Initial reaction to the implications of the truth of the five clinging-aggregates can be disconcerting at first. Conditioned mind will reject any thought that self is without any permanent substance.
Understanding the five clinging-aggregates does not limit or annihilate anything of actual substance. The five clinging-aggregates shines the light of wisdom on the darkness of ignorance. Understanding frees the limited view of self that is bound to an impermanent and insubstantial “heap” of phenomenal elements. The insistence in maintaining the delusion that an individual self is anything more than these five clinging-aggregates continues to give rise to dukkha. It is the constant preoccupation with the distraction of dukkha that obscures wisdom.
Abandoning craving for existence and clinging to form is enlightenment. The distraction of the preoccupation with Dukkha is lifted and Right View arises.
The Four Noble Truths explains the truth of stress, its origins, and the path leading to the cessation of stress. The Five Clinging-Aggregates explains the process that leads to the belief in an individual self subject to The Four Noble Truths. Anicca, Dukkha, and Anatta explains the environment that the appearance of self and The Four Noble Truths are a part of.
Understanding the Five Clinging-Aggregates does not answer the question of “what am I?” Understanding the Five Clinging-Aggregates brings wisdom to the nature of suffering.
Next week’s study will develop understanding of karma and rebirth. Kamma and rebirth explains the condition caused by the ongoing unfolding of delusional beliefs. Through intention and volitional acts arising from a lack of understanding a self that suffers is maintained. Liberation arises and the mind awakens once all deluded views are abandoned:
“When ignorance is abandoned and true knowledge has arisen one no longer clings to sensual pleasures. One no longer clings to views, or to rules and observances, or to a doctrine of self. When one does not cling, one is not agitated. When one is not agitated, one attains Nibbana. Wisdom arises and birth is left behind. The life of virtue, mindful concentration and wisdom has been lived. The righteous Eightfold Path has been developed. There will be no more becoming to any state of being.” [6]
The Buddha’s teachings are not to be only studied intellectually. The Buddha’s teachings are to be understood through wisdom born of the experience of integrating these teachings into your life.
Observe the five clinging-aggregates and how they give rise to a belief in self. Notice that nothing arises without clinging, craving or desire. Notice the unskillful intention to acquire or to become. Notice how the belief in the self continues the discursive cycle of craving, acquisition, disappointment and more craving.
This is also a practical lesson in Dependent Origination. The root craving for existence gives rise to a self that clings. The self is dependent on clinging for existence, and on continued craving to maintain existence. Clinging to the notion of a separate and individual self lessens by developing understanding through The Eightfold Path.
The Eightfold Path is the practical and direct way of understanding The Four Noble Truths and the belief in a self within the environment of Anicca. Wisdom and understanding arise and the idea of an individual self is abandoned. There is no more becoming as there is nothing for desire to arise from. The veil of dukkha is lifted.
While meditating with tranquility, allow insight to arise and have a direct experience of the Buddha’s teachings leading to abandoning clinging and the cessation of suffering. Experience awakening through unbinding the five clinging-aggregates.
The Buddha describes a mind free of clinging and freed of association to the five clinging aggregates: “released from clinging the mind is without feature or surface, limitless, outside of time and space, freed from the six-sense base.” [7]
This Week’s Dhamma Study
- Continue with your meditation practice in the morning and early evening. If you feel comfortable with adding a few minutes to your practice do so. Ten to twenty minute meditation sessions should be comfortable for you.
- In meditation, remain mindful of your breathing as you dispassionately notice feelings and thoughts arise and dissipate. When you notice that you are caught up in your own thoughts and have lost awareness of your breath, put aside the focus on your thoughts and place your awareness on your breathing. Become aware of your mind from a dispassionate observational view, a mind-state of choiceless awareness always mindful of your breath.
- Continue to develop wisdom by noticing your attachments to the people and events of your life, including yourself. Continue to generate the Right Intention to let go of all attachments and all impermanent views.
- In your day-to-day life notice when you are engaged in Right Speech, Action and Livelihood and when you are not. Continue to develop the strong intention to abandon all wrong speech, action and livelihood. As concentration deepens, non-virtuous thoughts, words and deeds become apparent.
- Continue to develop Right Effort. Put aside time for a regular meditation practice and maintain a priority to your practice. There will always be life events distracting away from practice. Very rarely will these events be more immediate or important than putting aside some time twice a day for a period of meditation. Bring mindfulness into all areas of your life by staying focused in the present moment.
- Keep a journal of any persistent thoughts and your awareness of the impermanence of all thoughts. Avoid being analytical. This is a dispassionate observance of thoughts and feelings as they arise and pass away. Take note of developing a more mindful presence in your life. Notice when you are fully present with another. Notice when you are not as distracted or reactive.
- Write a paragraph or two regarding your Dhamma practice and write down any questions or insights into impermanence and how impermanence contributes to stress and unhappiness. Note your deepening understanding of how impermanence and clinging give rise to the stress and unhappiness of the ego-personality.
- Write an additional paragraph or two regarding your understanding of the Five Clinging-Aggregates and Dependent Origination and how these teachings explain the formation of an ego-personality and the environment that gives rise to non-self.
- To submit your writing, please use this form: Contact – Cross River Meditation
- Responses are generally within 24 to 48 hours.
- Continue your Dhamma study with week nine.
- Always be gentle with yourself and enjoy your practice!
[1] MN 2 Sabbāsava Sutta | All the Effluents | dhammatalks.org
[2] SN 12:2 Paṭiccasamuppāda Vibhaṅga Sutta | An Analysis of Dependent Co-arising | dhammatalks.org
[3]Samyutta Nikaya 22:46 (unverified reference)
[4] MN 72 Aggi-vacchagotta Sutta | To Vacchagotta on Fire | dhammatalks.org
[5] SN 22:48 Khandha Sutta | Aggregates | dhammatalks.org
[6] MN 11 Cūḷasīhanāda Sutta | The Shorter Lion’s Roar Discourse | dhammatalks.org
[7] MN 49 Brahma-nimantanika Sutta | The Brahmā Invitation | dhammatalks.org