#five aggregates

[faaipdeoiadvi]

Self-designation for the collection of the five aggregates

- no separate self outside of these interconnected ever-changing processes

1. Form - physical body, including brain and nervous system

2. Feeling - encompasses all sensations

-pleasant

-unpleasant

-neutral

Important to differentiate from. perception. Perception recognizes and labels an object - feeling is the effective response

3. Perception - how we interpret sensory input. We make sense of the world around us by categorizing and labeling experiences.

Shaped by:

- past experiences

- cultural conditioning

- individual biases

Works in conjunction with mental formation to construct our understanding of reality.

4. Mental formations - the most dynamic

Include:

- thoughts

- emotions

- intentions

- volitional impulses

- all mental activity that shapes our responses

For instance, seeing a snake (perception) might trigger fear (feeling) and the thought "I need to move away" (mental formation).

5. Consciousness - the awareness that experiences all of these

- The Knowing aspect of our being

- The subjective experience of the other four aggregates

- not a thing; a process

- a constantly changing flow of awareness

The five aggregates offer a framework for understanding the components of experience, highlighting their interconnected and impermanent nature.

[deepinsamsara]

"In every age and culture, humans tend to think of themselves as being animated by a sacred spirit or consisting of an underlying stable essence. Using meditation to investigate the phenomena of mind and body carefully and directly, the Buddha instead saw a complex interdependent arising of related factors: material form, feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness. These arise and cease in a continuous swirl of activity, but this activity follows discernable patterns of interrelationship. There is no underlying essence; all psychological and physical factors are arising and ceasing interdependently. There is, however, in the midst of all this change a discernable sense of self. Some unique structures seem to form within experience, some patterns of attitude and behavior recur, and one appears able to transform in various wholesome and unwholesome ways. What is too crudely taken as an agent underlying experience is seen instead as a complex interdependent arising involving intentions, activities of body, speech, and mind, and bundles of dispositions. The self is a malleable construct, like everything else, and can be best understood as functioning without essence: self is self-less." - Andrew Olendzki (x)

[ypnhot]

here's all the ones I've made so far. I'm working on 4 foundations of mindfulness, 7 factors of enlightenment, dependent origination, and the meditative states right now.

[lovenikkiclothes]

Based around the cloak ‘Five Aggregates’.

[deepinsamsara]

“I may venture to affirm of the rest of mankind, that they are nothing but a bundle or collection of different perceptions, which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux and movement.” - David Hume

[ypnhot]

I made a thing.

This is not mine. This I am not. This is not my self. netaṃ mama. nesohamasmi. na meso attā.

It's a quote from the Buddhist Discourses. It's about non-self and usually relates to the five aggregates. It's sort of like that recent thing "you don't have a soul, you are a soul, you have a body" except this goes a little further.

Your body is not your self, it is form, which is impermanent and dependant on the world around you.

Your feelings aren't your self, they are impermanent and dependent on the events that happen around you and your perceptions of them.

Your perceptions are not your self, they are impermanent and dependant on the world around you.

Your volitional formations, or 'will' is not your self, it is impermanent and dependent on your desires and cravings for the things in the world around you and a desire for them to be permanent, which they are not.

Your consciousness is not your self, it is impermanent and dependent on there being a world around you to be aware of and the world around you is form, which is impermanent.

The second part is the same thing but in Pali, the language that the Buddha spoke.

I find the quote really calming, especially when having anxiety or panic attacks. It helps to remove me from the situation and help me look at what's going on from this non-self point of view. If I'm having nausea and it's causing me to panic, I can think about how this body is not mine, not I, not self, and the feeling of nausea is not mine, not I, not self, Then I can meditate on the phenomenon of the nausea and look at it as if it were just signals in a system rather than something that's causing a life threatening situation, which is what the panic is trying to tell me.

I made the script by tracing sections of a Burmese Palm Leaf Pali manuscript from the late 19th century. I really liked how it looked. I formed latin letters out of the shapes. I think it came out looking neat. Then I made a second one where I just put the latin text onto a similar format as the palm leaf.

[ypnhot]

The Five Aggregates

[deepinsamsara]

And what is the self of persons or mind? Although there are many systems of explanation concerning this, in reality a person is the combination of awareness and the continuity of the afflicted aggregates, always hopping about, fluctuating and reckless. Having grasped this person as being permanent and unique, one then clings to it and becomes attached to it as "I" or "self." That is what should be known as the self of the person or mind. The afflicting emotions are produced by this self. Karma is produced by the afflicting emotions. Suffering is produced by this karma. Therefore, the root of all suffering and faults is the self or mind.

Gampopa (The Jewel Ornament of Liberation)