#skandas

[opiraticentranced]

I think the idea that our thoughts don't belong to us any more or less than a tree belongs to us --or the sound of a bird-- can help us to allow thoughts to come and go, without feeling that it is our job or even our ability to deal with them directly. We can obsess on our thoughts just like we can obsess on a bird sound, but we're more likely to smile at ourselves when we obsess on a bird sound because we know that we don't control birds. So likewise we can smile and take a deep breath when the obsessive repetitive tiresome narrative and disturbing thoughts start up.

Kathie Fischer

[magick-johnson]

Suffering arises not from the experience of pain, pleasure, or the self. It is caused by attachment to those experiences.

- Sam Woolfe, Mescaline Revelations, Psychedelic Press XXXIII

[magick-johnson]

Suffering and the self

A sense of self has great utility. Belief and imagination work to fabricate the self because a more solid sense of identity allows us to live coherently and carry out activities.

Hence, the five skandhas do not imply that one should reject the self in everyday life in order to alleviate suffering, only that one's relation to the self needs to change.