Skandha

So you should perceive them like a bubble, like a dew, like a lightning, and don't need to be too attached.

And the end result, if you can do all that, what we just said clearly, so all the five Skandhas are empty, you can view everything as it is, without attachment, without separation, the thusness, the suchness of the reality, then you can transcend all sufferings.

The eight types of sufferings in Buddhism are birth or age, sickness, death, not getting what you want, to be separate from loved ones, to be with people you dislike, and the raging five Skandhas, uh, the five aggregates, right? The suffering of the physical and the mental.

You can transcend all of that, absolutely everything.

Also, even hardships, like external sufferings, like emotion, mental, physical distress arise if you, say, your house got burned down.

It's extremely difficult to embody emptiness, and we're talking about the highest wisdom here.

Okay? Easier said than done.

You can transcend even the fear of death if you can clearly see all the five Skandhas are empty, right? If you cannot attach to your physical body so much.

And maybe I should backtrack, maybe I should review.

So we have five Khandhas.

We have five khandhas.

This is form, feeling, perception, mental formations, and consciousness.

Then your mind and heart will be able to reach magga, the path, phala, the fruit and nibbana.

That concludes the Dhamma teaching, The Five Khandhas, by the Venerable Ajahn Ghanā.

If you'd like to hear more talks by Ajahn Ghanā and other meditation masters of the forest tradition of Theravada Buddhism, subscribe to the Forest Path Podcast using your favourite podcast app.

The Forest Path Podcast is part of the Everyday Dhamma network.

so folks welcome it's uh september the 27th today and that uh today we're going to be talking about the five aggregates are the five versions of ways of clinging to it as a self uh the five aggregates are actually a really specific introduction to the teacher samupada and that all five of the aggregates are are parts of the teacher samupada now as you've probably heard before the teacher samupada is the way that the mind operates basically in some cases over time starting when we were very young But in the moment, it leads, when the mind goes in the full direction of paticchapada, samapada, it winds up in dukkha.

It winds up in dissatisfaction.

And most specifically, it winds up in self.

It's the self that's dissatisfied.

And when there is satisfaction, that basically means there is no self.

Now, the five aggregates have a specific reason that in the suttas, in fact, in MN 22, the simile of the snake, the first half of the sutta is to set up for the second half of the Sutta, which is these five aggregates.

The same thing is true in Sutta number 36, where the first half of the setup is for the second half of the Sutta to be, or actually the middle part of the Sutta to be the Petita Samuppada.

And both of them start with monks that did not understand at all the teachings of the Buddha and were, let us say, highly criticized by the Buddha in both cases.

And five is the whole list.

These are the five aggregates.

There is nothing in your experience that is not a part of them.

So there is nothing in your experience that isn't dependently arisen.

This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.

Avalokiteshvara: When the Prajñā-pāramitā has been fully practiced, then we clearly behold that the five Skandha are all empty, vain, and unreal.

So it is we escape the possibility of sorrow or obstruction.

Sariputra: That which we call form is not different from that which we call space; space is not different from form; form is the same as space; space is the same as form.

And so with the other Skandhas, whether Vedanā or Sañjñā or Saṃskāra or Vijñāna, they are each the same as their opposite.

Sariputra: All these things around us, being thus stripped or devoid of qualities, there can be no longer birth or death, defilement or purity, addition or destruction.

In the midst, then, of this void there can be neither Rūpa, Vedanā, Sañjñā, Saṃskāra, or Vijñāna; nor yet organs of sense, whether the eye or nose, ear or tongue, body or mind; nor yet objects of sense, matter or sound, odor or taste, touch or ideas; nor yet categories of sense, such as the union of the object and subject in sight, in smell, in touch, in taste, in apprehension.

Sadhu Lampo.

Dear Lompoc, could you please explain the five aggregates and the six faculties to me? I have come across slightly different descriptions from different sources, so I would like to verify and understand them correctly.

Thank you very much, Lompoc.

Well, all human beings have five aggregates, form, the physical body and the physical elements that make up the body, feelings, Pleasant, unpleasant, neither pleasant nor unpleasant, so neutral.

And they can be based on physical body or just mental states.

But same pleasant, unpleasant and neither pleasant nor unpleasant.

Sometimes we say volitions, so it's where you're actions your karma originates, good and bad, starts with volitional mental activity.

Usually we just say thoughts, good thought, bad thought and so on.