Sep 7, 2026 · 39 min · 9 segments
 This Dhamma talk was offered on August 22, 2026 at Abhayagiri…
And what is the noble truth of dukkha? It says birth is dukkha, aging is dukkha, death is dukkha, sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief and despair are dukkha, association with the disliked is dukkha, separation from the liked is dukkha, not getting what one wants is dukkha, in brief, clinging to the five khandhas is dukkha and uh and for some reason it just really kind of struck home particularly that is that yeah yeah all of it comes down to clinging to the five khandhas and and uh And it's not that I'd never heard that before.
It's not that I hadn't reflected on that before.
It's pretty, almost, yeah, Buddhism 101.
Pretty fairly fundamental, basic.
But it's, you realize, oh, this is something really fresh that the Buddha taught in his time.
The idea of the the kind of these five aggregates of being as a basis of experience and this is how we how we measure the world by how we measure ourself how we create the world, how we create ourself.
And it's just through these aggregates of being, these five aspects.
the world, how we experience ourselves, feeling, just on the level of basic feeling tone, pleasant, unpleasant, neutral, sannyā, perception, memory, how we give meaning to things, because we give meaning to things through association and memory.
We recollect, remember, and then we have a perception about it.
Sankara is the mental formations, thoughts, emotion, the whole range of our, both our noble emotions and thoughts and are ignoble emotions and thoughts it's just mental formation this is a volition behind the the the process of mental constructs and consciousness consciousness of the sight, sound, smell, taste, touch, and mental processes, being conscious of them, being aware.
And so that these aspects of being are how we construct a beautiful, refined, pleasing, world around us, a sense of self or an awful disturbing sense of experience.
We're the avenue by which we experience.
We're not just helpless victims.
Bad things do happen.
We do have unpleasant memories, but how do we receive them? How do we understand them? How do we process them? And it's just being able to, on a certain level, to simplify this experience so that we go, oh, yeah, it's just form, feeling, perception, mental formations, consciousness.
And we all love a good story.
And...
But do we want to keep telling stories to ourselves? Again, whether they're good ones or totally weird ones and unpleasant ones.
Do we want to live in a story? Or do we want to simplify and allow things to Come to a place of resolution.
And it's also, you're seeing this in the terms of the, you know, this is the noble truth of dukkha.
And what is the noble truth of dukkha? It says birth is dukkha, aging is dukkha, death is dukkha, sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief and despair are dukkha, association with the disliked is dukkha, separation from the liked is dukkha, not getting what one wants is dukkha, in brief, clinging to the five khandhas is dukkha and uh and for some reason it just really kind of struck home particularly that is that yeah yeah all of it comes down to clinging to the five khandhas and and uh And it's not that I'd never heard that before.
It's not that I hadn't reflected on that before.
It's pretty, almost, yeah, Buddhism 101.
Pretty fairly fundamental, basic.
But it's, you realize, oh, this is something really fresh that the Buddha taught in his time.
The idea of the the kind of these five aggregates of being as a basis of experience and this is how we how we measure the world by how we measure ourself how we create the world, how we create ourself.
And it's just through these aggregates of being, these five aspects.
the world, how we experience ourselves, feeling, just on the level of basic feeling tone, pleasant, unpleasant, neutral, sannyā, perception, memory, how we give meaning to things, because we give meaning to things through association and memory.
We recollect, remember, and then we have a perception about it.
Sankara is the mental formations, thoughts, emotion, the whole range of our, both our noble emotions and thoughts and are ignoble emotions and thoughts it's just mental formation this is a volition behind the the the process of mental constructs and consciousness consciousness of the sight, sound, smell, taste, touch, and mental processes, being conscious of them, being aware.
And so that these aspects of being are how we construct a beautiful, refined, pleasing, world around us, a sense of self or an awful disturbing sense of experience.
We're the avenue by which we experience.
We're not just helpless victims.
Bad things do happen.
We do have unpleasant memories, but how do we receive them? How do we understand them? How do we process them? And it's just being able to, on a certain level, to simplify this experience so that we go, oh, yeah, it's just form, feeling, perception, mental formations, consciousness.
And we all love a good story.
And...
But do we want to keep telling stories to ourselves? Again, whether they're good ones or totally weird ones and unpleasant ones.
Do we want to live in a story? Or do we want to simplify and allow things to Come to a place of resolution.
And it's also, you're seeing this in the terms of the, you know, this is the noble truth of dukkha.
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