The Five Aggregates
February 2021, Bangkok
One of the Suttas I keep thinking about since my most recent stay at the temple was one called Hāliddakāni (SN.III.I.I.(3)). In this Sutta the householder, Hāliddakāni is asking one of the Buddha’s chief disciples, the Venerable Mahākaccāna, about a very small quote from one of the oldest still existent Buddhist texts, the Athhavagga. Venerable Mahākaccāna’s speciality just happens to be giving detailed descriptions of the Buddha’s passages in order to elucidate the meaning for people on the path. The exact quote that the householder brings up is as follows:
“‘Having left home to roam without abode, In the village the sage is intimate with none, Rid of sensual pleasure, without expectations, He would not engage people in dispute.’”
First of all, going into the full extent of Mahākaccāna’s explanation would be too much for this small piece, so I’m just going to stick to his response to the first line as a starting point for considering The Five Aggregates. You may be asking yourself what this quote has to do with the Five Aggregates. I felt the exact same way when I first read it, although this Sutta being placed in an entire section devoted to the Five Aggregates gave me some forewarning. Before going into the description that Mahākaccāna gives on this, it might be good to just give some basic information about what the Five Aggregates are. They are composed of Form, Feeling, Perception, Sankhara, and Consciousness. The general meaning for Form is anything that you see as a distinct entity or collection—for example the conglomeration and shape of your body or another’s body, or the shape of a chair or any other object. If you’re particularly advanced, perhaps you could also see Form in more internal aspects, like your thoughts or breathing patterns, the mental images of patterns. Feeling regards any physical sensation you experience or any corresponding internal emotion, but the priority, as I understand it is (at least at first) on physical sensations. If you ever go to a Goenka 10 day retreat, there is high emphasis on just this Aggregate, as it’s one of the easiest to maintain focus on, and a really good starting point for doing work. Perception I used to think was more about the vantage from which you viewed something, or the perspective you had, almost like an opinion. There’s the old Buddhist adage about blind men grasping different parts of an elephant and having different ideas, based on what part they’re holding, about what the elephant might look like. This idea might still fall under the idea of perception. My teacher told me, however, that it has more to do with memories. So from that, my new understanding prioritizes perception as the images that exist within that shape the stories you tell yourself, or the memories that influence your thought. Sankhara I left intentionally untranslated because any translation I’ve ever read tends to be very misleading. It often gets translated as ‘volitional formations’ or something similar. The way my teacher described it was that these are just ‘everything else,’ both internally and externally. They are thought patterns, lingering ideas, they are trees, pencils, they are internal organs, as well as the external pianoesque organs. Sankhara as far as I understand currently are simply ‘things’ that have one way or another formed and still ‘exist.’ And finally Consciousness is, in general, the vehicle by which we see and receive various forms of impressions and information. In simple terms, it is the seer or watcher.
The idea behind these Five Aggregates is that they are all things that we often take as ‘Self.’ We latch onto them as a stable identity, but in ultimate reality they are not our ‘Self.’ They continually vie for attention in the mind, swirling amongst each other to anchor the mind into believing this is (temporarily) the ‘Self.’ Breaking down these considerations in themselves, deconstructing their logic, can be used as a meditative exercise. Personally I use the Five Aggregates as a way to keep me on track in my meditation. Whenever I notice that I’ve gone astray from focusing on the breath, I try to categorize whatever it is that I’m thinking about into one of the Five Aggregates before going back to my breath. It could be a memory from the past, infatuation with someone else’s bodily form, wondering what I’ll eat next, etc. The more you do this, the more you’ll see recurring patterns during meditation that tend to distract you. The more you notice that the same things are distracting you, once you identify them and see them for what they are, the less they will have the power to continue distracting you under that same guise. Once you see them as aggregates, as tendencies, and don’t identify them as self, they cease to be as interesting. There’s no thrill to them anymore once you see they have nothing to do with ‘you,’ and they actively work to your detriment.
So, to get back to the teaching from this Sutta, which totally changed how I viewed the Five Aggregates, let’s see what Mahākaccāna said about the previously quoted passage. Previous to this passage I used to think that the Five Aggregates were on a sort of separate but equal footing with each other. As it turns out, though, their relationship to each other is a bit different. Consciousness is the more unique of the Aggregates, as it is the means by which to realize the other aggregates. Mahākaccāna replies with this initial interpretation:
“‘The form element, householder, is the home of consciousness; one whose consciousness is shackled by lust for the form element is called one who roams about in a home.”
And in typical Buddhist Sutta fashion, he applies the same repetitive text to the remaining three aggregates of Feeling, Perception, and Sankhara, being a dwelling for Consciousness to ‘roam’ in. In this regard, Consciousness is almost like a vehicle that travels between the other four aggregates to realize them, interact with them. This interaction typically turns into a sort of ‘lust’ or infatuation with the particular aggregate. You could almost view it sexually, as the consciousness is penetrating the aggregate and giving birth to a new thought world with various distracting entities. Whenever one is getting distracted in meditation it is a result of getting mislead and entertained by the resultant interaction between Consciousness and one of the other aggregates. It’s almost like Consciousness and another aggregate start a fire and the sooner you extinguish it, the easier it is to return to meditation. The longer you let the fire created by the two develop and spread, the harder it is to manage and ultimately let it go—you’re wrapped up in it, you’re clinging to it, or it’s clinging to you. Either way, not good. The more you practice getting out of these thought worlds where your consciousness is surrounded by these ‘vessels,’ these aggregates, the easier it will be to notice when this interaction between Consciousness and Feeling, Form, Perception, or Sankhara is happening, and you can interrupt it before the fire spreads, before the thought world proliferates, or however else you want to look at it. What should be happening during meditation isn’t just some passive viewing of the world that’s being created by these interactions between two aggregates, but a more determined and focused inspection of what’s really going on internally, what is causing manifestations like this to spark in your mind and lead you astray from your intention to focus solely on the breath. It’s better to get a clear idea of what elements, or aggregates, are really at work and how we can particularize and identify them for what they really are. In this way we can get a better glimpse of the reality of our internal situation and the mechanisms by which it works. Of course, this is just a preliminary step to getting a grasp on the situation, as these are only signifiers that allow us to make some sense of the internal world. As you advance more, this outlook may change.
“‘And how, householder, does one roam about homeless? The desire, lust, delight, and craving, the engagement and clinging, the mental standpoints, adherences, and underlying tendencies regarding the form element: these have been abandoned by the Tathāgata [Buddha], cut off at the root, made like a palm stump, obliterated so that they are no more subject to future arising. Therefore the Tathāgata is called one who roams about homeless.’”
You can view these aggregates like very very fast growing weeds. You can cut them, but they’ll keep growing back until you find a way to fully extinguish them (which could take lifetimes of practice—good to start somewhere, though). The metaphor for the Buddha going into homelessness isn’t just a real thing he did in the physical world, it also, with respect to The Five Aggregates, is something he did mentally. He doesn’t dwell in the ‘homes’ of Form, Feeling, Perception, Sankhara, (and Consciousness). He doesn’t identify with his body. He doesn’t identify with feelings and emotions. He doesn’t identify with the past, with memories. He doesn’t identify with his ideas, or with any-thing else. He is homeless in the highest meaning of the term. He is truly liberated, truly free. Eventually there will come a time when you get a better idea of what this ‘seer’ or ‘watcher’ that is Consciousness is comprised of, and you can also uproot that Aggregate as well. But from this Sutta—and this is all just my own interpretation—I get the idea that we should focus on the other four Aggregates as a first step, use Consciousness to investigate them before doing the investigation on Consciousness itself. This is knowledge that will accumulate over many hours of practice done with right effort.
This one Sutta is dense with information, and with implications for further practice. I’d highly suggest reading it for yourself and coming to your own conclusions with the valuable information provided (It’s the third Sutta in the third Section of the third book of the Sutta Pitaka—easy way to remember it). A lot of the work done on the path is very personal. It’s always good to get suggestions and advice on what worked for other people, but deep down you will uncover the best ideas for yourself. My own suggestion would be to incorporate some focus on The Five Aggregates after you have some preliminary success focusing on the breath. Once you’ve developed the ability to focus for even a small amount of time on something as seemingly boring as the breath, it means you have some semblance of control over this focus and can direct it to other objects, such as the Aggregates. From there you can learn to deconstruct them and disassociate them from your concept of ‘Self.’ This will take you to the next level in meditative achievements while simultaneously sharpening your focus.