The Five Skandhas

[Kelly M.]

Hello all,

I was recently reading an explanation of the Five Aggregates (AKA Five Skandhas). This is probably the third such explanation I have tried to comprehend with little success. There is something about this concept that is preventing me from getting my head wrapped around it. Perhaps this is a bit ironic as they have to do with our perception and understanding of reality, do they not? Anyways, does anyone have a simplified rendering of this concept they would care to share, or know where I can readily find one?

Thanks,
Kelly

[Jundo]

Anyways, does anyone have a simplified rendering of this concept they would care to share, or know where I can readily find one?

Hi Kelly,

May I offer some context before you try to delve into the traditional interpretation of the Skandas?

Traditional Buddhist psychology was way ahead of its time in attempting to describe how the mind creates, in the brain, a 'virtual' experience of the world and of your 'self'. Modern science, though still so incomplete, understands this process better every day: Your experience of your self and of the world is ultimately a fiction created when brain, sense organs and the 'outside world' (everything that is "out there" in the world really, whether you experience it or not) come together ... much like a movie you call "me and the world" created when the world is 'virtually' recreated inside the brain via data that is collected by the senses, passed by chemical-electrical signals to neurons, then (in processes we still barely understand) mixed with all the inner emotions, instincts and everything else the brain has learned about interpreting, organizing and responding to the world since you were a baby. The result is the inner movie you call your "experience of life". In fact, Kelly, you have never actually seen "the world" at all, only a virtual recreation inside your head of light that entered your eyes, somehow recreated and interpreted within the lobes of the brain as objects that, for example, you stick names on and find pleasing, displeasing or neutral.

Got the picture? The computer screen you are looking at right now may or may not be "out there" in some form (philosophers have debated that for centuries too), but no matter, what you ultimately are experiencing right now is some kind of a recreated picture of a computer somewhere in your visual cortex.

Modern science now better understands how the brain and senses recreate the movie you experience as your life, which is just the brain interpreting whatever is "out there". Traditional Buddhist psychology, however, lacked our modern understanding of how the brain, sense organs, neurons, inner emotions, etc. actually work. But, despite that, early Buddhist philosophers did an amazingly good job in cooking up a semi-fanciful system that basically came to the same result. It may be mostly the philosophers' imagination (because they lacked our modern understanding of the brain, senses, etc), but it basically was correct in its conclusions and understanding of the overall process.

Thus, the Skandas are a rather imaginative system by which philosophers created a description of how the mind works that is not exactly (but pretty close) to how the mind works (Freud's psychoanalysis is rather similar in being now understood as an early attempt to explain human psychology by inventing such concepts as the Id., Super-Ego and the like that were just figments of Freud's imagination, but were not too bad in trying to describe how the human mind actually functions)

Even though the Skandas did not quite describe the workings of the mind correctly according to our modern understanding, the conclusion is absolutely correct: If I take the pieces of Kelly's brain and mind away, piece by piece, Kelly disappears (as her experience of a separate self). If you have ever been with somebody with Alzheimers disease or the like, you may witness something close to what I am describing occur involuntarily and radically.

So, what are the traditional Skandas? Like all things in traditional Buddhist Philosophy, it depends which philosopher you ask. Philosophers disagree on the details. But, basically, you have:

1-Matter: The "stuff" (we might say atoms and molecules) that are the world (and your body) and exist without regard to whether your sentient mind is perceiving them or not.

2-Sensations- The sensing of the matter by the sense organs. These sensations are soon interpreted as pleasant, painful or neutral (we now know that, much as primitive Buddhist psychology described, much of that judging goes on even before you perceive the sensation. For example, the brain knows pain and danger even before you more deeply or consciously perceive that you are touching a hot stove).

3-Perceptions- Your mind perceiving, inside the brain, data from the senses. You become aware of the raw, incoming data inside your brain.

4-Mental Formations- Now your brain does all the complex processing, interpreting, organizing, reacting and responding to the data. You give it names, think about it, form opinions, likes and dislikes, moral judgments, have emotional reactions, formulate responses, and actions. etc. You do all the stuff that your brain (and any animal brain, though humans do more of it) does in interpreting, thinking about and acting in the world.

5-Consciousness is that extra thing that makes you alive. You are not merely a computer processing data (or a simple insect brain), but are self-aware, alive. The closest example I can give you, perhaps, is a new born baby that at first, cannot interpret the sense data beyond basic sensations like "pain" "pleasure" "hungry". Only gradually does it develop a more complex interpretation of the world, for example," this is my hand, this is my foot" (baby's actually have to discover this), "they are part of "me", the crib is not "me"" etc. A complex world view starts to develop and, only then, does the baby become "self-aware" and conscious of itself as itself (it probably was not self aware until that time, and was just raw experiencing. Now, the baby is aware that it is "me").

The above is just a rough description. Why is this important?

Well, simple answer is that if life is just a "virtual reality" movie in your brain, we can change the content of the movie. So many of the things you take as real (your "problems" "likes' dislikes" for one example) are just the story line in your movie. In Buddhism, we learn to look beyond the surface reality and perceive how we create that reality like a dream. You are living on a kind of Holodeck (for you Star Trek fans) inside your brain, and you have a great degree of power to choose the story you want.

One of the things we remove is the separation that your brain creates between your self and the world (the baby only discovers this after banging its hand a few painful times on the crib, discovering that its hand and the crib are not one). Buddhism reverses the process. All is one again. Traditional Buddhist psychology, including the Skandas, were an attempt to explain the mechanism for this process of reversal.

Did that help?

Gassho, Jundo (Just a virtual name you brain has come to pin upon some raw light data flowing off the screen into your eyes right now)

[will]

Did a Google search http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Fi ... gle+Search

This is the first that came up.

http://www.buddhanet.net/funbud14.htm



Gassho Will

[Kelly M.]

That helps very much, though I think I will read it over a couple more times so that I can conceptualize it. Thank you Jundo!

Gassho,
KElly

[Nickolas Beumer]

Hi Kelly,

I too for some time tried to understand the Five Aggregates. It seemed that I could not intellectually grasp them. :cry:

I came to understand that the Five Aggregates are not meant to be a model of Buddhist reality. Instead they are a meant to help one touch reality, and that only comes about through direct experience.

I sat down and tried to find the Five Aggregates in my direct experience. :?:

Form I understood to mean all matter, being solids, liquids and gases, the things you can see as having form. This I understood as the world, my flesh and bones.

Feeling I understood as all of my raw senses, this is pure sensation, there is no impression of pleasure and pain, it is the first instant of a sensation before perception takes place.

Perception I understood as the moment of distinction, it is the moment when pure sensation is recognized as some thing, it is then that the object becomes identified with pleasure or pain.

Mental formations are everything that arises in your mind, all the thoughts, emotions, opinions, judgements, self talk, etc.. All of the Five Aggregates are mental formations, they are simply the movement of the mind, this can be directly experienced in time.

Consciousness is that very subtle feeling of self, it is the self reflective nature of the mind. There is a point in Zazen when you are coming out of Zazen and consciousness turns on, it is at that point that you realize that the self reflective nature of the mind was absent, it is here that we realize self-lessness, we can not classify what we directly experienced as existence or non-existence. We may only say that there was a complete cessation of winds, Nirvana.

The whole idea is to move through the Five Aggregates letting go of each and every one of them.

It basically means we let go of Form, we let go of Feeling, we let go of Perception, we let go of mental formations, and we let go of consciousness and we end up sitting in Zazen, actualizing enlightenment. Then we can understand from Zazen down through the Five Aggregates, that the Five Aggregates are empty, they have no independent self existence, they are just the dynamic nature of the mind. It is only when we reach this level of understanding that we transcend both Nirvana and Samsara, the many and the one.

This allows us to let go of our suffering and rest in our essential nature, we become free from the bondage of the Five Aggregates, we can use the Five Aggregates in a practical way but we are not bound by them.

I feel that this is expressed very nicely in many Zen sayings;

"Before enlightenment chopping wood and carrying water, after enlightenment chopping wood and carrying water"

" Before enlightenment mountains were mountains, during enlightenment mountains ceased to be mountains, and after enlightenment mountains are just mountains."


I hope that I was of some help and have not have lead you too far astray.

Thank you for your time.
Nick

[Mika]

Excellent example virtual reality object Jundo! Thank you! ()

[Jundo]

Hi Nickolas,

Thank you for this. May I ask a few questions to clarify things?

Consciousness is that very subtle feeling of self, it is the self reflective nature ofthe mind. There is a point in Zazen when you are coming out of Zazen and consciousness turns on, it is at that point that you realize that the self reflective nature of the mind was absent, it is here that we realize self-lessness, we can not classify what we directly experienced as existence or non-existence. We may onlysay that there was a complete cessation of winds, Nirvana.

Do you feel that you are actually experiencing a "complete turning off" of consciousness during Zazen? What do you mean by "consciousness turns on" when you are coming out of Zazen? Can you describe the sensation (or lack thereof) a bit more? Do you actually experience this in your Practice, or are you speaking from what you believe you should be experiencing as "Nirvana" based on, for example, descriptions you have read? Before I discuss this point more with you, I want to clarify what you mean.

Also, "winds" is a very special choice of word often seen in relation to the traditional view of the "Chi" or inner forces in Yoga or Tantra. How are you using that word? For example, here is a description as you might find in Tantric writings ...

The winds are distinguished in several different ways in Nga-wang-bel-den’s description of the stages
of Highest Yoga Tantra. In one scheme, winds are enumerated as five: (1) the vitalizing wind, which
causes inhalation, exhalation, and so forth; (2) the pervasive wind, which makes possible the movement of the limbs, and so forth; (3) the upward- moving wind, which is involved in speech, swallowing, and so forth; (4) the downward-voiding wind, which is responsible for defecation, urination, the emission of semen, and so forth; and (5) the fire-dwell- ing wind, which is responsible for
digestion, and so forth ...In another scheme, winds are distinguished into basic winds and secondary winds; the basic winds are the five winds just mentioned, and the secondary winds are the five parts of the vitalizing wind which are associated with the five senses. (Thus, the secondary winds are actually included within the basic winds.)

[G]aining control over the winds means to be able to restrain the senses by preventing the winds they depend on from going out of the “doors” (the eyes, ears, and so forth) of the senses. However, in Highest Yoga Tantra, the aim is not merely to prevent the winds from going outside, but actually to draw them into the body and then into the central channel by the power of meditation. When the winds are caused to enter the central channel, they are held there, moved around, and drawn into various places where they “dissolve” (cease). The dissolution or cessation of winds concomitantly causes the cessation of the types of minds that rely upon them. Thus, as the coarser winds cease, so do the coarser types of minds, leaving only subtle winds and minds. The remaining subtle mind (mounted on the remaining subtle wind) is then used to cognize emptiness.

I am not a big fan of Chi (ki), energies, Chakra, winds and the like. I consider them traditional, pre-scientific guesses and fanciful imaginings about how the body and mind work from an age when people had much less understanding of how the body actually is put together. So, I want to clarify your meaning before we discuss it more.

The whole idea is to move through the Five Aggregates letting go of each and every one of them.

It basically means we let go of Form, we let go of Feeling, we let go of Perception, we let go of mental formations, and we let go of consciousness and we end up sitting in Zazen, actualizing enlightenment. Then we can understand from Zazen down through the Five Aggregates, that the Five Aggregates are empty, they have no independent self existence, they are just the dynamic nature of the mind. It is only when we reach this level of understanding that we transcend both Nirvana and Samsara, the many and the one.

This allows us to let go of our suffering and rest in our essential nature, we become free from the bondage of the Five Aggregates, we can use the Five Aggregates in a practical way but we are not bound by them.

Please just throw the Five Aggregates in the trash bin, especially as a description of Zazen. Just sit and quiet your mind without worrying about the mechanism. That is especially true when it concerns some traditional description of the mechanism that, I think, is useless for what we do. This type of semi-fanciful description is almost as useless as saying that we are "channeling our winds into the central channel".

JUST SIT!!!

The "just sitting" Shikantaza Zazen which I teach is not mechanical in its process. We just sit, dropping likes and dislikes, goals, wishes to change circumstances, thoughts of this and that, thoughts of self and other ... and we do it all at once. We just do it, much like we just ride a bike without worrying how the bike and muscles work. Just pick up your feet and ride, and leave the mechanism to bike designers and physiologists.

Got the point? Peddle the bike, enjoy the ride ... do not worry about the physics that causes the chain to rotate the gears.

Soto practice does not "move through" the aggregates, it is not a mechanical or step by step process, doing one then moving on to the next. I say this because some forms of meditation do that kind of step-by-step, but our style does not. We just sit, dropping this and that and the other, with no objective.

Let me make this simple: Let us suppose that one "mental aggregate" that is a cause of suffering for you is fear by your "self" of its ultimate "death". In "just sitting", we simply drop the dichotomy of life/death and self/other. Each is real, but is also seen as empty at the same time, merely by stopping to think about such things. The fear evaporates as it has nothing to attach to. Problem solved when we stop thinking about the problem. No need to do more. Death exists (we are all going to die) but death does not exist (is empty) when we simply drop the idea "life/death" from mind.

So, again, no need to think about the mechanism as much as JUST SIT and BE QUIET!

The Heart Sutra states ...

"Form is emptiness, emptiness is form,
form does not differ from emptiness, emptiness does not differ from form.
The same is true with feelings, perceptions, mental formations and consciousness."

Love, hate, peace, war, disease, sickness, life, death, hot, cold, up, down, cars, boats, houses, rivers and trees ... all exist in this world (I mean, one of those cars is parked in front of my house).

Love, hate, peace, war, disease, sickness, life, death, hot, cold, up, down, cars, boats, houses, rivers and trees ... all do not exist when there is no sentient mind to name them and give them reality in one's inner "Holodeck". Our Zazen is a dropping of those things from mind, even as they exist.

So, Just Sit and to hell with the "Winds" and all the rest.

I do not think I explained this well today, but I hope my point has gotten across.

Gassho, Jundo

[Eika]

Jundo wrote:
all do not exist when there is no sentient mind to name them and give them reality in one's inner "Holodeck".

et tu Jundo? I thought I was the only Star Trek nerd here . . .

Bill

[Komoku]

Vulcans used meditation to help control their emotions.

[Nickolas Beumer]

Hi Jundo,

Jundo wrote:
Do you feel that you are actually experiencing a "complete turning off" of consciousness during Zazen? What do you mean by "consciousness turns on" when you are coming out of Zazen? Can you describe the sensation (or lack thereof) a bit more? Do you actually experience this in your Practice, or are you speaking from what you believe you should be experiencing as "Nirvana" based on, for example, descriptions you have read? Before I discuss this point more with you, I want to clarify what you mean.

When I sit Zazen there comes a moment when there is no presence of mind or body. My mind is not in my body and my mind is not in my thoughts. I am also not sitting there feeling like a subjective self. There is simply pure existence without any subject/object duality. It is not a state of unconsciousness, instead one might say it is pure consciousness. I believe this to be the fundamental ground of mind. When the self reflective nature of consciousness arises I can recognize that "mind", during "no mind" I do not recognize it, there is only being. When something does arise its nature is no different from that "no mind" and it simply ceases to be.

I used the term Nirvana as a set up, and yes in its traditional expression it refers to the stilling of prana which means the stilling of the mind. I wanted to convey later on in my reply that in these moments of pure being, when nothing arises and when one rests in pure consciousness, that "ground" is the very same as what arises as the Five Aggregates.

Jundo wrote:
Please just throw the Five Aggregates in the trash bin, especially as a description of Zazen. Just sit and quiet your mind without worrying about the mechanism.

I do not use the Five Aggregates as a model nor do I move through them when I sit. I did want to express that if one where to look deeply into the Five Aggregates one would end up in Zazen. The point though not expressed in words was that if we end up in Zazen, why not simply sit Zazen. I feel that it is a mistake to get too caught up in models and maps of what might be happening, no matter if they are traditional or modern they can easily trap one in an endless web of delusion. That is why in sharing my understanding of the Five Aggregates I acknowledged that such things have the power to lead one astray.

I feel that you expressed the practice of Soto Zen clearly, it is just sitting without grasping at what arises. It needs no support and no intellectual understanding for it to work.

Thank you for clarifying the practice of Soto Zen.
Nick

[Jundo]

Hi again Nick,

When I sit Zazen there comes a moment when there is no presence of mind or body. My mind is not in my body and my mind is not in my thoughts. I am also not sitting there feeling like a subjective self. There is simply pure existence without any subject/object duality. It is not a state of unconsciousness, instead one might say it is pure consciousness. I believe this to be the fundamental ground of mind. When the self reflective nature of consciousness arises I can recognize that "mind", during "no mind" I do not recognize it, there is only being. When something does arise its nature is no different from that "no mind" and it simply ceases to be.

Okay, if it feels right to you, keep on with that lovely place. See the sights, buy a postcard, get a souvenir.

The one thing I would caution is not to get caught there, or even to need to experience that timeless scenery all the time or even most times. "Nice place to visit, wouldn't want to live there" and all that. Sometimes we get caught up on our vacations and don't want to return to real life (though, don't get me wrong, we all need the weekends and quiet Sundays to give the weekly grind perspectice!). You write ...


I believe this to be the fundamental ground of mind.

You know, I just wrote something on this very point! I really like what I just wrote. COULD I ASK EVERYBODY TO LOOK AT THIS THING I JUST WROTE, and the little discussion by John and Paige right before it. It is on this very topic. Please and thank you.

viewtopic.php?p=4043#4043

Gassho, Jundo the Travel Agent

[Nickolas Beumer]

Hi Jundo,

I do not mistake moments of stillness for "mind", I find no distinction between stillness or movement. I will say that it was easier for me to find "mind" in the stillness at first. I experience that "mind" regardless of sitting Zazen, cooking dinner or doing the dishes.

I find there is no distinction between mask and "mind", the mask seems to become less transparent the more I grasp it and invest in it. But the nice thing is that the mask never becomes solid, and yet at one time the mask was all too solid, it was very concrete. I do not find that I have to wear any particular mask now, if one arises I need not put it on, I may choose which masks I put on.

I would define stillness as Nirvana and the mask as Samsara, I would then say that "mind" transcends Nirvana and Samsara being the essence of both.

Jundo as you are the teacher, would you please tell me if I am wrong and if so would you please clearly define what you would have me do to wake up from my delusion?


Thank you
Nick

[Jundo]

Hi Nick,

Would you like to do a video conference with me, one on one? I would like to see your eyes and hear your voice as you describe what you describe. We can discuss this privately while I can see you.

Your words are very formal in writing. That is a question for me. Maybe it is just your way of speaking and manner, but I want to see the heartfelt conviction in this. I'm not from Nebraska (like you), but I am from the "Show Me" state next door.

Are you now, as you seem to say, experiencing this each and every time you sit? Hmmm. Do you say that you can turn this on and off at will, for example?

How do you know it is "mind" you experience, and not some other sensation you are just calling "mind"?

Remind me with whom and where you studied before.

I will say this: Even if it is how you describe, we consider (in Soto Zen) such experiences and perspectives a reference point, not a big deal. They come and go, and need to go and not stay. That is why I told you to see the sights, take some snapshots, buy a postcard, get a souvenir. It is not so much that you see some state of "Pure Being", but that you know how to relax and live in this world despite what you say you saw. You have to get beyond it, make it a natural part of you (like breathing and defecating), not make too big a deal of it. That's our way. Such experiences are rather a truck stop we pull into for a cup of coffee, not the end of the ongoing journey. At least, that is my view of such things.

But, let's do a video conference and talk about all this.

Gassho, Jundo

[ChrisA]

So, what are the traditional Skandas? Like all things in traditional Buddhist Philosophy, it depends which philosopher you ask. Philosophers disagree on the details. But, basically, you have:

1-Matter: The "stuff" (we might say atoms and molecules) that are the world (and your body) and exist without regard to whether your sentient mind is perceiving them or not.

2-Sensations- The sensing of the matter by the sense organs. These sensations are soon interpreted as pleasant, painful or neutral (we now know that, much as primitive Buddhist psychology described, much of that judging goes on even before you perceive the sensation. For example, the brain knows pain and danger even before you more deeply or consciously perceive that you are touching a hot stove).

3-Perceptions- Your mind perceiving, inside the brain, data from the senses. You become aware of the raw, incoming data inside your brain.

4-Mental Formations- Now your brain does all the complex processing, interpreting, organizing, reacting and responding to the data. You give it names, think about it, form opinions, likes and dislikes, moral judgments, have emotional reactions, formulate responses, and actions. etc. You do all the stuff that your brain (and any animal brain, though humans do more of it) does in interpreting, thinking about and acting in the world.

5-Consciousness is that extra thing that makes you alive. You are not merely a computer processing data (or a simple insect brain), but are self-aware, alive. The closest example I can give you, perhaps, is a new born baby that at first, cannot interpret the sense data beyond basic sensations like "pain" "pleasure" "hungry". Only gradually does it develop a more complex interpretation of the world, for example," this is my hand, this is my foot" (baby's actually have to discover this), "they are part of "me", the crib is not "me"" etc. A complex world view starts to develop and, only then, does the baby become "self-aware" and conscious of itself as itself (it probably was not self aware until that time, and was just raw experiencing. Now, the baby is aware that it is "me").

The above is just a rough description.

Well, that it may be, but it's a remarkable overview of the five skandhas for which I'm very grateful. I just spent a while trying to find something like this on the internet and, well, here it is.

Gassho, Jundo!

[Mari]

Dear Jundo,

I really liked the analogy of the holodeck (I am a big ol' nerd), but need some help understanding it.

So, say I'm Data playing Sherlock Holmes in one of his favorite holodeck ("regular world" with the skandhas) adventures (me, in the "regular" world, at work, playing Mari in one of her favorite/not favorite adventures of really not liking Moriarty/bad customer and really liking Geordi/co-worker or good customer who is playing my "helper" Watson).

Then I leave the holodeck/Just Sit. But what's there now? What am I doing?

Seeing the holodeck as the holodeck, and knowing it's not real (it's a game), but also is real, because it IS there (with four walls and programs that can be run, and exactly like Barkley I spend way too much time there in my adventures rather than dealing with reality)? If I'm on "the ship" outside of the holodeck is the ship more real than the holodeck, and what's the ship?

Knowing what the holodeck is, that's fairly easy for me to understand. What's NOT the part of the holodeck, that's not so easy for me to understand. What I'm supposed to do in the ship isn't easy for me to understand.

Am I still Mari while in the ship/Just sitting? Or if I am thinking I'm still Mari, have I just turned the ship into yet another program/adventure, Mari watching Star Trek? Who am I in the ship/when Just Sitting? How do I know when I'm not having an adventure, either playing or watching? I'm very sorry if this makes no sense.

[Jundo]

Dear Jundo,

I really liked the analogy of the holodeck (I am a big ol' nerd), but need some help understanding it.

So, say I'm Data playing Sherlock Holmes in one of his favorite holodeck ("regular world" with the skandhas) adventures (me, in the "regular" world, at work, playing Mari in one of her favorite/not favorite adventures of really not liking Moriarty/bad customer and really liking Geordi/co-worker or good customer who is playing my "helper" Watson).

Then I leave the holodeck/Just Sit. But what's there now? What am I doing?

Oh, sorry, Mari ... there is a little misunderstanding here.

Ya see, you are not Data or Jordi ... You are one of the characters on the holodeck! You know, one of those characters in the holodeck that is always surprised to find out that, in fact, he is just a holodeck character ... just made of photons and such. Those characters also know no world beyond the story in the holodeck. When the program is shut off ... so are you! :shock: (though something goes on ... the photons and holodeck computer ... which is, after all, what you were all along)!

And you are not stepping off the holodeck ... not as Mari at least.

But let's not stretch this analogy too far (I already have)! It is just an analogy after all. 8)

Gassho, J

[Mari]

But let's not stretch this analogy too far (I already have)! It is just an analogy after all.

I kinda got the feeling that I was getting too wrapped up in it once I realized I was totally confusing myself with my own questions! :lol:

Thank you for the clarification about being one of the characters.

[Geika]

I also love the Trek.

All this hologram talk has got me remembering a book I read called, The Holographic Universe, by a guy named Michael Talbot. The second half of it may be a bit too New Age-y for some people here, but I really like the first half where all the science of holograms is described, showing how the way we perceive the world around us is much like a hologram. Also, our brains are holographic in the sense that our memories are not localized in the actual flesh of the brain. A study is described in the book in which a man would cut apart the brains of rats and then put the brains back in, rearranged. The rats were still able to retain their memories and were still able to make their way through mazes, though with slight problems in motor skills.

[Rich]

Oh this was an interesting conversation. Don’t have to worry about skandas anymore. Zen students are the best actors. O time to go- - beam me up scotty![liveustream][/liveustream]

[Jundo]

I am tickled that it is a conversation we started in 2007, in the first months of this place, and just picked up from there. 8)

Gassho, J

[Heisoku]

A really interesting thread...

...just to add to the 'holographic paradigm' (and other paradoxes....Ken Wilber)...at a conference on Friday concerning trauma and attachment disorders in children, the science is pointing to the brain maladapting to normalise experiences in neglect and abuse suffered even within the womb. The fact that our whole life experience is created without needing our conscious input and that our own bodies (brain as organ) can in effect such physical changes I think is a link that is now having enormous repercussions in culture and health.

..The amount of patient, compassionate re-education at a conscious level that teachers and therapists have to dedicate to healing such traumas if indeed they ever do is ten-fold to the length of the original period of neglect/abuse. The early the trauma the more hard-wired in the behaviour patterns the longer the therapeutic response required..that is if the trauma is recognised early enough.

Our Buddhist understanding of how our constructed worlds emerge is becoming so important in many fields and for so many people, particularly children who are usually written off at an early age..

[Kyonin]

May I offer some context before you try to delve into the traditional interpretation of the Skandas?

Thank you, Jundo. I really needed a little explanation like this.

[disastermouse]

Hello all,

I was recently reading an explanation of the Five Aggregates (AKA Five Skandhas). This is probably the third such explanation I have tried to comprehend with little success. There is something about this concept that is preventing me from getting my head wrapped around it. Perhaps this is a bit ironic as they have to do with our perception and understanding of reality, do they not? Anyways, does anyone have a simplified rendering of this concept they would care to share, or know where I can readily find one?

Thanks,
Kelly

You may find some benefit in exploring the Western philosophical concept, attributed to Sellars, called the 'myth of the given'.

Chet

[Wintergreen]

OK - I know it's nearly 10 years latter but (if possible) could you (Jundo) please repost the "thing you just wrote" (noted above) because the link is broken; or maybe there is a better description of the 5 skandhas (and how to forget them).
Gassho
Wintergreen
Sat today

[Jundo]

OK - I know it's nearly 10 years latter but (if possible) could you (Jundo) please repost the "thing you just wrote" (noted above) because the link is broken; or maybe there is a better description of the 5 skandhas (and how to forget them).
Gassho
Wintergreen
Sat today

Hah! I have no idea, which itself is a teaching in emptiness and impermanence.

Gassho, J

SatTodayLAH

[Byokan]

Hi Kelly,

May I offer some context before you try to delve into the traditional interpretation of the Skandas?

Traditional Buddhist psychology was way ahead of its time in attempting to describe how the mind creates, in the brain, a 'virtual' experience of the world and of your 'self'. Modern science, though still so incomplete, understands this process better every day: Your experience of your self and of the world is ultimately a fiction created when brain, sense organs and the 'outside world' (everything that is "out there" in the world really, whether you experience it or not) come together ... much like a movie you call "me and the world" created when the world is 'virtually' recreated inside the brain via data that is collected by the senses, passed by chemical-electrical signals to neurons, then (in processes we still barely understand) mixed with all the inner emotions, instincts and everything else the brain has learned about interpreting, organizing and responding to the world since you were a baby. The result is the inner movie you call your "experience of life". In fact, Kelly, you have never actually seen "the world" at all, only a virtual recreation inside your head of light that entered your eyes, somehow recreated and interpreted within the lobes of the brain as objects that, for example, you stick names on and find pleasing, displeasing or neutral.

Got the picture? The computer screen you are looking at right now may or may not be "out there" in some form (philosophers have debated that for centuries too), but no matter, what you ultimately are experiencing right now is some kind of a recreated picture of a computer somewhere in your visual cortex.

Modern science now better understands how the brain and senses recreate the movie you experience as your life, which is just the brain interpreting whatever is "out there". Traditional Buddhist psychology, however, lacked our modern understanding of how the brain, sense organs, neurons, inner emotions, etc. actually work. But, despite that, early Buddhist philosophers did an amazingly good job in cooking up a semi-fanciful system that basically came to the same result. It may be mostly the philosophers' imagination (because they lacked our modern understanding of the brain, senses, etc), but it basically was correct in its conclusions and understanding of the overall process.

Thus, the Skandas are a rather imaginative system by which philosophers created a description of how the mind works that is not exactly (but pretty close) to how the mind works (Freud's psychoanalysis is rather similar in being now understood as an early attempt to explain human psychology by inventing such concepts as the Id., Super-Ego and the like that were just figments of Freud's imagination, but were not too bad in trying to describe how the human mind actually functions)

Even though the Skandas did not quite describe the workings of the mind correctly according to our modern understanding, the conclusion is absolutely correct: If I take the pieces of Kelly's brain and mind away, piece by piece, Kelly disappears (as her experience of a separate self). If you have ever been with somebody with Alzheimers disease or the like, you may witness something close to what I am describing occur involuntarily and radically.

So, what are the traditional Skandas? Like all things in traditional Buddhist Philosophy, it depends which philosopher you ask. Philosophers disagree on the details. But, basically, you have:

1-Matter: The "stuff" (we might say atoms and molecules) that are the world (and your body) and exist without regard to whether your sentient mind is perceiving them or not.

2-Sensations- The sensing of the matter by the sense organs. These sensations are soon interpreted as pleasant, painful or neutral (we now know that, much as primitive Buddhist psychology described, much of that judging goes on even before you perceive the sensation. For example, the brain knows pain and danger even before you more deeply or consciously perceive that you are touching a hot stove).

3-Perceptions- Your mind perceiving, inside the brain, data from the senses. You become aware of the raw, incoming data inside your brain.

4-Mental Formations- Now your brain does all the complex processing, interpreting, organizing, reacting and responding to the data. You give it names, think about it, form opinions, likes and dislikes, moral judgments, have emotional reactions, formulate responses, and actions. etc. You do all the stuff that your brain (and any animal brain, though humans do more of it) does in interpreting, thinking about and acting in the world.

5-Consciousness is that extra thing that makes you alive. You are not merely a computer processing data (or a simple insect brain), but are self-aware, alive. The closest example I can give you, perhaps, is a new born baby that at first, cannot interpret the sense data beyond basic sensations like "pain" "pleasure" "hungry". Only gradually does it develop a more complex interpretation of the world, for example," this is my hand, this is my foot" (baby's actually have to discover this), "they are part of "me", the crib is not "me"" etc. A complex world view starts to develop and, only then, does the baby become "self-aware" and conscious of itself as itself (it probably was not self aware until that time, and was just raw experiencing. Now, the baby is aware that it is "me").

The above is just a rough description. Why is this important?

Well, simple answer is that if life is just a "virtual reality" movie in your brain, we can change the content of the movie. So many of the things you take as real (your "problems" "likes' dislikes" for one example) are just the story line in your movie. In Buddhism, we learn to look beyond the surface reality and perceive how we create that reality like a dream. You are living on a kind of Holodeck (for you Star Trek fans) inside your brain, and you have a great degree of power to choose the story you want.

One of the things we remove is the separation that your brain creates between your self and the world (the baby only discovers this after banging its hand a few painful times on the crib, discovering that its hand and the crib are not one). Buddhism reverses the process. All is one again. Traditional Buddhist psychology, including the Skandas, were an attempt to explain the mechanism for this process of reversal.

Did that help?

Gassho, Jundo (Just a virtual name you brain has come to pin upon some raw light data flowing off the screen into your eyes right now)

Thanks Wintergreen for the question, and thanks Jundo for such a clear explanation (10 years ago)!

We don't talk much about the skandhas and it's funny because we do love our Heart Sutra around here. I haven't even thought about skandhas for a long time. Now after living with the Heart Sutra for a while, the skandhas make a lot more sense to me than when I first read about them. I guess when I first read about them it seemed like something I had to work with, or work on letting go of, or purifying, or something. Now it just seems very descriptive of what is, and awareness and understanding of that might be enough? Maybe I don't have to fool around with the skandhas much or do anything with them? I don't know. Time on the cushion maybe has helped with the understanding.

I googled around and the Wikipedia page is pretty good:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skandha

And this one too:
http://www.buddhistdoor.com/OldWeb/b...ll/teach11.htm

but I much prefer Jundo's down-to-earth and grounded explanation, it just makes sense. I guess a good understanding of this would help when doing Sutra study, at which I am a beginner. Interested to hear others' experience with or thoughts about the skandhas.

Gassho
Byōkan
sat + lah

[Jakuden]

Maybe I don't have to fool around with the skandhas much or do anything with them?

Ya that’s pretty much where I’m at now too... that is, the Skandhas are just another ancient Buddhist classification of things in a numbered list (they seemed to love to do that!) In this case, they classify the entire world inside our head into five groups. But they are only listed to point out that they don’t really exist
Gassho
Jakuden
SatToday/LAH


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Jundo]

Hi,

Actually, I do believe that we talk about the "Skandhas" all the time around here, perhaps each day, although I tend to employ expressions like the "mind theatre" or the "holo-deck" of the mind in which signals of electro-chemical data for the material stuff which is (probably) "out there" come into the sense organs, get turned into electro-chemical signals, reimaged in some way in the brain, with all manner of names, categories and "like/neutral/dislike" and countless other judgments placed on them (not to mention the whole self/other subject/object divide) to which we react in many ways emotionally and otherwise in our words/thought/and acts. This is almost a daily topic around here in some way, although I don't always resort to the traditional model. My description is a bit more in keeping with our modern neurological understanding. Here is one of many many examples ...

https://www.treeleaf.org/forums/show...l=1#post197493

Wintergreen asked "maybe there is a better description of the 5 skandhas (and how to forget them). " In fact, all of our Shikantaza Practice is precisely that (plus our other Practices such as "Nurturing Seeds" LINK and the like. Chanting, Samu, Oryoki all extensions of that too.). How?

Well, precisely because in Shikantaza we Just Sit, in the wholeness and completeness of that action, dropping all the judgments, not tied up in aversions and attractions, letting the analysis and categories drop away, until even the hard border of self/other softens or sometimes fully drops away. Of course, one aspect of Zen Practice is not to get away from all that division and analysis and stay there, but rather to find that the liberation and lack of friction and conflict in the wholeness beyond categories/judgments and self/other is found, simultaneously, right in and as this crazy world of categories/judgments and self/other, knowing both at once as if seeing the world one way out of one eye, the other way from the other eye, and both eyes together as Clarity.

More or less, that is kind of all we do around here!

Gassho, J

SatTodayLAH

PS - Wintergreen, is that your human name? Would you mind to sign a human name (or a Dharma Name if you ever received on)? It helps keep things a little more personal and friendly around here. Thank you.

[Troy]

Great thread. Thank you


Sat2day

[Shinshi]

If you all will indulge me for a moment, this touches on one of my favorite topics so I am going to babble a bit.

First - I love Godzilla. I love all the movies (except that one with Matthew Broderick which starred some Velociraptor like thing). I have loved him since I was a kid.

I used to be a professor and I taught Research Methods to undergrads. And one topic was creating models. Since undergrads don't really like to focus on math that much I would use Godzilla.

I would say we are tasked with creating a model of Godzilla, to understand him better - and save the world. So we had to evaluate our models as we tried to create a representation of Godzilla. I would first present a little lizard and ask if this was a good model of Godzilla.

Most would say no. But then we would talk about aspects that were actually "correct' and what we would need to change. And then I would bring out another model that looked a bit more like Godzilla - we would talk about what made the model better and what needed to be improved. And so on.

And then we would talk about how, even if we cloned Godzilla it still wouldn't be a perfect model of Godzilla as it wouldn't have had the same life experiences. It would be close but not exact. So there are no perfect models in the world.

But we still need to identify the quality of our model. And there are two ways. One is the extent to which the model represents reality - and we know that all models fall short.

The other way to evaluate the model is the model's utility. Does the model work to explain our perception of reality. Does it do a good job of explaining and predicting. And in the end this is the more important criterion: How well the model works.

And to me the Skandhas are a model with great utility. They are amazing really given when they were developed. They don't correspond perfectly to our current understanding of physics, biology and psychology - to the physical world as we know it. And some might dismiss them because of that. But, for me, they still have great utility in understanding the world and how we perceive it. It is important not to get caught up in the particulars, but to focus on the bigger picture of how they can contribute to our practice.

I haven't really said anything that others haven't said better already but, what the heck, I got to talk about Godzilla.

Gassho, Allan

SaT-LaH

[Byokan]

Hi Allan, hey, wow! That was really an awesome explanation! I think I just learned something that will be useful all life long. Thank you. (I love Godzilla too, way too much.)

Jundo, as always you find me staring at a tree and show me the whole forest. Tree, forest, Godzilla, me, potato, potahto. Deep bows.

Gassho
Byōkan
sat today

[Meitou]

Hi Allan, hey, wow! That was really an awesome explanation! I think I just learned something that will be useful all life long. Thank you. (I love Godzilla too, way too much.)

Jundo, as always you find me staring at a tree and show me the whole forest. Tree, forest, Godzilla, me, potato, potahto. Deep bows.

Gassho
Byōkan
sat today

What a great thread, I'm so glad it got revived, and what a great appreciation from Byokan. 'You find me staring at a tree and show me the whole forest' - that is such an amazing summing up of Jundo's gift as a teacher, exactly how I feel but could never have articulated.
Deep bows to all
Frankie
satwithyoualltoday/lah

[Shinshi]

Hi Allan, hey, wow! That was really an awesome explanation! I think I just learned something that will be useful all life long. Thank you. (I love Godzilla too, way too much.)

Jundo, as always you find me staring at a tree and show me the whole forest. Tree, forest, Godzilla, me, potato, potahto. Deep bows.

Gassho
Byōkan
sat today

Thank you very much Byōkan. I am so glad you liked it. I became known for that lecture, students would bring me Godzillas at the end of year.

Here is my original co-instructor.

2tGfERA.jpg

Gassho, Allan

SaT-LaH

[Shinshou]

Many years ago when I was a Hindu, I read this from Eknath Easwaran in the introduction of his translation of the Bhagavad Gita:

"...we never really encounter the world; all we experience is our own nervous system."

He explains with a great example about his dog and a mango, but this one simple phrase has stuck with me for decades.

The really interesting thing to me about this model is that matter - the seemingly non-conscious (depending on whom you ask, I suppose) "stuff" - is precisely the stuff that's doing the sensing, perceiving, forming, and being conscious! We are all made of stuff, after all. It's a very strange matter (see what I did there?).

Dan
Sat today

[Kokuu]

I used to be a professor and I taught Research Methods to undergrads. And one topic was creating models. Since undergrads don't really like to focus on math that much I would use Godzilla.

I would say we are tasked with creating a model of Godzilla, to understand him better - and save the world. So we had to evaluate our models as we tried to create a representation of Godzilla. I would first present a little lizard and ask if this was a good model of Godzilla.

Oh, that is so awesome, Allan. Treeleaf people have hidden talents. I reckon that brother Brad would like your Godzilla lecture too!

In a previous life I modelled biological systems, specifically grassland ecosystems, and taught statistics but was never so creative. Your teaching assistant is certainly cute!

In studying Tibetan Buddhism we learned that all of the Buddhist schools and philosophies were attempts to model the mind and experience with varying degrees of sophistication. The skandhas is certainly part of that and a part I actually find very helpful in terms of watching my reactions to various stimuli. There is a sensation in the body (rupa) that is felt as good, bad or indifferent (vedana or feeling tone), given a name and identity through our perception (samjna) leading to volition (samskara) and reaction of one of the six consciousnesses (vijnana) related to the six senses (the usual five + mental consciousness). We can watch all of this unfold just as the Buddha describes and, to me, that is an amazing theory of human pyschology to have produced 2 500 years ago!

However, as Jundo rightly says, in Zen we never lose sight of the fact that all of these things are part of a flowing whole, even when we are looking at particulars. I agree with Allan too:

to me the Skandhas are a model with great utility. They are amazing really given when they were developed. They don't correspond perfectly to our current understanding of physics, biology and psychology - to the physical world as we know it. And some might dismiss them because of that. But, for me, they still have great utility in understanding the world and how we perceive it. It is important not to get caught up in the particulars, but to focus on the bigger picture of how they can contribute to our practice.

I am, however, a newly ordained unsui and my understanding should be taken with a rather large pinch of salt.

Gassho
Kokuu
-sattoday/lah-

[Shinshi]

Oh, that is so awesome, Allan. Treeleaf people have hidden talents. I reckon that brother Brad would like your Godzilla lecture too!

In a previous life I modelled biological systems, specifically grassland ecosystems, and taught statistics but was never so creative. Your teaching assistant is certainly cute!

In studying Tibetan Buddhism we learned that all of the Buddhist schools and philosophies were attempts to model the mind and experience with varying degrees of sophistication. The skandhas is certainly part of that and a part I actually find very helpful in terms of watching my reactions to various stimuli. There is a sensation in the body (rupa) that is felt as good, bad or indifferent (vedana or feeling tone), given a name and identity through our perception (samjna) leading to volition (samskara) and reaction of one of the six consciousnesses (vijnana) related to the six senses (the usual five + mental consciousness). We can watch all of this unfold just as the Buddha describes and, to me, that is an amazing theory of human pyschology to have produced 2 500 years ago!

However, as Jundo rightly says, in Zen we never lose sight of the fact that all of these things are part of a flowing whole, even when we are looking at particulars. I agree with Allan too:



I am, however, a newly ordained unsui and my understanding should be taken with a rather large pinch of salt.

Gassho
Kokuu
-sattoday/lah-

Thank you, and thank you for your teaching. Greatly appreciated.

Gassho, Allan
Sat-LaH

[Eishuu]

I am finding Red Pine's discussion of the skandhas and their relationship to emptiness really helpful in his book on the Heart Sutra:

These lines in particular: "Thus all Five Skandhas are emptiness, and emptiness is all Five Skandhas, both individually and as a whole. But how can this be? If emptiness is equal to form, how can it also be equal to the other skandhas? This is because no matter how many skandhas or aspects we analyze our experience into, they are all delusions. They do not exist other than as delusions. Thus there is no limit to the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin."

And: "Form is simply a name. Likewise, sensation, perception, memory, and consciousness are simply names. Shariputra, the self is simply a name.There is no self that can ever be found. And it cannot be found because it is empty. ... [E]ven space and nirvana are defined by the same emptiness as the skandhas and thus do not exist outside of the skandhas."

Shoshin, I really enjoyed the Godzilla story.

Gassho
Lucy
ST/LAH

[Tai Shi]

I would really like a real discussion of the actual skandas and as to how they work or do not work. Please discuss the actual nature of the actual skandas as described in the Heart Sutra, and empty form and form that is empty how such description fits into my real everyday life, and how I will find my old age,I am 66, and how this figures into death. I am an odd Buddhist in that I also follow the teachings of Jesus Christ and the Resurrection of the Son of God, I find no descripency between teaching of the Heart Sutra and the teaching of Jesus. They are of different ilk and really fit nicely together. I'm into a position of contemplating my own death and I will die peacefully with the help of both the Buddha and Jesus, so please anyone, comment about how you see yourself in relationships with living and dieing with teaching of the Buddha and Jesus, one or the other or both. I might tell you that I also wear the rakasu the Sangha gave me as a gift and sit nearly every day, and attend a Christian church, Tai Shi, sat today, Gassho

Sent from my SM-T310 using Tapatalk

[Kokuu]

Hi Tai Shi

Jundo's description of the skandas and how they work was presented above. As has been said, they are a mental model of how the brain works.

So, what are the traditional Skandas? Like all things in traditional Buddhist Philosophy, it depends which philosopher you ask. Philosophers disagree on the details. But, basically, you have:

1-Matter: The "stuff" (we might say atoms and molecules) that are the world (and your body) and exist without regard to whether your sentient mind is perceiving them or not.

2-Sensations- The sensing of the matter by the sense organs. These sensations are soon interpreted as pleasant, painful or neutral (we now know that, much as primitive Buddhist psychology described, much of that judging goes on even before you perceive the sensation. For example, the brain knows pain and danger even before you more deeply or consciously perceive that you are touching a hot stove).

3-Perceptions- Your mind perceiving, inside the brain, data from the senses. You become aware of the raw, incoming data inside your brain.

4-Mental Formations- Now your brain does all the complex processing, interpreting, organizing, reacting and responding to the data. You give it names, think about it, form opinions, likes and dislikes, moral judgments, have emotional reactions, formulate responses, and actions. etc. You do all the stuff that your brain (and any animal brain, though humans do more of it) does in interpreting, thinking about and acting in the world.

5-Consciousness is that extra thing that makes you alive. You are not merely a computer processing data (or a simple insect brain), but are self-aware, alive. The closest example I can give you, perhaps, is a new born baby that at first, cannot interpret the sense data beyond basic sensations like "pain" "pleasure" "hungry". Only gradually does it develop a more complex interpretation of the world, for example," this is my hand, this is my foot" (baby's actually have to discover this), "they are part of "me", the crib is not "me"" etc. A complex world view starts to develop and, only then, does the baby become "self-aware" and conscious of itself as itself (it probably was not self aware until that time, and was just raw experiencing. Now, the baby is aware that it is "me").

As for death, I think this is something that you can only come to terms with through personal reflection and it sounds like you are doing just that. One of the three marks of existence recognised by the Buddha is impermanence. We are subject to this just as much as any other thing. Most of the time we try to avoid thinking about this but as our life goes on it and the body starts to creak and crack it becomes harder and harder to avoid.

When I live I try to live the best as I can in each moment. When I am dying, I hope to do the same.

Gassho
Kokuu
-sattoday/lah-

[Jishin]

Hi Tai Chi,

One way to look at it is that you are a cookie and I am a cookie. The shape of your cookie and mine are different. Cookies are made from the same dough. Cookie is form. Dough is emptiness. You can get more specific and break down the cookie into little scoops (skandhas) but it is still dough.

Death is just a word to describe a point in time. Birth is just a word in time. There is time to sleep and time to wake up. In Buddhist terms, when you go to sleep there is just sleep and when you wake up there is just waking up. You do this your entire life. You go to bed and just sleep. When you wake up in the morning, there is just waking up. One day you go to sleep and don't wake up. You have done this your entire life. It's not a problem. When you are fully awake, there is no sleep. When you are fully sleeping, there is no waking up. Just be fully awake now and there is no problem. When there is sleep, sleep well and there is no problem.

Babies and children sometimes are good sleepers. When its time to sleep they go to bed and sleep and when its time to wake up they just wake up. No fuss. Some babies and children are bad sleepers. They don't want to go to sleep. They wan't to stay up as long as they can. Yet they must go to sleep too. When we sleep, we just sleep. Its just a point in time. Don't fear sleep. It's just a point in time. Some babies and children wake up well and some wake up grumpy. The ones that wake up grumpy sometimes fear waking up because it may hurt. Yet we all wake up. It's just a point time.

Being awake is form. Being asleep is form. Time is form. In emptiness there is no time. When you are fully awake (empty) you have no concept of time. When you are fully asleep you have no concept of time. If everyone could get this, then as Boddhisatvas our job would be done.

I think the trick is to perceive that we are neither cookies nor dough. Not just dough or cookies. Not one, not two. We are an ever evolving cookie to dough and back and forth, just like the waves arising and dying back into the sea. Back, forth and beyond the sea.

So really there is no death or life yet there is and there is not and there is. Now you see me and now you don't like the peekaboo game with children. Now you see and now you don't. Your wave form came from the sea and is going back to the sea. Yet before the sea there was...

Regarding Christianity, this is what I think:

Genesis 1 - In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

God = emptiness, universe, dough, sea...

Form = heavens, earth, humans...

Jesus = human (form) and god (emptiness) ?

Buddhists (form) may get into trouble with christians when they say that they are god (empty, universe, etc.) because christians believe in duality (god vs. humans)

How to reconcile this?

When practicing just practice. When doing Shikantaza, just drop all judgements and just be. If you are christian, fine. If not christian, fine. If both, fine. If neither, fine. Just sit. Then get up and just go be whatever it is that you are. Chop wood, carry water. Be a christian, muslin, jew, Buddhist or whatever you like to call yourself. Maybe in sitting you are form, emptiness, both, neither or a combination thereof. Maybe you have no name. When you get up then just be the form that lives in this world of suffering.

My 2 cents.

Gassho, Jishin, ST


IMG_0111.JPG

IMG_0112.JPG

[Shokai]

sawaki death.jpg

gassho, Shokai

sat/LAH

[Geika]

sawaki death.jpg

gassho, Shokai

sat/LAH

HA! Thanks for that one!

Gassho, sat today, lah

[Mp]

sawaki death.jpg

gassho, Shokai

sat/LAH

Ain't that the truth!

Gassho
Shingen

Sat/LAH

[Shokai]

I just love the expression on his face

gassho, Shokai

sat/LAH