Lecture 3: True Nature of Existence

Buddha’s Teaching As It Is –
Bhikkhu Bodhi
PowerPoint presentation on Bhikkhu Bodhi’s
recorded lectures on ‘Buddha’s Teaching As It Is’.
Materials for the presentation are taken from the
recorded lectures (MP3) posted at the website of
Bodhi Monastery and the notes of the lectures
posted at beyondthenet.net

Originally prepared to accompany the playing of

Bhikkhu Bodhi’s recorded lectures on ‘Buddha’s Teaching
As It is’ in the Dharma Study Class at PUTOSI Temple,
Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia.
This series of weekly study begins in November, 2010.
Namo Tassa Bhagavato
Arahato
Sammasambuddhassa

THE TRUE NATURE OF

EXISTENCE – FIVE
AGGREGATES
Bhikkhu Bodhi
Lecture 3
Understanding Five Aggregates of Clinging
Five Aggregates to be Understood
The Buddha indicates what has to be understood or known.
What we have to understand is nature of our own existence,
our own experience, the five aggregates, the basic
components of our being. Our own experience lies closest to
ourselves. It is through our own experience that we contact
everything else.
Ordinarily we use our experience to know and enjoy the world
of six senses (sights, sounds, smells, tastes, touch sensations,
and ideas), but the experiencing itself is not examined. Thus
we learn about everything except the instrument of
knowledge, the experience of understanding that provides
the key to wisdom. The method of the Buddha reverses this
procedure.
Understanding Five Aggregates of Clinging
Aggregates of Clinging
The Five Aggregates
Materiality Aggregate – Rupa Khandha
 Materiality Aggregate

(a) Earth Element

This represents the property of extension, the property by which a material body occupies
space; has some degree of hardness and softness; resist pressure and excludes other
bodies from occupying the same space.
 Materiality Aggregate – Primary Elements

(d) Air element

This represents the principle of oscillation by reason of which all material
particles are in a state of vibration; by reason of this material bodies exhibit
motion.
Secondary Elements of Matter - Derivatives
Secondary Elements of Matter - Derivatives
 II. Aggregate of Feelings
Feeling is the mental factor that has the function of experiencing the ‘flavor’ of the object,
the affective quality of the object. There are three basic types of feelings – pleasant,
III. Aggregate of Perceptions
Aggregate of Mental Formations
The Five Aggregates – Whole Experience
Trilogy: Anicca, Dukkha, Anatta
 Ignorance – Mental Darkness & Illusions

These perversions occur at 3 levels, perception, thinking and view.

The mind is caught up in illusions.

1. Aniccata - Impermanence
Impermanence - Aniccata
Impermanence - Aniccata
Aniccata – Three Stages of Becoming
 Aniccata – Three Stages of Becoming

The factors themselves are always changing, arising and dissolving. If we pay careful
attention to the mental events, we see the rise and fall of the discrete mental events. In
this way, we get to discover the subtle mark of aniccata.
Anicca, Dukkha, Anatta
TRUE NATURE OF
EXISTENCE – PART II
Dukkhata - Unsatisfactoriness
Anatta – Selflesness or Non-self
Anatta – Simile of Snake & Rope
Selfhood & Not-Self
Selfhood & Not-Self
What is Self
These are the four basic notions that enter into the concept of
a self: permanence, simplicity, unconditionedness, and being
susceptible to control. Now we examine the personality, the
five aggregates in the light of these ideas.
If there is a self, what is it? If he idea of self has to have any
content, it has to be conceived in relation to what is
experienced, to the five aggregates, the body and mind.
When we try to posit the self in relation to the five
aggregates, a number is possible and these be reduced to
two:
1. Identity –identifying the self with some aspect of the body-
mind complex, i.e. the five aggregates as the self
2. Difference – distinguishing the self as distinct from the body
and mind.
Aggregates as Self
The aggregates are not self:
1. In terms of lastingness: The five aggregates are all impermanent.
The body is a mass of vibrations, a current of material groups
arising and passing away. The mind is a series of momentary
occasions of awareness. Feeling, perceptions, formations and
being conscious are arising and falling away. There is no one behind
the mental process watching it, no subject, no observer, just
momentary mental acts. Since the five aggregates are
impermanent, subject to rise and fall, they cannot be identified as
self.
2. Simplicity or indivisibility –The individual person is a compound of
five aggregates, which themselves are a multiplicity of elements
when examined. Which aggregate is to be identified as self? Each
aggregate is impermanent, none could be identified as self.
Five Aggregates as Self
3. Unconditioned – All five aggregates are conditioned, they
arise and fall due to causes and conditions. The body is
supported by air, water , etc. The mental process is
conditioned by the body. Consciousness arises with material
support, visual consciousness arises dependent on the eyes
and visible form, etc. None of the five aggregates are
unconditioned.
4. Control – All five aggregates cannot be controlled, they
depend on outer causes and conditions, not subject to our
control. Therefore the five aggregates cannot be identified
as self.
The aggregates, being impermanent, compounded,
conditioned and not subject to mastery, cannot be
identified as the self because the self must be lasting,
simple, unconditioned and subject to control.
Self Distinct from the Aggregates
Now we examine the second position that there is a self
distinct from the five aggregates, contained within or behind
them. If there is a self distinct from the aggregates, we
should be able to find it. However, whatever we come upon
turns out to be one or the other or some combinations of the
five aggregates. Even the mind that is doing the searching is a
group of aggregates, a mind consciousness associated with
feeling, perception and volition. We can’t find any self
separate and distinct from the aggregates, it’s like looking for
a pit inside an onion. The five aggregates have no core, no
self.
Some take Nibbana as self. The Buddha says all dhammas are
not self. Nibbana is an unconditioned dhamma, there is no
distinct self.
 Selfless Nature of the Five Aggregates

If there is no self to be found in the body-mind complex, how can rebirth take
place?
In Buddhism, rebirth is understood as occurring through causal continuity or
succession without a lasting self or ego entity.
This will be covered in details later in the topic on ‘Rebirth and Kamma’.