The Book of the Aggregates

The "Book of the Aggregates" is the third of the five books of the Linked Discourses. It is named after the first and longest saṁyutta, which deals with the core Buddhist teaching of the five aggregates in 159 discourses. Of the remaining twelve saṁyuttas, three also take up the theme of the aggregates, while the remainder deal with miscellaneous secondary themes, some organized by subject, others by person.

The "five grasping aggregates" (pañc'upādānakkhandhā) were mentioned in the first sermon as the summary of the noble truth of suffering (SN 56.11), and became a foundational teaching in all forms of Buddhism.

The basic idea of an "aggregate" (khandha) is a set or class of phenomena. The "five aggregates" are the various sets of phenomena so classified.

The five aggregates are almost always said to be "grasping" aggregates. The term "grasping" (upādāna) has a complex and multi-layered relation to the basic term.

• The aggregates are the subject of grasping, in that they are the things that are normally attached to and taken to be the permanent "self".

• But they are not merely passive spectators: they are also the functional support of grasping, the things that make grasping work. This is probably the basic metaphor of the set, as the five aggregates correspond to the five fingers of a hand, which perform the act of grasping. Grasping is something that the aggregates do. In this metaphor, the "thumb" is consciousness, which stands against the other four.

• As active participants in the process of grasping, they stimulate grasping to themselves (upādāniya).

• And finally, they are the product of grasping in the sense that attachments in past lives have given rise to the aggregates in this life (upādiṇṇa).

Here is a brief analysis of each of the five.

• Form (rūpa): "Physical phenomena", or sometimes simply "body", understood as consisting of the four primary physical properties: earth (solid), water (liquidity), fire (heat), and air (gas), and anything material derived from these, such as the impressions of the five material senses. Rūpa is more extensive in scope than the Western concept of "matter". It includes material properties that are perceived purely in the mind, such as shape or color seen as visions in meditation.

• Feeling (vedanā): The pleasant, painful, or neutral tone of experience born from the six senses.

• Perception (saññā): The recognition or interpretation of experience through the six senses. Perception refers to that function of the mind which organizes the dizzyingly complex and chaotic input of present experience based on past experience. The eye, for example, does not see "blue" or "yellow", it only sees light in various frequencies and amplitudes. Perception recognizes that these inputs correspond to the concept "blue" or "yellow" (SN 22.79), and so it enables us to live in a world of (relatively) permanent and predictable entities and ideas. While perception thus makes consciousness possible, it also can trap us into seeing things only in terms of the past. In the legal discussions of the Vinaya, it is common to discuss cases where a mendicant's actions are based on a perception that turns out to be incorrect.

• Choices (saṅkhārā): Intention, will, or volition (cetanā); the choice to perform an act, especially one with an ethical dimension. It is choices that create the five aggregates (SN 22.79). Later forms of Buddhism, starting with the Abhidhamma texts, treated this aggregate as if it were a catch-all, whose purpose was to include everything not mentioned under the other aggregates. However, this is not the case in the early texts, where there is no indication that saṅkhārā in this context means anything other than "volition, choice".

• Consciousness (viññāṇa): The subjective process of awareness itself. As in dependent origination, consciousness is said to depend on name & form.

Except perception, all of these are also found in dependent origination, where they have similar definitions. Whereas dependent origination shows the unfolding of the process of suffering in time, the teaching on the aggregates focuses on those aspects of present experience that are most apt to be taken as a self. In SN 22.5 the grasping to the aggregates is shown as the very same grasping that leads to rebirth as shown in dependent origination. SN 22.54 furthers this argument, asserting that it is impossible to speak of rebirth without referring to the aggregates.

From the very first teaching of the Buddha (SN 56.11) we learn that the aggregates are suffering. In the second sermon---the Discourse on Not-Self (Anattalakkhaṇa Sutta) at SN 22.59---this brief statement is drawn out in further dialogue with the group of five ascetics. Each of the aggregates leads to affliction and one cannot simply decree that the aggregates be whatever one wants; hence they cannot be a self. Further, each of the aggregates is impermanent and therefore suffering, which again rules out the possibility that they are a self. Seeing in this way, a practitioner lets go of attachment to the aggregates and realizes freedom. It was while listening to this discourse that the five ascetics all became perfected ones.

While the doctrine of the "three marks" is found throughout all Buddhist texts, it is here in the Khandha Saṁyutta that it rises to prominence. Here is a brief outline.

Impermanence (anicca)

: All conditioned phenomena are produced and maintained by causes and hence can only last so long as the causes sustain them. Impermanence is a fractal phenomenon; it is how reality is structured at every level. It applies equally to the grandest scale of universes and the lifespans of the gods as it does to the incessant breaking up and vanishing of conditions from moment to moment. But in the five aggregates, the main focus is on the scale of human existence, where the emotional impact of impermanence is felt most keenly in death.

Suffering (dukkha)

: At its simplest level this refers to painful feelings, whether physical or mental (dukkha-dukkhatā). By itself, this is a profound observation, as virtually every moment of our waking lives is afflicted by some form of pain or irritation. But suffering runs deeper than that, for even when we do experience pleasure, it cannot be sustained. The second bite of a mango is delicious---but not quite as delicious as the first (vipariṇāma-dukkhatā). Finally, even the most profound of pleasures, such as the bliss of deep meditation, is never as peaceful as nibbāna, since by its nature it is conditioned and unstable (saṅkhāradukkhatā). No experience is as peaceful as cessation.

Not-self (anattā)

: The most subtle and distinctive of the three marks, not-self is the most apt to be misunderstood. It is primarily an anti-metaphysical doctrine, not a psychological one. It is intended to rule out the various kinds of self or soul proposed by the philosophers at the time of the Buddha. It does this by pointing out that all the self doctrines end up identifying one or other of the aggregates as self; but they do not have the nature that the self is supposed to have. This meaning is quite different from the modern psychological notion of self, and it is inappropriate, and potentially harmful, to apply the teaching of not-self in cases where a person is suffering from a disorder of identity.

Let us dwell a little further on the idea of self and not-self, which is best understood in its historical context. From a few centuries before the Buddha, Indian sages and philosophers had become fascinated by the subjective nature of experience. They wondered who it was, in the true and ultimate sense, that was the one referred to as "I".

Initial theories built on simple animist notions, imaging the self as an external physical totem, or even as a little man who lived in the chest. Others theorized that the self was the heart, or the breath, or some other physical attribute. But all of these may be refuted by simple empirical observation. Sometimes a totem may be destroyed, yet a person lives. When you watch a person who is asleep, no little man may be observed leaving by the mouth. And when a trumpeter expels all their breath, they do not drop down dead.

So what then is this self if not something material? Perhaps, rather, it is feeling, the bliss experienced by one who goes to a beautiful realm after death. But this cannot be so, for feeling, too, is impermanent (DN 15). Then could the self be perception (DN 1)? But no, perception too is tricky and unreliable, like an illusion. Is self then one's choices? A man, after all, is defined by the decisions he makes. But these too are seen to be impermanent and unreliable; oft-times one makes bad choices, or the results of a choice are not what one hopes.

Unsatisfied, the sages of the Upaniṣads rejected all such limited conceptions of the Self (Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad 3.9.26: neti! neti!). They arrived at their most profound thesis: the self in its highest sense was awareness itself, the sheer mass of consciousness (Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad 2.4.12: vijnāna-ghanam'eva). The true nature of the self is the supreme divinity (Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad 1.4.10: ahaṁ brahmāsmīti; cp. DN 1:2, DN 11:81, DN 24:2: ahamasmi brahmā). This insight is expressed in the Upaniṣads as the famous "thou art that" (Chāndogya Upaniṣad 6.8.7: tat tvam asi), and the Pali texts as "I am that" ( SN 22.8: eso hamasmi). "That" may be anything one identifies as self. But to one who understands rightly (ya evaṁ veda) the divine self is nothing less than the entirety of the universe: "the self is identical with the cosmos" (SN 22.81: so attā so loko, cp. Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad 1.2.7: tasyeme lokā ātmānaḥ, 4.5.7: idaṁ brahmedaṁ kṣatram ime lokā ime devā ime vedā imāni bhūtānīdaṁ sarvaṁ yad ayam ātmā). This philosophy is most closely associated with Yajnavalkya, a Brahmanical sage who lived in the same region as the Buddha (Mithilā), perhaps a century or two earlier.

While the exact form of these arguments may seem archaic, we still cling to the aggregates in similar ways. We think of our possessions and belongings---homes, clothes, cars---as expressions of our self, and are upset when they are damaged or criticized. We attach, too, to our physical bodies, reveling in health, or imagining that we will survive through the propagation of our DNA. We attach to pleasure, thinking that happiness will last. We attach to our perceptions, such as our sense of belonging to a nation or religion, or our idea of ourselves as a good person. We attach to our choices, taking pride in our ability to make decisions. Finally, we attach to our consciousness, especially as we purify awareness in meditation.

Thus one of the key functions of the aggregates was to categorize theories of the self, moving from simple to profound. This seems to have been familiar to philosophers before the Buddha. The aggregates are mentioned in passing in the first sermon as if it is taken for granted that the five ascetics would know them. Many of the sectarian views of self in DN 1 Brahmajāla Sutta refer to the aggregates in one way or another. And elsewhere, the non-Buddhist ascetic Saccaka asserted that the five aggregates were the self (MN 35). Nevertheless, the aggregates have not been identified in any pre-Buddhist texts.

Regardless of whether the set of categories was pre-Buddhist, the Buddha treated them in his distinctive way, emphasizing that when examined, the aggregates turn out to lack the qualities of permanence, surety, and refuge that are intrinsic to the idea of a true self. But our grasping and identification are strong and have been built up over a long time, so it is not enough to merely acknowledge this on an intellectual level. Hence in the Khandha Saṁyutta we find the core teachings emphasized again and again. The Buddha constantly reminds the mendicants that the aggregates lead to sorrow and despair (SN 22.7), that they are aggravating (SN 22.79), that desire for them must be given up (SN 22.137), that they are alien (SN 22.33). One who identifies with the aggregates is like a man who hires an assassin as a servant (SN 22.85). They are suffering in the past and future just as they are today (SN 22.10).

The view that the aggregates are self is called "identity view" (sakkāyadiṭṭhi). It is possible to identify with any or all of the aggregates in a myriad of ways, commonly set out as twenty forms of identity view (SN 22.1, etc.). Identity view leashes an unenlightened person to transmigration like a dog tied to a post, pointlessly running around and around (SN 22.99).

Several discourses emphasize that to understand the aggregates it is essential to develop the deep stillness of immersion meditation (SN 22.5, SN 22.6). But meditative realization is not something that just happens automatically; one must continually contemplate and observe the aggregates (SN 22.40, etc.).

In this collection we find a large number of striking and lively narratives, showing how the aggregates could be a solace at the time of old age (SN 22.1), a guide to the knotty theoretical debates on identity, or a framework for insight meditation.