New Year's Retreat at Applegate Jesuit RC, CA

New Year's Retreat at Applegate Jesuit RC, CA

The five aggregates describe our whole human experience without reference to an "I" or "my". It is freeing to see in this way without the burden of self.

Vedana, or the feeling tone of pleasant, unpleasant or neither-pleasant-nor-unpleasant that arises with each sense contact, was considered important enough by the Buddha to be a foundation of mindfulness, one of the five aggregates, and central to the teaching on dependent origination. It is also at the heart of the Dart Sutta in the Samyutta Nikaya, where the Buddha talks about the two common responses to suffering: to bemoan and lament the fact that suffering is happening, but often to try to avoid the unpleasant by chasing after the pleasant. This talk looks at these different teachings to help us understand the importance of bringing mindfulness to vedana in our practice and in our lives.

Not-self or anatta and an overview of the five aggregates subject to clinging

Sakkayaditthi (identity view) and five aggregates. Understanding how our experience as humans gets created. Exploring the illusion of continuity of self.

Mindfulness can be cultivated in many ways, but the supreme use of it is to restain awareness from clinging to the five aggregates.

An exploration of the physical and mental processes that comprise our experience, and how clearly seeing them can lead to freedom.

A guided meditation exploring experience increasingly without a sense of self, through mindfulness of the five "aggregates" (khandhas or skandhas): form, feeling-tone, perception, thoughts and emotions (and other "mental formations), and consciousness.

Our experience, as described by the five aggregates, is empty in two ways. There is no self at the center of them, and every aggregate– Form, feeling, perception, formations and consciousness–is insubstantial.

Though the 2nd Noble Truth points to craving as the cause of suffering, clinging – upadana – is inextricably woven into the experience of suffering. With craving we are reaching towards the object or experience, in clinging we are trying to hold onto it, and make it I, me or mine. Clinging is central to how we create a sense of self through the five aggregates, as pointed to in the first noble truth. We can bring awareness to the process of craving leading to clinging leading to the creation of a sense of self as depicted in the teaching on Dependent Origination, as it is often accompanied by physical energy we can recognize and certain types of thinking. Being mindful of this process allows us to respond wisely, decreasing or abandoning the clinging, and therefore not getting caught in the delusion of self.

The Buddha used the description of human experience in terms of the five aggregates–form, feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness– To develop the understanding that there is no ongoing essence or self within them.

This talk explores the Buddha's teaching on not-self through the schema of the five aggregates. A sense of self is created by grasping at form, feeling, perception, formations or consciousness. What is the experience like when no grasping is taking place?

Vedana, or the feeling tone of pleasant, unpleasant or neither-pleasant-nor-unpleasant that arises with each contact, was considered important enough by the Buddha to be a foundation of mindfulness, one of the five aggregates, and central to the teaching on dependent origination. It is also at the heart of the Dart Sutta in the Samyutta Nikaya, where the Buddha talks about the two common responses to suffering: to bemoan and lament the fact that suffering is happening, but often to try to avoid the unpleasant by chasing after the pleasant. This talk looks at all of these different teachings to help us understand the importance of bringing mindfulness to vedana in our practice and in our lives.

When we understand our experience in terms of the five aggregates, we see without the unnecessary overlay of self. This way of understanding is liberating.

The teaching of anattā (“not-self”) points to one of the three fundamental areas of liberating insight taught by the Buddha (along with the teachings on impermanence and on suffering or dukkha). Yet anattā can very challenging and confusing for contemporary practitioners. Is there “no self” (as anattā is sometimes translated)? How do we make sense of our feelings of individuality, identity, ancestry, and vocation? How do we address our own personal experiences of woundedness, trauma, and oppression? Are these all simply to be “transcended”? How is a sense of self actually in many ways important for contemporary spiritual development, and how is working with our own individual conditioning, whether psychological or social in origin, central to our liberation? How do we integrate attending to such conditioning with opening as well to the power and energy of experiences beyond the habitual sense of self? In this daylong, we will explore these vital questions primarily in a practical way. Using the metaphors of “thinning the self” and working with a “thick” sense of self, we will cover three aspects of practice: (1) cultivating, in several ways, the “thinning” of the self, both in meditation and in everyday life, including working with the Five Skandhas or “aggregates” of experience; (2) tracking and working with different manifestations of a “thick” sense of self, both as appearing in experience and as hidden to awareness; and (3) opening to experiencing beyond a fixed sense of self, as awareness, compassion, and responsiveness deepen.

Right view as both the beginning and ending of the path - Includes discussion of the four noble truths and the five aggregates from the perspective of non-self.

Here we look at fourth satipatthana and its specific instructions on what to see and how to see it—the five hindrances, the five aggregates, the six sense bases, the seven factors of awakening, and the four noble truths—with an eye to realizing how this practice helps us overcome self-view.

New Year's Retreat

Understanding the five aggregates of clinging from moment to moment of our experience can open the door to peace, happiness and freedom.

Understanding Self As A Process: Self is an emergent property of the constituents of our experience (i.e. the five aggregates). Practices pointing to anatta are shared, followed by the connection between anatta and peace & freedom.

This talk explores the five aggregates as a way to understand the Buddha's teaching on anatta or not-self. This insight helps us gain a small glimpse into the mystery of death.

How is a sense of self constructed? What is the concept of not-self in Buddhist practice? How do we construct identity? This talk explores the traditional model of the five aggregates affected by clinging and explains how clinging occurs in contact with sensory experience. The five aggregates—materiality, feeling, perception, mental formations, and consciousness—represent an early Buddhist model for understanding how suffering forms through misperception. Clinging to misperceptions produces a sense of continuity in experience that we conventionally call "I", and a relationship to experience the we conventionally call "mine". This model clarifies the precise objects contemplated in vipassana (insight) meditation practice. This talk explains each aggregate so that insight may liberate the mind from this subtle type of attachment.

Seeing things as they are - five aggregates

Talk explores many doorways of investigating the te4achings on self and no-self including developing a healthy sense of self. the four S's of self 1. simple sense of self 2. solid sense of self 3. self-interested sense of self 4. social sense of self

The Buddha instructed us to bring awareness to the five aggregates of form, feeling tone, perception, mental formations and consciousness and to notice how we cling to and identify with them. If we cling and identify we will suffer. Non-clinging = Non-suffering.

Reflections on the Buddha's understanding of human experience as differentiated through the five bundles (khandha/aggregates).

The second in a series of talks explores the formation of self through the five aggregates, a list which describes our total human experience. The Buddha talked about the activities of "I-ing" and "my-ing" as creating a self view around each one of the aggregates.

Are we free? Can we be free? The five aggregates seen in the Samyutta, as empty, unsubstantial and ephemeral. (Anicca, Dukka, Anatta) To be or not to be: Let it be: Act without an agent.

Understanding the five aggregates can help us understand the absence of a self in sensory experience and also the insubstantiality of phenomena.

The Buddha described five mental and physical process that encompasses all of our experience. He pointed us to recognize and understand them and how they serve us as magnets for clinging and suffering. This talk explores how we connect with these processes as a direct experience.

The Five Aggregates