Session 8 - Contemplation of the Dhammas

The Five Aggregates of Clinging

Six Internal and Six External Sense Bases

1) Beginning Meditation (5-8 minutes): Guided, bringing minds into the present, settling into our bodies, finding the breath and following it, returning to the breath when the mind wanders, short/long breath, entire breath body; breath-body only; breathing/knowing.

2) Brief Review of Last Week's Talk - The Five Hindrances

3) Questions/Discussion from Last Week

4) Contemplation of the Dhammas - The Five Aggregates of Clinging

a) What are the five aggregates?

i) Material Form

ii) Feeling

iii) Perception

iv) Mental Formations

v) Consciousness

b) Why are they the aggregates "of clinging"? They are those things that we cling to with desire and attachment, and with a wrong view of Self.

c) Twenty views of Self in terms of the Five Aggregates:

i) I am the body, the feeling (aggregate) . . .

ii) I'm outside the aggregate, but I'm in control of them (soul).

iii) I'm contained within the aggregate (e.g., the brain).

iv) I'm one with the universal entity that contains the aggregate (e.g., "One with God").

d) How do we cling to these aggregates?

i) Material Form

(1) Represented by characteristics of the four primary elements (earth, water, fire and air) which impinge on our senses.

(2) We cling to "my" body.

ii) Feeling

(1) The effective tone of a single sense contact as being pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral -- before mental constructs come into play.

(2) "I" feel good. "I" like it. That hurts "me".

iii) Perception

(1) Perception identifies, discriminates, distinguishes, classifies, categorizes - it distinguishes the features of the object in some way. It is particularly important in serving as a basis for memory and recognition.

(2) Leads to pride in self around knowledge or skill.

iv) Mental Formations

(1) The emotional, intellective and volitional aspects of experience

(2) We cling to our intelligence (pride):"I" am being mindful. "I" just had this wonderful transcendent experience.

v) Consciousness

(1) The general awareness that operates through a particular sense base. There are six types, classified by the sense door with which it arose.

(2) We cling to Consciousness, saying "I am aware".

e) What is really going on with these "aggregates"?

"All five are operating together and are mutual conditions for each other: an organic unity. For example, when one hears a bus driving by, there is physical hearing with the ear. That belongs to the aggregate of Material Form. If it’s a very loud, rumbling sound which disrupts concentration, there will come a particular feeling, perhaps a painful feeling. One may then struggle to overcome the painful feeling and develop an equanimous feeling. Then one distinguishes: that is a bus or that sound is too loud. That’s Perception. Then there’s some volition: "I wish that bus would go by already!" or "I wish that driver would get a better muffler." This is a mental formation. Then there is being aware of all of this, which is Consciousness. Thus, one can account completely for the nature of experience without bringing in any kind of permanent self or ego entity that is somehow standing behind all of these five aggregates and governing them from within. And from Insight comes the knowledge that they can’t be perfectly controlled, but they have their own laws which they obey which are often contrary to our wishes." (from Bhikkhu Bodhi’s talk on the Satipatthana Sutta)

f) How is the teaching of this section of the Sutta different from the first three Foundations?

i) Rather than just observing the aggregate as an object of meditation to gain concentration, Contemplation of the Five Aggregates of Clinging begins once the meditator develops a strong base of mindfulness.

ii) On this base, one can examine the body, then the mental: feelings, perceptions, consciousness, and mental formations or volitions, realizing that they belong to the respective aggregates. This becomes evident as a direct (non-cognitive) experience.

iii) One can also observe all five aggregates while using one aggregate as the object of meditation. For example, when focusing on the breath, there is material form, there is perception, there is feeling, there is consciousness, there is volition - they are all there together.

g) The teachings also lead one to investigate and penetrate the conditional nature of things -- e.g., that this body has come into this life due to various causes from the past -- ignorance, craving, and karma, and is sustained in this life by food and water. If there is no food, then the body disintegrates and dies.

h) The arising and disappearance of form can be understood in terms of moment-to-moment experience: observing the repeated arising and passing away of the material phenomena of the body. These material phenomena are just momentary existence, arising and perishing - but they arise and perish in a sequence, so it appears to be solid and lasting.

i) The same analysis can be applied to Feelings, Perceptions, Mental Formations and Consciousness.

j) One contemplates that phenomena just exists, that the five aggregates are just instances of bare phenomena. They are not something to be attached to as I, Mine, or Myself, but just phenomena that occur through their causes and conditions. And by so contemplating, it brings a deepening of knowledge and mindfulness.

5) Questions

6) Contemplation of the Dhammas - The Six Internal and Six External Sense Bases

a) The six internal sense bases - five connected with the physical senses (eye, ear, etc.) and one connected with the mind. It is not the gross organ, but the particular part that is sensitive to sight, sound, touch, etc. They each serve as a base for the arising of the related consciousness: eye consciousness, ear consciousness, etc. at the particular sense door. Remember "contact" (discussed previously).

b) The six external sense bases - the objects which are apprehended through the six internal sense bases.

c) In the suttas, the Buddha says that these six internal and external objects are the World, the totality of reality. No matter where one is -- whether on earth or on mars -- the experience of what is present only occurs with respect to the six sense bases.My teacher says, "we're each in our own projected universe".

d) What is a fetter? An obstacle that arises through the senses, such as greed (or desire), aversion (or irritation), or delusion (or ignorance). They keep us tied to the round of becoming.

i) Simile: The White Ox and the Black Ox bound together with a yoke.

(1) Does the White Ox keep the Black Ox bound?

(2) Does the Black Ox keep the White Ox bound?

(3) What keeps us bound are fetters (like the yoke) which keep us bound to a concept of "self".

(4) Having a sense organ or a sense object is not a fetter; it is the desire (craving) which arises based on unwise attention and a perception of self that binds the organ and its object together, making the object a "thing" that "one" relates to.

(5) This must be experienced viscerally, not conceptually.

ii) The Ten Fetters pertaining to the six sense bases and their objects (and the stages of enlightenment at which they are eradicated):

(1) Sense desire (gross forms at 2nd stage ) (subtle forms at 3rd stage)

(2) Ill-will or anger (gross forms at 2nd stage ) (subtle forms at 3rd stage)

(3) Pride or conceit (4th stage)

(4) False view - that things are permanent, desirable, etc. (1st stage)

(5) Doubt (1st stage)

(6) Belief in rites and rituals (1st stage)

(7) Desire for existence (4th stage)

(8) Envy (1st stage)

(9) Avarice (1st stage)

(10) Ignorance (4th stage)

iii) Practice Exercise - The Fetters:

(1) Follow the breath until you gain concentration.

(2) If you react to an object, determine if your reaction is fettered by greed, hatred or delusion.

(3) If fettered by greed, see how the mind reaches out from the sense organ to grasp the object.See how the mind is grasping and pushing away in each moment.

(4) If fettered by hatred, see how the mind grasps the object and experiences the pain of the experience, being bound to it.

(5) If fettered by delusion, see how you are identified with it.

iv) Fetter Contemplation:

(1) We crave to hear, to smell, to see . . .

(2) We crave to crave . . .

(3) See how you define yourself by identifying with it (fettered by delusion).

e) To overcome fetters, we must know:

i) How they arise;

ii) What are the antidotes to eliminate them; and

iii) What is the radical remedy that totally eradicates them.

f) Let us now enter the Sutta:

i) "Herein, bhikkhus a bhikkhu knows the eye, knows the visible forms and also knows the fetter that arises dependent on both."[Same for the other sense bases and objects.]

ii) "He also knows the reason why the arising of the non-arisen fetter comes to be, he also knows the reason why the abandoning of the arisen fetter comes to be, and he also knows the reason why non-arising in the future of the abandoned fetter comes to be." [Causes and Conditions.]

iii) "He dwells contemplating the origination factors in the dhammas, or he dwells contemplating the dissolution factors in the dhammas, or he dwells contemplating both the origination and dissolution factors in the dhammas."

iv) "Or his mindfulness is established as "there are dhammas only." And that mindfulness is established to the extent necessary to further knowledge and mindfulness."

v) "Not depending on (or attached to) anything by way of craving and wrong view, he dwells."

vi) "Nor does he cling to anything in the world of the five aggregates of clinging."

vii) "Thus too, bhikkhus, a bhikkhu dwells contemplating the Dhamma in the dhammas in the six internal and in the six external sense-bases."

7) Questions

8) Homework

a) Sitting Meditation - daily (afterwards, note your experiences in your journal)

b) Read the Sutra (through The Contemplation of the Dhammas) and Sutra Notes

c) Read Four Foundations of Mindfulness by U Silananda (through Contemplation of the Dhammas)

d) See Elevenfold Analysis of the Aggregates by Ven. Mahasi Sayadaw

e) Practice Exercise (below)

9) Handouts

a) Practice Exercises for the Five Aggregates of Clinging

b) Practice Exercises for the Six Internal and Six External Sense Bases

10) Next Week: The Seven Factors of Enlightenment; The Four Noble Truths; Assurance of Attainment.

11) Closing Meditation

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