The Five Aggregates and the Story we Call the Self – Bart B.

Good afternoon everybody. My name is Bart and coming up on nine years ago, I vowed to wake up to reality free from the suffering of addiction and so far so good. I am here to talk a little bit about upright view and whenever somebody asks me to sit on this cushion, any teaching cushion. I like to quote Shantideva. This is what he said at the beginning of the Bodhisattvas way. He says what I have to say has all been said before and I am destitute of learning and of skill with words. I therefore have no thought that this might be of benefit to others. I say it only to sustain my own understanding. when you say that you get rid of the pride it's a good way to begin there's a couple of things I like to say about upright view I call it upright view to remind myself that it isn't opposed to wrong view it's more that sense of alignment my view is aligned sometimes the word sama can be translated as perfect it's perfect view As a good friend told me earlier, there's no opposite. It's the way to look at reality. And I think over time we all discover that the way that we see reality around us from the moment where we first decide to give up our habituated patterns that cause us such agony and our continuing journey down the trail, our view changes as time goes along. And sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse. But today we're going to talk about for the better. I'm going to start by talking about the teaching that was most understood about upright view back in the early days of Buddhism had to do with the truth of suffering. And there's lots of arguments about translations of words in Buddhism for an American audience. And the word, of course, I'm sure most of you have heard is dukkha. And some people like to say unsatisfactoriness. And I like to remind them that 2,500 years ago unsatisfactory was kind of a good thing, right? It wasn't worms in your food. It wasn'T an abscessed tooth that just had to ache until it stopped and fell out by itself. Life was really miserable 2,500 years ago. This is also one of the little sermons that I give my sponsees. I give them the Charlemagne sermon, is what I call it. Imagine that you're Charlemaine in the early years of the Empire, right? You're the most powerful next to the Pope, the most power man on the face of the planet. Even still, the best you can wear is homespun clothing. It's like itchiness all over the body. No, there's no ice in summer. No, all your drinks are warm. In winter, there is no central heat. This is the most powerful man in the world. We, just us in this room, have it infinitely better as far as suffering goes than Charlemagne had it way back when. So then I tell my sponsees, So stop bothering me with your petty little complaints. So, the four noble truths, the truths of suffering, comes from the very first of the Buddhist sutras. It's the Dhammakakapavatana Sutra. We're going to say that together. Dhamma. Kaka. Pava. Tana. Sutra。 Dhammacakapavatana sutra. Yeah, there we go. So this is what the Buddha had to say. Suffering, suffering is a noble truth, is this? Birth is suffering, sickness is suffering. Aging is suffering death is suffering sorrows lamentations pains griefs and despairs are suffering association with the loathe that is suffering disassociation with the beloved is suffering not to get what one wants is suffering. In short, suffering is the five categories of clinging objects. Yeah, that last one sounded a little confusing. We'll get back to that one. Don't worry. The next, the origin of suffering. The origin of suffering as a noble truth is this. It is craving which produces renewal of being accompanied by enjoyment and lust and enjoying this and that. In other words, craving for sensual desires, craving for being a craving for non-being. Cessation of suffering is a noble truth is this. It is remainderless fading and ceasing, letting go and rejecting, giving up and relinquishing of that same craving. The way leading to cessation of offering is a noble truth is this. It is simply the noble eightfold path that is to say, right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration. So those are the four noble truths as they're normally taught. But I want to dig just a little bit deeper into the Dhammakakapavadana Sutra. And this is what happens after he gets that teaching. The Buddha instructs his disciples, the bhikkhus of the group of five, they're sometimes called, his first five companions. He instructs them that all of this is true, but they come in three flavors. So there's the teaching on suffering, but it's very important also to know that the teaching of suffering has been diagnosed. It's already been, somebody's already figured it out. It both can be and it has been. This is very, very subtle points that he makes here, but incredibly important to the teaching of upright view. There's suffering. Suffering can be diagnosed. Suffering has been diagnosed. There's not anything overly particularly profound about this teaching. The Buddha's going back way, way into the past. All figured it out. And he, Shakyamuni's Buddha, he's just the latest one to bring it back out of the forgotten mess of human existence. And so there's these three parts to the teaching on suffering. There's the three parts to the teach on the origin of suffering, right? The origin of sufferings is craving, right. It can be abandoned. Craving can be abundant. and it has been abandoned. There are those people in the past that have made it through. Hope, right? Ooh, this is not great news for the recovery. Exactly. This is not good news for you. This is no great news for the Recovery Community. I don't know what is. Then, the cessation of suffering can be verified. You can check on it. You can go and see that it's happened. It has been verified. all of this is already done there waiting for you all you got to do is pick it up and use it and then finally the way leading to cessation of suffering it can be developed and it has been developed in fact it's going on all around us all the time you don't need anything special recovery from suffering or recovery from addiction, it's right present in the present moment. There's nowhere to go. There's nothing to do. There's just being here with the truth of that. So after he gives all that teaching, then the Buddha says this in the Dhammataka Pavadana Sutra. Then the Buddha says, as long as my knowing and seeing view, my knowing and seeing, as long as my knowing and viewing and seeing how things are was not quite purified in these twelve aspects, in these three phases of each of the four noble truths. Then I did not claim to have discovered the full awakening that is supreme in the world, with its gods, its angels of death, and high divinity, in this generation with its monks and divines, with its princes and men. I know that's a little Byzantine, but we're going to let him get away with it. But as soon as my knowing and seeing my view, my way I look at the world, as soon as my knowingandseeinghowthingsare was quite purified in these twelve aspects in these three phases of each of the four noble truths then I claim to have discovered the full awakening that is supreme in the world with its gods, its angels of death and high divinity in this generation With its monks and divines, with its princes and men Knowing and seeing arose in me thus My heart's deliverance is unassailable This is the last birth Now there is no more renewal of being It's the whole passage. It's The Whole Path of the Buddha right there. now the part that I wanted to go back about was the five categories of clinging objects and that's the teaching on self or rather the teaching on non-self or not-self and that teaching is the second teaching that the Buddha gave early on to his five followers and it's called the Natalakana Sutra Anata Lakana Anatalakana sutra And he very, very carefully goes with incredibly precise reasoning, tells you exactly why those things which we identify as ourself are not ourself. It's incredibly well reasoned. He breaks it down into the five, we call them in Buddhism, they're called the five skandhas or in the Pali language, the five khandhas. But we call him the five aggregates for some reason. and I'm not exactly sure why, but I'm sure there's a good reason somewhere in the translation. And those five pieces are form. First one, form. The atoms and cells of our body and of the world around us, right? Substance, right, which we quoted from the Diamond Sutra earlier. Form and substance are like the dew on the grass. Destiny, like the dart of lightning, emptied in an instant, vanished in a flash. So there's form, there's this, which is here for a second, and then it's gone. We know that in terms of the length of our universe, 13.78 billion years. Okay, so the second one, sensation, right? And we're just talking the basic ones, like bring it on, the I don't want, and I can't really be bothered. You know, those kind of reactions, those gut reactions that come before any words come. And then the third one, perceptions, which is exactly where the words come It's our identification. Our identification of the objects around us, our identification of the people with whom we interact, our identification, our finding a word to encompass and enclose something. So there's perception. Then there's formation. A great way to think of formation, particularly if you're a writer, like I know Alice is and I am as well, think of it in terms of a sentence. You take the perception, you take the word and you find an activity for it, right? It's the karma, one of the skandhas. Like Bart was a junkie and a hooker for a decade and a half, right, that's the whole, and that's true, that's, that's the formation, right and then there's consciousness or like I like to think of it as the storyline, right we take all of our formations all of your feelings all of their sentences and we pack them into this novel that we call our story. And we say that it's true. And the Buddha goes through all of those and he says, well, are any of them permanent? Are any of they unchangeable? And the monks reply, no. All of these things change, right? Our bodies, every seven years, every atom in our body, even in our bones, is replaced. There's a physical word for it, I can't remember, it's transmutation, I can remember exactly, but it actually happens. Same in the Great Pyramids, right? Every atom in the great pyramid is replaced every seven years. That's some pretty interesting information for you. What is left? There's nothing here, right, our formation, my sentence of the moment, I'm sitting up here, pretty soon I'm going to be sitting over there, right? All of it changes, none of it's permanence. And because it changes it's painful. It's painful So that's the guts of the Anattalakana Sutra, right? That's the guts of it and he tells us that once you get to realize this, you really penetrate this thought deeply you gain estrangement from these views like an estranged spouse, I guess is what he's referring to. It's a sense that we stop that identification. We stop using these terms and ideas and ways of looking at the world as a way to judge, to identify who we are in relation to. We've got to stop that. And then the suffering stops. So that's what we'll call the Theravada teaching. The old school teaching on upright view, or right view if you prefer. So then comes the Mahayanists, the greater vehicles. They like to be in comparison to the Hinayanas, don't they? Well, there's this new way of looking at the world, and that is that ultimately there's not any self here to even pay attention to. Right, it's the Bodhisattva vow from the Diamond Sutra. You don't have to repeat this. The Vajratitika Prajnaparamita Sutra, right? It's the bodhisattvas vow and he says, All bodhisatvas and mahasattvas should consider this. All living beings, whether born from the womb or hatched from an egg. Oh, whether they transform like butterflies or arise miraculously. Whether they have a body or are formless with or without form Whether capable of profound thoughts or of no thoughts at all Each of these I vow to lead to nirvana For their liberation from reincarnation Yet when these innumerable, immeasurable, infinite number Of living beings has been liberated It is the truth that not a single being has been liberated why is this so? In reality there is no I who liberates and no other who is liberated. If a Bodhisattva holds on to the notion that a self, a person, a being or a life exists that person is not a true Bodhisatva. He offers to us this teaching In order to break down the boundaries between our self, perceived boundaries between ourselves and others, we need to cultivate the sublime attitudes, the divine abodes, which are loving kindness, metta, compassion, karuna, sympathetic joy, mudita, and equanimity. we cultivate these in our hearts and in our minds and in your heart mind however you want to refer to it we cultivate them and in the end there is no longer a division between self and other there is simply the manifestation of compassion and loving kindness in the world I'm guessing I'm at my end of time I'm going to close with a poem a prayer a Buddhist prayer yes they have them too that has meant so much to me in my life and how I try what I try to bring into my life excuse me on a daily basis and it's called Shantideva of course as we started with him we'll end with him and it is the Metta Karuna prayer oneness of life and light and trusting in your great compassion, may you shed the foolishness in myself transforming me into a conduit of love. May I be a medicine for the sick and weary nursing their afflictions until they are cured. May I befood and drink during times of famine. May I protect the helpless and the poor. May I be a bed for those who need rest May I be a lamp for those who need light and guide all seekers to the other shore May all know happiness through my actions and let no one suffer because of me Whether they love or hate me Whether they hurt or wrong me, may they all realize true entrusting through other power and realize supreme nirvana. Namo Amida Buddha.