The Five Aggregates of Clinging

Someone on a discussion forum asked about the five aggregates of clinging. The person asked about their meanings and how to practice with them. I also have a lot of trouble understanding the meanings of the Pali words. There is a good reason for this. The Buddha used the term "aggregates" (piles or heaps) instead of "categories" because they are collections of dissimilar things. That is why they are hard to understand and also hard to remember. We want nice simple easily defined categories that we can understand and remember in one word - but the complexity of reality does not conform to our desires.

Shinzen Young gives a good analogy to explain the aggregates. He says if a TV screen is displaying something white and you look closely at it with a magnifying glass you will not see anything white, you will only see red green and blue pixels.

If you look at self closely you will only see aggregates.

Look closely at self (everything you consider "me" and "mine"). What do you see?

Work out your own aggregates. They don't have to match the orthodox definitions of aggregates because they are aggregates (collections of dissimilar things) not categories. This is good to do because it will make it personal and more meaningful and easier for you to remember. 

This is in part what I see when I look at everything that is "me" or "mine". You might come up with different elements:

• Body
  • Brain
• Possessions, other people my friends family etc, my groups I like (sports teams etc), groups I am a member of (ie Americans)
• Mind:
  • Mental activity: thoughts, emotions, impulses etc
  • Sensory input: sight, sound, smell, taste, touch, vibration, rough/smooth, hard/soft, temperature, body sensations including body sensations that accompany emotions.
  • Concepts: I am an entity, a person, an owner (my car), a haver (my friends), a doer, a controller, a thinker, feeler, (just examples: a student a teacher, and employee a boss, a spouse, parent etc etc)

(You can study the orthodox definitions if you want to make sure you have everything covered.)

Look closely at your self and understand everything you consider "me" and "mine".

The next time you experience a egoistic reaction, ask yourself where in those aggregates is the entity that is offended, insulted, threatened, losing, wrong, inferior, rejected, etc?

Is a thought an entity? Is an emotion an entity? Is a brain cell an entity? Is a concept an entity?

Everything that can be considered self, if looked at closely, is made up of things that are clearly not any type of being or entity.

The full term is not "the five aggregates" the full term is "the five aggregates of clinging".

All those things that make up self (things that are "me" or "mine") are the things that we cling to that cause us suffering.

But what is the use in clinging to the aggregates if there is no entity or being in them?

Can you let go of all those things?

Ouch!

The pain of letting go is really the pain of not wanting to let go, and it is similar to the pain of actual loss.

Just contemplating letting go is hard. It produces a distinct feeling.

When you examine this feeling, you see it is the same as the common factor found all forms of dukkha. "I don't like this.", "I don't want this.", and more or less fear.

By recognizing this feeling in unpleasant emotions that arise during the day you recognize it as the feeling of letting go, or a reminder that you should let go.

Letting go.

My advice on how to learn to let go has multiple features.

• Observe the emotional pain and be conscious of the cause.

• Try to see how emotional pain is caused by attachment to "self", and how unnecessary that is because there is no "entity" in any of the components that combine to form your sense of self.

• At the same time use some type of relaxation, meditation, or mindfulness technique to ease the emotional pain and reduce the stress response, but not to suppress thoughts or emotions.

• Shinzen Young describes a similar process he calls purification. He says it is an acquired taste like the taste for spicy food. Spiciness is caused because the spice molecules bind directly to pain receptors. Spiciness is pure pain. But just like you can learn to like spicy food, you can learn to like letting go. It is a change in attitude. Instead of looking at emotional pain as something to avoid, if you look at it as the path to freedom, everything changes and you start to appreciate it rather than run away from it. Shinzen advises that equanimity can be maintained by not pushing away thoughts and emotions while at the same time not getting carried away by them, and not judging people, yourself, or your thoughts and emotions.

I will discuss the process of letting go in greater detail below, but it is helpful to have an understanding of how the process works before getting into the details. The following overview should provide that understanding.

Overview of letting go:

• Let yourself feel unpleasant emotions, don't push them away.

• But don't let them go uncontrolled or let your stress reaction go uncontrolled.

• Be a detached observer not a participant.

• Don't judge.

• Soothe unpleasant emotions with meditation and other techniques.

• Mentally review the situation and any sensations that caused the emotion.

• Dig deeper for layers of emotions covering other emotions.

• Understand that feeling emotional pain is needed to let go of it and that letting go leads to freedom.

• Try to see how emotional pain is caused by attachment to "self", and how unnecessary that is because there is no "entity" in any of the components that combine to form your sense of self (bodily tissues, individual thoughts, individual emotions, etc.).

• Accepting the pain is preferable to resisting it.

• There is a great reward for putting aside your ego. Surrender is smart.

The goal of letting go is to be able to think of or experience a situation with much less emotional pain.

It can be difficult to recognize when you are paying too much attention to unpleasant emotions or not paying enough attention to them. Too much of either is not good. Each person has to work this out for themself. Here are some things to consider when letting go of attachments that cause unpleasant emotions.

• Try to be relaxed.

• Notice the emotion. "Notice the emotion" means you let yourself feel the emotion, but it doesn't mean you let it get out of control or that you let your stress levels get out of control. At the same time you are feeling the emotion, try to soothe it, or calm it by breathing in a relaxed way or using some similar technique. But don't push it away or suppress it.

• Notice the sensations in your body that accompany the emotion. If you notice any tension in your body try to relax it.

• Try keep an attitude of being a detached observer rather than getting caught up in the emotion as if you were watching a move and forgot where you were and were so caught up in the movie you thought it was real. Remember you are observing your emotions. They arise from the unconscious unasked for uninvited. You don't have to believe they are reality.

• Don't judge other people, yourself, sensations, thoughts or emotions.

• Notice that common factor in all dukkha - it makes unpleasant emotions easier to bear because it is familiar.

• Remind yourself, "This emotion is showing me an attachment, I should let go. Letting go leads to freedom."

• Try to see how emotional pain is caused by attachment to "self", and how unnecessary that is because there is no "entity" in any of the components that combine to form your sense of self (bodily tissues, individual thoughts, individual emotions, etc., which are all governed by unconscious processes). Notice that emotional pain is caused when something that produces the sense of self is threatened. Why do you have these painful attachments when there is no actual entity in any of those things that are threatened? Ask yourself, what you are protecting, the atoms that make up your body? A thought or emotion that arises by unconscious processes unasked for and uninvited?

• While trying to stay relaxed, review in your mind the situation that the emotion is about, any physical sensations that are involved such as unpleasant sounds, smells, physical pain, emotional sensations, the feeling of "I don't like this" etc. Relax any tensions that arise. Doing this reduces the force of the emotion. It conditions you to think about it without reacting with an unpleasant emotions. This is what "letting go" means. Letting go is not forgetting. It is not suppressing. Letting go is being able to think about something without emotional pain.

• Ask yourself why you feel the emotion and repeat the question to dig through layers of answers. Repeat the above review process for the answers you find.

• Surrender - Acknowledge the truth of the situation, admit those things about the situation or yourself that you don't really want to admit, and accept them.

• There are various techniques that will elevate your mood, lessen the intensity of emotions, and/or reduce the stress response. They can be used in two ways: easing the pain of emotions can reduce them to the point where they don't bother you at all, or reducing them to the point where it is easier to review them and let go. Each person has to figure out for themself which use is appropriate at a given time. These techniques involve:

  • Relaxation exercises

  • Samatha meditation produces mental tranquility.

  • Metta meditation

  • Jhana meditation - Use unpleasant sensations (ie sounds, pain, emotional sensations) to trigger bliss.

  • Observing sensations that come into awareness - Deactivating the default mode network in the brain (see below) reduces the intensity of emotions.

This is how you let go of emotions, noticing them calmly while you are relaxing and easing their effect, allowing yourself to feel them, and understanding their source.

Letting go will set you free.

Awakening is the process of letting go of attachments to self.

Practicing this way in daily life with dukkha as it arises is more important than understanding the orthodox definitions of the aggregates. If you want to find everything that belongs in the aggregates, you can work backward from your emotions to see what you are clinging to.

The Buddha understood the pain of letting go. That is why he taught meditation and mindfulness techniques that help to us to bear the pain of unpleasant emotions.

Samatha meditation produces tranquility and gladdens the mind. Jhanas produce bliss. Metta is really a lot like jhana. Mindfulness greatly reduces the intensity of emotions.

• Samatha meditation activates the parasympathetic nervous system which turns off stress.

• Mindfulness deactivates the default mode network in the brain which has the effect of greatly reducing unpleasant emotions.

• Jhana and Metta meditation cause the brain to produce neurotransmitters and endorphins, and lower levels of stress hormones.

Practicing this way can produce a gradual awakening without the need for mystical "enlightenment experiences" or "realizations".

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