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destruction, and death. So the body cannot be the self.
The self does not possess the body, in the sense that I
possess a car or a television, because the self cannot
control the body. The body falls ill, gets tired and old
against our wishes. The body has a shape which often
does not agree with our wishes. So in no way does the
self possess the body. The self is not in the body. If we
search our body from the top of our head to the tip of
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our toes, we can nowhere locate the self. The self is not
in the bone, nor in the blood, nor in the marrow, nor in
the hair, nor in the spittle. The self is nowhere to be
found within the body. Similarly, the mind is not the
self. The mind is subject to constant change. The mind
is forever jumping about like a monkey. The mind is
happy at one moment and unhappy at the next. So the
mind cannot be the self for the mind is constantly
changing. The self does not possess the mind because
the mind becomes excited or depressed against our
wishes. Although we know that certain thoughts are
wholesome, and certain thoughts are unwholesome, the
mind pursues unwholesome thoughts and is indifferent
towards wholesome thoughts. So the self does not
possess the mind because the mind acts independently
of the self. The self is not in the mind. No matter how
carefully we search the contents of our mind, no matter
how carefully we search our thoughts, feelings, and
ideas, we can nowhere find the self. There is a very
simple exercise that anyone of us can perform. We can
all sit quietly for a brief period of time and look within
our body and mind, and without exception we will find
that we cannot locate the self anywhere within the body
nor the mind. The conclusion remains that the self is just
a convenient name for a collection of factors. There is
no self, no soul, no essence, no core of personal ex-
perience apart from the ever-changing, interdependent,
impermanent physical and mental factors of personal
experience such as our feelings, ideas, thoughts, habits,
and attitudes.
Why should we care to reject the idea of self? How
can we benefit by rejecting the idea of self? Here too,
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we can benefit in two important ways. First of all, in our
everyday life, on a mundane level we can benefit in that
we will become more creative, more comfortable, and
more open people. So long as we cling to the self, we
will always have to defend ourselves, to defend our
possessions, property, prestige, opinions and even our
words. But once we give up this belief in an indepen-
dent and permanent self, we will be able to relate to
other people and situations without paranoia. We will be
able to relate freely, spontaneously and creatively.
Understanding not-self is therefore an aid to living.
Even more importantly, understanding not-self is a
key to enlightenment. The belief in a self is synonymous
with ignorance, and ignorance is the most basic of the
three defilements. Once we identify, imagine, or con-
ceive of ourselves as an entity, we immediately create a
schism, a separation between ourselves and the people
and things around us. Once we have this conception of
self, we respond to the persons and things around us
either with desire or with aversion. In this sense, the self
is the real villain of the piece. Seeing that the self is the
source and the cause of all suffering, and seeing that the
rejection of the self is the cause of the end of suffering,
rather than trying to defend, protect and preserve the
self, why should we not do our best to reject and
eliminate this idea of the self? Why should we not
recognize that personal experience is like a banana tree
or like an onion, that when we take it apart piece by
piece, that when we examine it critically and analytic-
ally, we find that it is empty of any essential, substantial
core, that it is devoid of the self?
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When we understand that all things are
impermanent, are full of suffering, and are not-self, and
when our understanding of these truths is not merely in-
tellectual or academic but through study, consideration
and meditation, the facts of impermanence, suffering
and not-self become part of our immediate experience.
Through the understanding of impermanence, suffering,
and not-self, we will have freed ourselves of the
fundamental errors that imprison us within the cycle of
birth and death  the error of seeing things as
permanent, the error of seeing things as pleasant and the
error of seeing things as self. When these delusions are
removed, wisdom arises. Just as when darkness is
removed, light arises. And when wisdom arises, one
experiences the peace and freedom of Nirvana.
This week we have confined ourselves to looking
at personal experience in terms of body and mind. Next
week we will look more deeply into the Buddhist
analysis of personal experience in terms of the elements
of our physical and mental universe.
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THE FIVE AGGREGATES Back
This is the last in the series of twelve sessions that
we have spent together, and in this last session we are
going to look at the teaching of the five aggregates
(Skandhas  Rupa, Vedana, Samjna, Samskara and
Vijnana). In other words, we are going to look at the
Buddhist analysis of personal experience or the
Buddhist analysis of the personality.
Throughout the last lectures, I have had occasions
a number of times to make the point that Buddhist
teachings have been found relevant to modern life and
thought in the fields of science, psychology and so
forth. Here, in regard to the analysis of personal ex-
perience into the five aggregates, this is also the case.
Modern psychologists and psychiatrists have been par-
ticularly interested in this analysis. It has even been
suggested that in the Abhidharma and in the analysis of
personal experience into the five aggregates, we have a
psychological equivalent to the table of elements work-
ed out in modern science. What we have in the Buddhist
analysis of personal experience is a very careful inven-
tory and evaluation of the elements of our experience.
What we are going to do today is basically an
extension and a refinement of what we were doing at the
end of last week s lecture. There, we spent some time on
the teachings of impermanence, suffering and not-self.
In the course of looking at the teaching on not-self, we
have explored briefly how the analysis of personal
experience can be carried out along two lines, and that is
with regard to the body, and with regard to the mind.
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You will recall that we have examined the body and
mind to see whether in either of them we can locate the
self, and we have found that the self is not to be found
in either of them. We have concluded that the name
 self is just a convenient term for a collection of
physical and mental factors, in the same way that the
name  forest is just a convenient term for a collection
of trees. This week, we are going to take our analysis
still further, and rather than looking at personal
experience simply in terms of body and mind, we are
going to analyze personal experience in terms of the five
aggregates.
Let us first look at the aggregate of matter or form
(Rupa). The aggregate of form corresponds to what we
would call material or physical factors. It includes not
only our own bodies, but also the material objects that
surround us  the earth, the oceans, the trees, the
buildings, and so forth. Specifically, the aggregate of
form includes the five physical sense organs and the
corresponding physical objects of the sense organs.
These are the eyes and visible objects, the ears and
sound, the nose and smell, the tongue and taste, and the
skin and tangible objects.
But physical elements by themselves are not
enough to produce experience. The simple contact
between the eyes and visible objects, or between the
ears and sound cannot result in experience without
consciousness (Vijnana). The eyes can be in conjunction [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]