BUDDHISM – THE FIVE AGGREGATES

The Five Aggregates were among Buddha's central ideas.

The Five Aggregates describe our sensory apparatus. They are manifest form, sensation, perception or feeling, concepts (mental formations), and consciousness. The Aggregates apply to all of our senses and our mind which is considered as a sixth sense. They describe how we experience the world.

In Buddha's times the words for such psychological phenomena didn't exist. We all know that there's an image which reflects on a retina and sends a signal to the brain. He had to describe it first, before he could explain how we could correct dukkha, and create sukkha in the system.

The idea behind the Aggregates is for example: 1. a visual object, 2. the light waves, 3. the contact with the eye, 4. the neurological signal, and 5. the recognition by the mind.

The present translations of Buddha's Aggregates stretch our understanding beyond common sense... into the realms of philosophy.

Even the word aggregates is not easy to understand, i think these days it would be considered as a process, maybe the modern word would be the components.

The Aggregates apply to all of our senses. These are, seeing, hearing, smell, taste, touch or body, and thought or mind.

The Second and Third Noble Truth show this clearly. For example from the Pali Tipitaka, Second Noble Truth. Bold print is mine to enable speed reading. (All the translations in the references are almost identical.)

"The sensation arising from the eye-contact in the world [of mind and matter] is enticing and pleasurable; there this craving arises and gets established. The sensation arising from the ear-contact … is enticing and pleasurable; there this craving arises and gets established. The sensation arising from the nose-contact … is enticing and pleasurable; there this craving arises and gets established. The sensation arising from the tongue-contact … is enticing and pleasurable; there this craving arises and gets established. The sensation arising from the body-contact … is enticing and pleasurable; there this craving arises and gets established. The sensation arising from the mind-contact in the world [of mind and matter] is enticing and pleasurable; there this craving arises and gets established."

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