Why should the Buddha harp so much on the Five Aggregates of form, feeling, perception, habitual tendencies and consciousness that, fundamentally, they are not the self or in Pali, anattâ? Obviously, somebody believes the Five Aggregates are the self which the Buddha thinks is wrong. So the next question is this: “Just who are these people who believe the Five Aggregates are the self?” Well, here appears to be the answer.
“[Like a dog on a leash tied to a post] the uninstructed worldling (assutavâ puthujjano) ... regards form as self ... feeling as self ... perception as self ... volitional formations as self ... consciousness as self .... He just keeps running and revolving around form, around feeling, around perception, around volitional formations, around consciousness. As he keeps on running and revolving around them, he is not freed from form, not freed from feeling, not freed from perception, not freed from volitional formations, not freed from consciousness. He is not freed from birth, aging, and death; not freed from sorrow, lamentation, pain, displeasure, and despair; nor freed from suffering I say” (S. iii. 150).
The simple answer, it is the average person (including the average Buddhist) who believes the Five Aggregates are the self, or the same, believes that the psychophysical body is the self. All the actions and thoughts of the uninstructed, average person (assutavâ puthujjana) revolve around the psychophysical body. They know nothing else besides this condition. It matters not whether they believe in an âtman or not, their self, i.e., their frame of reference, is their temporal body consisting of the Five Aggregates.
The Buddha treats this situation as a serious mistake. The Buddha then teaches his disciples (ariya-savaka) something quite different. They are not these Five Aggregates.
"But the instructed noble disciple ... does not regard form as self ... nor feeling as self ... nor perception as self ... nor volitional formations as self ... nor consciousness as self....He no longer keeps running and revolving around form, around feeling, around perception, around volitional formations, around consciousness. As he no longer keeps running and revolving around them, he is freed from form, freed from feeling, freed from perception, freed from volitional formations, freed from consciousness. He is freed from birth, aging, and death; freed from sorrow, lamentation, pain, displeasure, and despair; free from suffering, I say" (S. iii. 150).
The Buddha is teaching his disciples that, fundamentally, they are not these Five Aggregates. Is this a teaching of the self or âtman (P., attâ)? Yes it is. What we truly are has nothing to do with our psychophysical body. We transcend it. Our problems begin with mistaking our self with what is not our self. This not-self (anattâ) is never other than impermanent and suffering.
While a great deal of ink has been use to tell the general public that the Buddha denied the self, these two passages from the same discourse tell us who it is that regards the Five Aggregates as their self and, specifically, who doesn’t regard the Five Aggregates as their self. This leads to the conclusion that the subject of self is not as important as knowing what is not our self.
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