The Group of Connected Discourses Beginning With the Aggregates

The Buddha explains how anxiety arises through clinging and how there is freedom from anxiety through non-clinging.

Because the five aggregates are impermanent, the well-studied disciple of the Noble Ones becomes disenchanted with form, feeling, perception, intentional constructs, and consciousness.

The Buddha shares a reflection on the three characteristics of impermanence, unsatisfactoriness and not-self for the five aggregates of form, feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness.

The causes, supporting conditions for the arising of the five aggregates are impermanent, so then how could the five aggregates be permanent?

What is the burden and who bears it, what is the taking up of the burden and the putting down of it.

The Buddha teaches the things to be completely comprehended and what complete comprehension is.

One is incapable of ending suffering without directly knowing and completely comprehending the five aggregates, without becoming dispassionate toward them and without abandoning them.

Only after fully understanding the gratification, drawback, and escape in the case of form, feeling, perception, intentional constructs, and consciousness, the Buddha declared that he had attained the unsurpassed perfect awakening.

The Buddha describes his quest for gratification in the five aggregates, drawback in the five aggregates, and the escape from them. He subsequently experientially realized gratification, drawback, and escape as they truly are, leading to his unshakable liberation.

The Buddha describes how beings only become disenchanted with and escape from the five aggregates only when they have directly known their gratification, drawback, and escape as they truly are.

The Buddha explains that whoever delights in the five aggregates, delights in suffering and is not freed from suffering.

The Buddha uses an example of grass, wood, branches, and leaves in Jeta’s Grove to illustrate the nature of the five aggregates.

Phenomena belonging to the form, feeling, perception, intentional constructs, and consciousness aggregates manifest an arising, passing away, and alteration while remaining.

When the Buddha asks Ānanda to identify what mental qualities manifest arising, passing away, and alteration while remaining across time, Ānanda points to the five aggregates. He explains that form, feeling, perception, intentional constructs, and consciousness display these traits whether they are past, unborn, or have currently come into being and manifested.

When one practices in accordance with the Dhamma, disenchantment naturally arises toward the five aggregates subject to clinging. Through this disenchantment, one completely comprehends them; through complete comprehension, one is fully liberated from all forms of suffering.

The Buddha describes on the impermanent, stressful and not-self nature of the five aggregates of form, feeling, perception, formations and consciousness.

The Buddha teaches the five aggregates and the five aggregates subject to clinging, which are the basis for understanding the nature of experience and the process of clinging that leads to suffering.

So long as passion for forms, feeling, perception, and intentional constructs persists, consciousness takes root and grows. When delight in these ceases, its support ends; consciousness becomes unestablished and liberated—stable, content, and unshaken—having reached final Nibbāna.

The Buddha likens consciousness to a seed which is propagated by a sprinkling of delight. So long as passion for forms, feeling, perception, and intentional constructs persists, consciousness takes root and grows. When delight in these ceases, its support ends; consciousness becomes unestablished and liberated—stable, content, and unshaken—having reached final Nibbāna.

A teaching on the fearless resolve that severs the lower fetters, followed by the exact inquiry for the wearing away of the taints.

The Buddha declares he did not claim unsurpassed awakening until he experientially understood the five aggregates in their four phases: their nature, their arising, their cessation, and the way of practice leading to their cessation.

The Buddha explains the distinction between a perfectly Awakened One and a bhikkhu who is liberated by wisdom.

After examining the impermanence, unsatisfactoriness, and the changing nature of the five aggregates, the Buddha teaches how to see them with proper wisdom, as not being suitable to identify with.

The Buddha explains how to overcome Māra by not clinging to the five aggregates of form, feeling, perception, intentional constructs, and consciousness.

The Venerable Rādha asks the Buddha on how to know and see so that the underlying tendencies to self-identification, possessiveness, and conceit cease to arise.

The Buddha shares verses on the great heroes who wander freely, taintless, boldly roaring their lion’s roar.

The Buddha explains how his teaching of the Dhamma inspires fear and dread in the deities, just as the lion’s roar inspires fear in the animals.

The Buddha explains that those recollecting past lives are merely recalling one or more of the five aggregates. He defines each aggregate and shows how a noble disciple sees them as impermanent, unsatisfactory, and not suitable to identify with, leading to disenchantment, dispassion, and liberation.

The immediate wearing away of the taints occurs when personal existence views, dogmas, and doubt are seen for what they truly are: transient intentional constructs dependently arisen from ignorance-contact.

On a full moon night with the Sangha at Sāvatthi, the Buddha answers a series of ten questions on the aggregates. He answers on the root of clinging, the cause and condition for the designation of the aggregates, how personal existence view arises, the gratification, danger, and escape from the aggregates, and on ending conceit.

When wanderers press Anurādha to define an Awakened One after death, he struggles to answer. He approaches the Buddha for guidance, and the Buddha uses an inquiry based on the five aggregates to demonstrate that an Awakened One cannot be found even in this very life.

“One who sees the Dhamma sees me.” When the dying Vakkali regrets not visiting the Master, the Buddha offers a radical correction: the physical body is not the Buddha. It ends with a dramatic search by Māra the Evil One, who hunts in vain for a consciousness that has found no footing.

Venerable Khemaka is ill, and some elder bhikkhus ask Dāsaka to convey their concern to him. A series of exchanges ensue, mediated by Dāsaka, until Khemaka, despite his illness, goes to see the elder bhikkhus himself. The elders inquire about his understanding of the Dhamma. Khemaka explains that while he does not identify any of the five |aggregates::form, feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness| as self, he still experiences a subtle “I am" conceit associated with these aggregates. He likens this to the lingering scent on a cleaned cloth, which eventually fades away.

Though understanding impermanence and not-self, venerable Channa anxiously struggles to accept Nibbāna, wondering, “Who is my self?” Venerable Ānanda shares the Buddha’s teaching on avoiding the extremes of existence and non-existence, leading Channa to completely breakthrough to the Dhamma.

The Buddha does not dispute with the world, but rather the world disputes with him. He agrees with what the wise in the world accept as existing and not existing, and then explains the characteristics of the five aggregates in regards to what exists and what does not exist.

The Buddha employs five powerful metaphors to expose the coreless nature of the aggregates. He likens form to foam, feeling to a water bubble, perception to a mirage, intentional constructs to a hollow banana tree, and consciousness to a magician’s illusion.

A bhikkhu asks the Buddha if there exists any form, feeling, perception, intentional constructs, or consciousness that is stable, enduring, and not subject to change.

Cyclic existence has no discoverable beginning. Like a dog tied to a post, uninstructed beings endlessly revolve around the aggregates. By not perceiving these aggregates as self, a noble disciple stops this cycle, achieving freedom from all suffering.

The wearing away of taints occurs for one who knows and sees the arising and passing away of the aggregates. Mere wishing is useless. Like a hen nurturing eggs or an adze handle wearing down, it is active cultivation that naturally destroys the mental fetters.

The Buddha shares vivid similes to illustrate the benefits of developing the recognition of impermanence. This practice gradually exhausts all passion for sensual pleasure, materiality, becoming, ignorance, and uproots the conceit ‘I am.’

What is personal existence, the arising of personal existence, the end of personal existence, and the way of practice leading to the end of personal existence.

A stream-enterer discerns as it truly is the arising, the passing away, the gratification, the drawback, and the escape regarding the five aggregates subject to clinging.

Imprisoned by the aggregates, the uninstructed ordinary person does not see the near shore or the far shore, grows old in bondage, dies in bondage, and passes from this world to the next still bound.

Which things should a virtuous bhikkhu radically attend to? Venerable Sāriputta explains how a bhikkhu at each stage of awakening should radically attend to the five aggregates that are subject to clinging.

Ignorance is the failure to discern that the five aggregates are subject to arising and vanishing. True knowledge is when an instructed disciple of the Noble Ones truly discerns that these physical and mental phenomena are subject to arising and vanishing.

By clinging to the five aggregates, one experiences pleasure and pain.

When the venerable Ānanda wishes to go for a solitary retreat, the Buddha teaches him to contemplate the five aggregates subject to appropriation and being assumed as one’s self.

The Buddha explains to Venerable Rādha that a living being is defined by desire, passion, delight, and craving in form, feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness.

The view ‘This is my self’ arises from clinging to the five aggregates. Recognizing any arising clinging to these and seeing the aggregates as impermanent, unsatisfactory, and subject to change leads to stream-entry.

The eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind are impermanent, changing, and becoming otherwise. Accepting this through faith or wisdom guarantees stream-entry before death. Fully understanding and seeing this truth makes one a stream-enterer, free from lower realms and destined for complete awakening.

Forms, sounds, odors, tastes, tangible objects, and mental objects are impermanent, changing, and becoming otherwise. Accepting this through faith or wisdom guarantees stream-entry before death.

The six classes of consciousness are impermanent, changing, and becoming otherwise. Accepting this through faith or wisdom guarantees stream-entry.

The six types of contact are impermanent, changing, and becoming otherwise. Accepting this through faith or wisdom guarantees stream-entry before death.

Felt experience produced from the six sensory and mental impressions is impermanent. Accepting this through faith or wisdom guarantees stream-entry.

The six classes of perception are impermanent, changing, and becoming otherwise. Accepting this through faith or wisdom guarantees stream-entry.

Intentions regarding forms, sounds, odors, tastes, tangible objects, and mental objects are impermanent, changing, and becoming otherwise. Accepting this through faith or wisdom guarantees stream-entry.

Craving for forms, sounds, odors, tastes, tangible objects, and mental objects is impermanent, changing, and becoming otherwise. Accepting this through faith or wisdom guarantees stream-entry.

The earth, water, fire, air, space, and consciousness elements are impermanent, changing, and becoming otherwise. Accepting this through faith or wisdom guarantees stream-entry.

Form, feeling, perception, intentional constructs, and consciousness are impermanent, changing, and becoming otherwise. Accepting this through faith or wisdom guarantees stream-entry before death. Fully understanding and seeing this truth makes one a stream-enterer, free from lower realms and destined for complete awakening.

The Venerable Sāriputta describes his experience of the first jhāna.

Various kinds of views arise in the world due to not knowing form, the arising of form, the cessation of form, and the practice leading to the cessation of form.

Various kinds of views arise in the world due to not knowing feeling, the arising of feeling, the cessation of feeling, and the practice leading to the cessation of feeling.

Various kinds of views arise in the world due to not knowing perception, the arising of perception, the cessation of perception, and the practice leading to the cessation of perception.

Various kinds of views arise in the world due to not knowing intentional constructs, the arising of intentional constructs, the cessation of intentional constructs, and the practice leading to the cessation of intentional constructs.

Various kinds of views arise in the world due to not knowing consciousness, the arising of consciousness, the cessation of consciousness, and the practice leading to the cessation of consciousness.

The Buddha describes the four types of meditators based on their skill in collectedness and in attainment based on collectedness.

The Buddha describes the four types of meditators based on their skill in collectedness and in the continuity of collectedness.

The Buddha describes the four types of meditators based on their skill in collectedness and in the emergence from collectedness.

The Buddha describes the four types of meditators based on their skill in collectedness and in the flexibility of collectedness.

The Buddha describes the four types of meditators based on their skill in collectedness and in the support for collectedness.