The "Book of the Aggregates" is the third book in the Saṁyutta Nikāya. It is named after the first and longest saṁyutta, which explores the Buddha's core teaching on the five aggregates. Of the remaining twelve saṁyuttas, three continue to delve into the theme of the aggregates, while the others address various secondary themes, with some organized by subject matter and others by the individuals involved in the teachings. This book provides profound insights into the components of existence and the nature of self.
The Group of Linked 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, sensation, perception, volitional formations, and consciousness.
The Buddha shares a reflection on the three characteristics of impermanence, |suffering::discontentment| 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 stable?
One is incapable of ending suffering without directly knowing and fully understanding the five aggregates, without becoming dispassionate towards them and without abandoning them.
Only after fully understanding the gratification, drawback, and escape in the case of form, felt experience, perception, volitional formations, and consciousness, the Buddha declared that he had attained the unsurpassed perfect awakening.
The Buddha describes how beings only become disillusioned with and escape from the five aggregates when they directly know 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.
The Buddha describes on the impermanent, stressful and not-self nature of the five aggregates of form, feeling, perception, formations and consciousness.
The Buddha describes the five aggregates subject to clinging - form, feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness.
The Buddha explains the distinction between a perfectly awakened one and a bhikkhu who is liberated by wisdom.
The Buddha explains how to overcome Māra by not clinging to the five aggregates of form, felt experience, perception, volitional formations, and consciousness.
The Venerable Rādha asks the Buddha on how to know and see so that the underlying tendencies to self-identification, possessiveness, and pride cease to arise.
The Buddha explains how one becomes the perfected one, an arahant, and shares verses on their qualities.
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.
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 identity view arises, the gratification, danger, and escape from the aggregates, and on ending conceit.
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.
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 presents a series of similes for the five aggregates - physical form is akin to a lump of foam, feelings akin to water bubbles, perception like a mirage, volitional formations are like a tree without a core, and consciousness is similar to a magic trick.
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.’
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 Buddha explains to the bhikkhus that the eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind are impermanent, changing, and becoming otherwise. One who has faith and conviction in these phenomena is called a faith-follower, one who has entered the fixed course of rightness, entered the plane of awakened beings, and is incapable of performing an action that would lead to rebirth in lower realms.
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 volitional formations, the arising of volitional formations, the cessation of volitional formations, and the practice leading to the cessation of volitional formations.
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.
Various kinds of views arise in the world due to not seeing the aggregates, the arising of the aggregates, the cessation of the aggregates, and the practice leading to the cessation of the aggregates.
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.