by Peter Carlson | Apr 30, 2026 | Listen to Dharma Talks
During this talk, Peter reviews another way mindfulness practice supports Awakening, contemplating the Five Aggregates of Clinging, part of the Fourth Foundation of Mindfulness. The Five Aggregates represent a conceptual structure that helps understanding of Anatta, the absence of an enduring, autonomous self. Concrete, a crucial structural component in almost any building or road, is composed of cement, gravel, sand and water, which aggregate and solidify into a form–the human personality is also aggregated from file elements, and they can be investigated with sufficient training in mindfulness. When we are mindful of these elements as aggregates, the ability to “deconstruct” the self is nurtured.
Here are the notes prepared for this talk: REVIEWING THE FIVE AGGREGATES OF CLINGING
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 56:56 — 52.1MB)
by Peter Carlson | Oct 9, 2025 | Listen to Dharma Talks
During this talk, Allie provides a review of the Five Clinging Aggregates–form, feeling, perception, mental conditioning factors, and consciousness–as a way to understand how personality operates from a Buddhist perspective. She relates this self-creating process to another fundamental Buddhist concept, Dependent Origination, which provides us with a way to understand how to reduce and eventually disregard craving and clinging–the aggregates continue to interact and create personality but without distress and confusion.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 58:38 — 53.7MB)
by Peter Carlson | Nov 20, 2023 | News
This talk describes a way that Buddhist psychology explains human personality formation as an aggregation of five factors in order to “deconstruct” the belief that there is an enduring/autonomous self.
Here are the notes prepared for this talk: REVIEWING THE FIVE AGGREGATES
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 25:13 — 23.1MB)
