Orlando Insight Meditation Group

A Contemporary Buddhist Mindfulness Meditation Community For Central Florida

Understanding The Five Aggregates With Clinging May 27 2020

by | Jun 3, 2020 | Listen to Dharma Talks

Pancupadanakkhandha (pahnch-ooh-puh-dah-nah-kahn-dah), is translated as the Five Aggregates With Clinging, with these characteristic elements: form (physical sensations), feeling, perception, mind conditioners and consciousness.  Contemplating these concepts persistently and deeply fosters the process of deconstructing the misconception of an enduring and autonomous self, a major goal in the process of Awakening.  Peter reviewed each of the aggregates to provide a deeper understanding of how they operate as singular as well as cooperative elements of  personality.  An Awakened being such as the Buddha still experiences the aggregating process, but this is termed Pancakkhandha (pahn-chah-kahn-dah), the Five Aggregates, meaning that the personality dynamic is not afflicted with craving and clinging.  Realization of this concept is facilitated by a guided meditation “Focused Attention And Peripheral Awareness”, which can be found in the audio archive.

Here are the notes prepared for this talk:  UNDERSTANDING THE FIVE AGGREGATES

Next week’s talk will focus on an overview of the Seven Awakening Factors.

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 56:01 — 102.6MB)

Five Aggregates Affected By Clinging

by | Jul 3, 2014 | Listen to Dharma Talks

Continuing the ongoing exploration of the Four Noble Truths, Peter described the concept of the Five Aggregates affected by clinging, which is referred to in the Fourth Foundation of Mindfulness teaching.  Using a graphic illustration, he showed how the factors of perception and feeling create a “bridge” between incoming sense data and the further processing that occurs before conscious awareness (the graphic and accompanying notes are posted on the site as well).  Without the benefit of mindfulness, concentration and tranquility, perception is biased and distorted by the conditioning factors, with the result that what is transitory and non-self is misperceived as enduring and a self.  The practice of vipassana can reveal the misperception and reorient the energy of the mind toward clear awareness and benevolent intention.  This is the process of awakening.

during the next dialogue, Peter will describe how a conceptual and experiential understanding of perception and feeling is contained within the doctrine of paticca samuppada, dependent origination.  Peter will develop a different translation of this term, as “contingent provisional emergence”