In this Buddhist tradition, we chant "Namo" a lot. In English, we usually say that "Namo" means "devotion." When we devote ourselves to a Buddha, we aren't saying "Oh, Buddha, please take all my problems away." We are actually giving ourselves to the Buddha. We're letting go of "I want this" and "I don't want that" and promising to do whatever that Buddha wants us to do. Of course, the Buddhas don't personally need us. However, they do want us to wake up from our ignorance, become perfect Buddhas and help other suffering sentient beings. So, when we chant this "Namo" we are promising to learn and practice the Dharma as best we can. That's why classes like this are so important. They help us fulfill this promise. And by practicing the Dharma we can be happier in this life and in the future and bring greater happiness to others as well.

So, the topic of today discussion is the Five Skandhas and the Twelve Links of Dependent Origination. This topic might seem dry and academic but it's actually very important. By understanding what we actually are and the mental process that leads to suffering, we can break the cycle of ignorance and achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings.

Meditation 1: Awareness of Mind. 10 minutes.

Five Skandhas: Form, sensation, perception, volition, consciousness.
"Skandha" is a Sanskrit word that means "heap" or "aggregate." We usually call them the "Five Aggregates" in English. These five things come together to form what we mistakenly think of as a person. Actually, all sentient beings have the five aggregates. It is on the basis of these five aggregates that we make the mistake of believing in a real self. In fact, what we call a self is simply the temporary collection of these five aggregates. It's like using the name "cloth" to describe what is actually made up of individual threads, or "cake" to describe what is actually a mixture of flour, water, sugar and so on.

Form refers to all material phenomena. In the case of the Five Aggregates, we are looking specifically at the physical body. And of course the body is made up of different parts: solid matter, fluids, and so on. If we take the body apart and put all the bones in one pile, the hair in another, the blood in a bowl here and the muscle in a pile there, what do we have left? Where is the body? All of these parts can be further broken down to their individual cells and molecules. Even the molecules can be taken apart. Modern science tells us that what we actually think of as solid matter is actually just energy. So the body is just a temporary collection of parts.

According to Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, a Tibetan master, we can also consider the connection between the body and the five elements: flesh and bone is earth, the breath is air, the fluids are water, body heat is the fire element, and the empty spaces within the body are the space element.

Now, understanding that the body is made up of parts that can be broken down can help us in meditating on impermanence. The body is simply a collection of parts that have come together due to various causes and conditions. When those causes and conditions are exhausted, when they are used up, the body is no more. The outer world is the same.

This temple will one day cease to exist, as will this very planet.

We shouldn't see impermanence as an enemy, though. Because of impermanence, we are not stuck in our suffering. It is because of impermanence that we can grow and change. In fact, impermanence is a great friend that will always take away our pain and suffering. The problem is that new problems arise.

The remaining four aggregates deal with mental aspects of what we can the self. Experience cannot arise without consciousness. So experience comes from the combination of a sense faculty, like sight, an object, like a bird, and consciousness. Without consciousness, the body is just a corpse and so no experience can arise. It is important to point out that the mind is a sixth sense with ideas and memories as its "objects." The purpose of the mind is to transform the sense faculties and their sense objects into personal experience. I'm going to look at these mental aggregates out of the original order in order to make sense of them.

Consciousness is actually the fifth aggregate. It is simply awareness. It does not produce thought or label anything. It has no intelligence ... or we could say that it isn't something that thinks. Consciousness includes the five sense faculties of sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch. Together with the sense objects such as objects which are seen, sounds which are heard and so on, they are the foundation of experience. These are present upon a more basic awareness. Consciousness is kind of a vague awareness of existence. We can also think of this level of consciousness as an empty room filled with light. It is the potential upon which experiences arising from the meeting of the five sense consciousnesses and their sense objects are based.

It's important to point out that the sense consciousnesses aren't always present. They arise temporarily when the corresponding sense faculty and its object meet. So, when the eye comes into contact with a visual object, that's when the eye consciousness arises. But when our eyes are closed, no eye consciousness can arise.

Sensation refers to sensing an object as either pleasant, unpleasant or neutral. This occurs without any conscious labeling of that experience. It's more of an instinctual response.

Perception is how we recognize an object or not. For example, when we taste chocolate we know what it is. When we see a house, we label it "house." If we don't know what something is, perception tries to figure it out.

Volition refers to our conscious response to what we encounter. It's all our thoughts, feelings, opinions, desires and so on as a result of the other four aggregates.

So let's look at an example of this process. First, we have been born, so we have form and of course we have been born in this world, so we have the outer sense objects as well. We also have consciousness with the five sense faculties of sight, touch and so forth. Let's say we smell something and we don't like it. We might scrunch up our faces in disgust. That's "sensation." Then we recognize that it's the smell of spoiled milk. That's "perception." Then we think, "What idiot left the milk out? What a waste! That smell makes me sick. Now I have to throw it out and open the windows to get the smell out of here ... "That is "volition."

So as I explained earlier, what we call a "self" is just the temporary collection of these five aggregates. But even these five aggregates can be further broken down as we did with the aggregate of form above. Consciousness is actually a series of moments of consciousness that arise and cease very rapidly. So what we think of as one continuous thought is actually an extremely fast series of thought-moments, constantly changing. Just as with the body, consciousness can never be caught. There is no point where we can hold onto the body or consciousness and say this is it, because the moment we think have a hold of it, it has changed. This is what we mean by emptiness. Thus, "self" can be broken down into the aggregates, but the aggregates themselves are empty of any permanent, true existence.

So, before I was born, what I now call "I" did not exist. After I die, what I call "I" will cease to exist. Furthermore, while I'm living, what I think of as an "I" is constantly changing, so it really doesn't exist at all. It is clinging to this notion of an "I" that leads to so much suffering. If someone harms me, when the harm is over, I cling to it because 1 cling to the mistaken idea of a truly existing "self." I worry about harm that hasn't yet come to me for the same reason.

In the classic Indian Buddhist text The Way of the Bodhisattva, Shantideva points this out. He says that it makes no sense to hang on to harm that has past because the "I" that experienced it is gone. It also makes no sense to worry about future harm, because the "I" that will experience it hasn't yet arisen.

There is of course some continuity between who we were when we were five years old, who we are now, and who we will be ten years from now. This teaching from Shantideva, then, is to help us let go of the idea of a solid, fixed self in which we believe so strongly. We are constantly changing--never the same from one moment to the next.

We cannot use this as an excuse, however, to harm others by saying that the person who will harm them doesn't yet exist and that afterwards the one who harmed them no longer exists. The fact is, we really do create karma. We carry the seeds of all our positive and negative actions of body, speech and mind with us and we will have to suffer the consequences or enjoy the rewards. We cannot plant seeds of corn and get beans. Whatever seeds we plant, the result will come to us.

We also can't use the idea that we don't really exist to justify suicide, either. Murdering oneself is the same as murdering someone else. It carries a heavy karmic burden. Also, we can't run away from our karma in this life. Whatever karma is not purified in this life we will carry it into our future lives. If someone commits suicide, they will simply add to their karma. The only way out of suffering is enlightenment.

All the seeds of our karma are actually carried in another layer of consciousness called the storehouse consciousness. According to Khenpo Jampa Dhonden, a Tibetan scholar I studied with in Nepal, it's like a computer with limitless memory. This level of consciousness doesn't think. It just holds the seeds of all our positive and negative actions. So when it is time for some karma to ripen, it arises from within this storehouse consciousness. Usually we don't talk about this level of consciousness within the context of the five aggregates, but it's important to know about it in order to understand how karma functions.

Meditation 2: The Emptiness of Form. 10 Minutes.

The Twelve Links of Dependent Origination
An explanation of the process of how or why we continue to spin on the' wheel of birth, old age, sickness and death. It explains how we create karma, how we come to be, abide and cease to be. According to this teaching, no thing and no one exists independent of other things and beings. Because my grandparents had my parents, I could be born. Because lots of people are part of the process of growing and making food, medicine and so on, I was able to grow up and I continue to live.

We think of this as a circular chain of individual links, but there is really no first or last link. However, we generally begin with Ignorance.

1. Ignorance (Avidya)
Avidya means lack of light or understanding. This is ignorance of the Four Noble Truths--that life is pervasive dissatisfaction and suffering. We might think there is happiness in life, but it doesn't last. The fact that we continually chase after these moments of temporary happiness makes this kind of happiness a cause of suffering as well.

One of several things happens, we might spend out whole lives chasing after something we think will make us happy and suffer because we never get it. Or we might get what we want and find out it can't make us happy after all and so we suffer. Or we get what we want and we do feel happy, but then we loose it and suffer its loss. Or we get what we want and it makes us feel happy for a while, but then that happiness wears off and we have to find something else to make us happy.

We're really like drug addicts. We keep sticking a needle in our arms thinking that this time all our pain will go away, but it never quite works. The only real difference between us and actual drug addicts is that our addictions -- money, fame, entertainment and so on -- are more socially acceptable.

Ignorance also refers our belief in a truly existing self, but as we learned through the Five Skandhas, no such self really exists. It's an illusion.

In the wheel of life ignorance is depicted as a blind person.

2. Karmic Formation (Samskara)
Ignorance links to karmic formation, which can be translated in a variety of ways: volitional action, formation or motivation. Samskara are the impulses that lead to action, and action generates karma. Karma actually means "action" and refers to actions of body, speech and mind.

In the wheel of life, samskara is usually represented by a man making objects from clay.

3. Consciousness (Vijnana)
Vijnana is generally translated as "consciousness'" As we discussed in the section on the Five Skandhas, the Buddha taught that consciousness begins with a kind of basic awareness, or potential. Upon this potential, as I mentioned earlier, there arises one of six forms of consciousness when one of the six senses meets it's object. So when the ear faculty meets an object that can be heard, the ear consciousness arises.

Monkeys represent this link in the chain. Monkeys jump from one thing to the the next. Mere instinct rules them. The Monkey mind is ignorant and leads us to turn our backs on the Dharma.

4. Name and Form (Nama-rupa)
Nama-rupa is name and form, mind and body. It is the coming together of the five skandhas into an individual existence. With name and form also come sensory perception. Without form there is no eye, ear, nose and so on.

In the wheel of life this is depicted by people in a boat, wandering in samsara. This also illustrates the various causes and conditions required for name and form. The water, the boat, the oars, and so on.

Nama-rupa works together with the next link, to condition other links.

5. Six Sense Organs (Shadayatana)
The six sense organs, in the wheel of life are illustrated by an empty house. The sense organs are meaningless without an object. The eyes are meaningless without something to see. They also rely on the existence of an overall body to function. Eyes without a body cannot see anything.

6. Contact (Sparsha)
This is actual contact between the senses and their objects. This is actually just contact with no thought or perception of what is being contacted. We can think of it in terms of the sensory information reaching the brain, but before we have any conscious thought about it. The contact of faculties and objects leads to the experience of sensation, which is the next link.

7. Sensation (Vedana)
This is when we recognize what we have come into contact with. I've also seen this link called "Labeling." So in the previous link we have the ear receiving a sound. In this link, we say, "Ah… that's a song." We often think this happens at the same time, but in fact it doesn't. It can happen very quickly, but we all also have the experience of hearing or smelling something and not knowing what it is.

On the Wheel of Life, this is illustrated by a man with an arrow in his eye to show the senses being pierced with their objects.

8. Craving (Trishna)
So after we come into contact with things and experience them, craving arises. Actually, this could also be aversion, the opposite of craving. When we experience things, we either want more of that experience or we want to run away from it.

And so we spend our whole lives chasing after pleasure and running away from unpleasant things and experiences. In doing so, we might lie, steal, or otherwise harm others to get what we want and this creates negative karma. At the very least we strengthen the habit of chasing after temporary happiness and running away from what we don't like. We can never find real, lasting happiness this way, and so we experience dissatisfaction and suffering.

This craving also includes clinging to a body and fearing the loss of the "I" after death.

On the Wheel of Life, we see a man drinking beer with empty bottles around him, showing that he can't ever get enough.

9. Clinging or Grasping (Upadana)
Upadana is a grasping or clinging mind. There are four kinds of clinging: attachment to beautiful things, attachment to wrong views (for example, that karma isn't real), attachment to the idea of real "self," and attachment to the idea that non-virtue leads to happiness (such as lying, stealing and so on).

On the Wheel of life, clinging is shown by a monkey reaching for a fruit-¬reaching for more of what they have already experienced.

10. Becoming (Bhava)
This grasping from the last link leads to a new body. Most of the grasping we have is grasping at the body. The karma that we create forces us to take rebirth. This is shown in the Wheel of Life as a pregnant woman.

11. Birth (Jati)
So then we are born and continue the cycle of suffering in birth, old age, sickness and death. This is shown on the Wheel of Life as a woman giving birth.

12. Old Age and Death (Jara-Maranam)
The chain then comes to old age and death, the falling apart of the five aggregates. In the Wheel of Life, this is shown as an old man with a cane and a corpse.

In order to end the cycle of birth, old age, sickness and death, we need to break the 12 links. We need to break the chain at some point.

Realistically, we are most likely to break the chain between craving and grasping. When we feel our attachment to an object (or our aversion), we can apply the Dharma and remember that chasing after or running away from things won't lead to real, lasting happiness. We can also meditate on the five aggregates and really absorb the idea that the body and consciousness are impermanent. The more we undo these false view of a permanent self, the closer we get to enlightenment.

This needs to come together with great compassion, however. We need to always reflect on how our enlightenment will be of benefit to others. If we simply want awakening for ourselves, we will never find it. Clinging to our own desire to end our own suffering alone shows a closed mind. In other words, we show that we are still attached to our own "self" and that we haven't given up on the false idea that we really exist. When we understand that this view is false, we don't need to protect our own needs and ignore the needs of others, because there is no "self" to protect.

Of course, when explaining this, I'm using words like "we" and "I." But that's the language we have to use. At the end of the day, we can't talk or think our way to enlightenment. The language we use only points to the goal. We have to meditate and directly see the truth that the Buddha taught.

Final Meditation: Compassion - 10 minutes.