The Five Aggregates And The Freedom Of Not Holding On

I do want to do a little bit of a continuation from last week's Dharma Talk with a little bit of a recap to bring us into where I want us to go.

So last week we were really looking into whether we are seeing reality or not.

And the answer is that there is no fixed objective reality to see.

Everything we see,

That we feel,

That we hear,

That we experience is really being kind of perceived in our brain,

Constructed in our brain as a way to see and feel and hear in the world,

To experience the world in a way that helps us survive.

So everything is about survival,

About evolution,

That we're not seeing some fixed objective reality,

But that our brain constructs it unique for humans,

Just like dogs' brains are unique for dogs,

Cows,

Snakes,

Like every creature is experiencing the world that's helpful for it based on survival,

That there's no fixed objective reality.

And because of that,

It means that we are very susceptible to misperceptions.

It's very easy to hack our brain into misperceiving things,

And particularly so when we're introducing unnatural things into the environment,

Like when we're on our phones and we're scrolling through news or social media or TikTok or whatever it is,

We're looking for something,

We're searching for something,

We want to feed something inside here,

Right?

It's hacking into our motivation-reward system where it starts to feel like survival.

I'm looking,

I'm looking,

I'm looking,

I'm searching,

I'm searching,

I'm searching.

I'm not finding,

But I'm just in this endless searching.

And where we can spend hours,

We can get absolutely lost in something that is not about survival at all.

In fact,

We could argue just the opposite,

That is creating disconnection from reality,

Disconnection from other people,

Creating a warped perception of ourselves through all the comparing,

And yet we get so fixated on it,

Like just try to take it away from someone,

Or when we try to put the phone down,

Or you try to take it away from a kid,

There's this meltdown like,

No,

No,

No,

No,

No,

No,

It's my phone,

It's survival.

It feels so powerfully linked to our survival,

It's very hard for us to put it down.

And so,

You know,

Our brain just so easily tricked when we're introducing unnatural things into our environment,

That we're misperceiving things.

And another trick of where the brain is misperceiving things is where,

In a healthy way,

To some degree in a healthy way,

When we're thinking about ourselves,

When we're thinking about what I want,

When we're thinking about what I don't want,

That it creates this little icon,

This little illusion of me,

Right,

A little me up here in a little simulation.

I can think about this little me getting over there,

And what's it going to do,

And is it going to like that,

Or is it not going to like that.

And to some degree,

This little illusion of a me up here to be able to simulate it is helpful.

But because we spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about ourselves,

Right,

And we could say,

Yes,

We think about ourselves so much because we live in relative safety,

So we,

So much of our day,

We're going about our day driving or walking around or running errands or in the house,

And we're just lost in these stories about ourselves.

So we spend so much time lost in these stories about ourselves,

Thinking about ourselves,

Imagining this little separate self up here,

The ego,

The little me,

That we have taken it to be who we are.

And it's why we can't let go,

That when we're,

When we've been criticized,

When we've made a mistake,

When,

When there's been a stressful situation,

Right,

That we're still holding on to it.

We can't let go because at the center of all these thoughts is this little me.

And it feels like,

No,

Something will happen to it if I don't keep trying to get it out of this.

I'm trying to look for a solution.

We think we're looking for a solution,

But really all we're doing is clinging to our suffering.

And so last week,

We introduced the,

The practice of self-inquiry to look for the little,

Look,

Who is it that's anxious?

Who is it that's afraid?

Who is it that's upset?

Because we're so convinced in the reality that there is something here that is upset,

That is again only arising through thoughts about me,

Right?

We're so convinced it's real,

But when we look for it and those thoughts about me now go away because now I'm looking for the separate self,

What we find is there's no separate self there.

I can't find it.

I can't find it.

And what the inquiry is meant to do is to not have an answer about it,

But it's to take us there.

It's in the seeing and going,

Oh my God,

It's not there.

This whole time,

I just believed the illusion.

I just believed it.

I never questioned it,

Right?

And so the next argument,

Though,

That comes up that the ego will give us,

But there's something here,

That there is something here.

I can see it in the mirror.

I can see this one in the mirror.

There is a felt experience here.

There is something here that is experiencing pain,

You know,

Loud music when I'm trying to meditate that is going to suffer the consequences of the mistake that I made at work earlier today or suffer the consequences later of the argument that I had with my partner.

There is something that is here.

And yes,

There has to be something here,

Because the ego couldn't arise unless there was something here.

It's like the example of the snake in the rope,

Like when we're walking down the street and we see something long and thin and kind of winding around a little bit.

Our first perception is always it's a snake.

Our brain is going to construct it as a snake right away,

Because better be safe than sorry.

Assume it's a snake.

And we know.

We react.

We stop before we even recognize what's going on.

Oh,

My God.

Right?

We could just see it out of the periphery of our vision,

But our brain caught on to it.

That's dangerous.

Could be a snake.

Right?

So we stop in our tracks,

And then we look at it.

We look more closely,

And we go,

Oh,

No,

It's just a rope.

It's just a rope.

The snake couldn't have existed without the rope.

The snake was able to arise,

Be perceived,

Because of the reality of the rope.

So the ego is able to arise because of the reality that there is something here.

It's just not the way we perceive it.

We're misperceiving this as well.

That what we see when we see ourselves,

When we have this felt experience,

Is that we believe that we are a solid,

Independent,

Separate from everything around us,

And inherently existing,

Meaning existing on its own,

Being,

Person,

Meredith,

Alice,

Philippa.

But when we investigate,

When we look,

And we go,

Well,

What is this?

What really is going on in here?

What we find is it is actually just a collection of parts,

Of parts that are all interdependent,

Interconnected,

Impermanent,

Changing,

That give rise to this whole that is impermanent,

Interdependent,

Interconnected,

Arising and changing based on causes and conditions moment by moment by moment.

And how the Buddha described this,

What it is that we are,

What makes up a human being,

He put into what he called the five aggregates,

The five heaps,

That we are.

There's a body,

Right?

Clearly we can see there's a body,

There's a form here.

But this body is always changing.

It's been changing since the moment the sperm hit the egg.

It's been changing,

Right?

And since that time,

Too,

It's needed things interdependently from the outside world.

It's needed food,

It's needed nutrition,

Whether it was coming through the mother or once we came out,

Right?

It was that we're dependent upon food in order to survive,

That we're dependent upon plants,

That we're dependent upon rain and sunshine for those plants to grow,

That we're dependent upon water,

That we're dependent upon sleep,

That we're dependent upon exercise,

Right?

That all of this body is interdependent,

Interconnected,

And impermanent,

Always changing.

That there's nothing,

When we look in the body,

We go,

There's nothing solid here.

There's no solid me here.

It's not even under my control.

But we can see that,

Yes,

It is interdependent,

Impermanent,

Always changing.

So we see the body,

That's the first aggregate.

The second aggregate is feeling,

That this body has three feeling tones,

Either pleasant,

Unpleasant,

Or neutral,

So neither pleasant nor unpleasant.

And so these sensations,

Whether the body is feeling good or the body is not feeling so good,

Dependent upon a million different conditions.

How did I sleep the night before?

What were my neighbors doing?

Were they playing loud music,

And therefore I couldn't sleep last night?

What's going on with the hormones in my body,

The neurochemistry in my body,

The stress hormones in my body?

Who am I interacting with?

How are they affecting the feelings as well that are arising here?

Am I perceiving something in my environment that,

Oh,

That looks really good,

I'm desiring it,

And I'm perceiving that as a pleasant feeling,

Or I'm seeing something,

I'm perceiving something in my environment as unpleasant,

So I'm having an unpleasant feeling.

And so when we look at the feeling,

What we find is that,

Yes,

The feelings are always changing,

Always changing.

Since this morning,

Changed 100 times,

The feeling tone.

Just very subtle,

Very subtle,

But you're feeling good,

A lot of energy,

Maybe it's coming off a little bit,

You're hungry,

And you're a little satiated.

It's just this constant change of feeling tone.

Nothing solved there,

Nothing separate from the world arising based on the body,

Based on the environment.

And then the third aggregate is our perception,

That we all have perceptions of the world,

And our perceptions are based on other parts as well,

Based on our views,

Our opinions,

Our beliefs,

Our memories,

Our past experiences,

And how we are feeling in that particular moment.

So again,

Based on our feeling,

Based on the body,

All connected there.

So our perceptions,

When we see something in the world and we say,

That's a good person,

That's a bad person,

That's a nice house,

That's an ugly house,

We're perceiving it in that particular way,

But we don't always perceive those things in that way.

There's so many conditions that are changing,

And depending upon what those conditions,

How they're aligning in that particular moment,

We have a perception.

And what we can see is that,

Oh,

My perceptions are always changing too.

There's nothing solved there,

There's nothing independent there,

Nothing inherently existing.

And then we have the fourth aggregate,

Which is volition.

And volition is once we've perceived something and there's a feeling tone now associated with it,

And the thoughts can really start to go,

And the emotions come in,

And the behavior comes in as well.

The volition,

The will,

Not free will,

But the will,

We're moving towards something.

There's this,

Oh,

I want that.

Maybe it's being motivated out of greed,

Or desire,

I want that.

Maybe there's a pushing back on it because there's some anger,

There's some hatred there.

And it can be virtuous or it can be unvirtuous.

It could be compassion,

The volition of compassion in that moment,

The volition of mindfulness in that moment,

The volition of generosity,

The volition of kindness in that moment.

This is where our karma is coming from.

This is where the karma is being made,

In our volition.

And yet,

In this volition,

What we look and we see,

It's all interdependent,

Interconnected,

Always changing.

Not the same volition.

Sometimes we're reaching for something and mindfulness comes in.

And it goes,

Oh no,

How about you go do this instead?

You go,

Yeah,

Okay,

And you kind of go off in that direction.

Other times the mindfulness is not to be found.

The greed is a little bit too strong because of other conditions that are arising.

And it's like,

Oh,

I kind of went off a little bit in that direction.

But nothing that I can find in there,

A solid,

Independent me,

Just these conditions,

Interdependent,

Interconnected,

Impermanent.

And then the sense consciousnesses.

So we've got sight consciousness,

Hearing consciousness,

Feeling consciousness,

Taste consciousness,

Smell consciousness,

And mind consciousness.

So mind consciousness,

The awareness of I'm seeing the tree,

The awareness of I'm waking up and oh,

Now I'm waking up,

Right?

There's kind of this awareness in the mind.

And then,

Of course,

Every time we are seeing something,

Every time we see something or hear something,

That consciousness arising.

But again,

Arising,

Interdependent,

Interconnected,

Impermanent,

Changing.

We're not seeing the same thing at every moment.

What's in the mind is always changing based on all these other conditions,

Always changing,

Interdependent,

Interconnected.

And so while we see,

We look at ourselves in the mirror,

We have this felt experience that I am this solid,

Independent self,

Separate from everything else.

When we start to investigate,

What we realize is that no,

I am just all of these parts that are always changing.

I am the sum of all these parts.

If they're always changing,

Interdependent,

Interconnected,

Impermanent,

So is what this sum is.

That there is not a thing here,

But a process,

A continuous process,

An alive,

Continuous process,

Interacting with the environment,

Arising out of the environment,

Giving and taking into the environment.

And so it's not,

We're not a noun,

We're a verb.

We're not a noun,

We're a verb.

Everything is,

Everything that we see in this universe,

In this planet,

Is a process,

A continuous,

Interdependent,

Interconnected,

Changing process,

Just based on causes and conditions coming together,

Changing and coming and changing and coming and changing.

Nothing inherently existing on its own.

And when we,

If we were to look at the world,

If we could take this big snapshot of the world,

You know,

And we could kind of see all these things kind of moving around in the world,

We would see,

Yes,

Look at how everything's interacting,

Right?

It's all changing.

And if we could go,

You know,

Further down,

We could zoom down into a city,

We could see again like,

Wow,

Look at all this,

How it's all interacting,

Interdependent,

Interconnected,

Right?

We can see this.

Everything's just changing,

Changing,

Changing.

If we could zoom in then into a house,

We'd see the same thing.

If we could zoom into the person,

We would see the same thing.

And we would think,

Isn't that cool to have that experience,

Where you're this thing that's,

You're this,

Not thing,

Sorry,

You are this process that's arising,

Interdependent,

Interconnected,

Right?

Nothing,

Nothing to hold onto here,

Nothing solid,

Nothing to get attached to,

Nothing to get tense about,

Just this continuous,

Open,

Spaciousness that's arising and changing moment by moment.

And we would think,

Yes,

That looks so cool.

But that's not our experience.

Our experience is just the opposite.

Our experience is that,

You know,

We spend much of the time wound up in this kind of,

You know,

Tension and contraction and,

You know,

Getting lost in our stress and our worries and our fears,

And I'm a victim,

And this shouldn't be happening,

And this is so unfair,

And why did I do that back there?

And we get all wound up and we get so believing in this reality.

And then the conditions change.

And there's a little bit of unwinding for a bit.

And there's some relief.

And it's like,

Ah,

This feels nice.

And then the conditions change again,

And we go right back up,

And we get bound back up again,

And we're,

Oh,

No,

No,

No,

No,

No,

And now this.

And we keep repeating this cycle again and again.

We're propelling this cycle.

Because we believe in a permanent,

Solid,

Independent me,

Then we believe that there is a permanent,

Solid,

Independent state that I could get to as well.

So all this bounding and winding up that I'm doing to myself,

What I'm doing is I am trying to find a place to land,

A place where I could come to this fixed,

Stable place of bliss,

Of happiness,

Of,

You know,

Never being affected by the outside world again,

Of all of these changing conditions that I could somehow be insulated from it.

The hook,

That's what gets us in there.

It's like,

If I can just get over there,

You know,

If I could just get over there,

Then I can land,

And I can be safe.

If I could just get over there,

If I could just get this,

You know,

Situation resolved,

This argument resolved,

If I could just get there,

I could land somewhere,

And I could stay,

I could be safe forever.

And I could have a certain amount of certainty in my life,

And I could feel bliss,

And I could feel peace.

We're looking for certainty because we believe there is certainty here.

We believe there is permanence here,

That if I could just get a little more money in the bank,

Be a little bit more successful,

Get a little more praise,

Then I could land somewhere,

And I will be insulated from all these things out there that are constantly changing.

But I have found some permanent state of bliss.

If I could just be a little improved,

If I could just be more spiritual,

I could land somewhere,

And I could stay in this permanent state of bliss.

But there is nowhere to land.

That is just a misperception layered on top of a misperception,

Layered on top of a misperception,

Layered on top of a misperception.

And we are so busy looking for that permanent place that we could land in that we miss the whole ride,

And we suffer.

Instead,

Our views are incorrect.

We are looking at things completely the wrong way.

There's nowhere to go.

There is nothing to become,

That we couldn't become something and stay that way.

It's impossible.

That's not the nature of who we are.

It's not the nature of reality.

And so the solution is to see through this illusion of how we see ourselves and see the world,

Right?

Not to see ourselves then as just this flowing energy and atoms and molecules and everything like that,

Kind of all of a sudden everything's blending together,

Right?

Because of course our brain is perceiving this reality in a way that's helpful for us,

Right?

It's a conventional reality,

And it's helpful for us to see things appearing solid,

Right?

It's helpful for us to see things appearing solid,

But to have the insight and the wisdom to see beyond the appearances,

So we don't get lost.

And it's like the Zen master,

The Zen master who already sees that the cup is broken.

And in seeing that the cup is broken,

It doesn't mean that he doesn't appreciate the cup,

That he doesn't use the cup,

That he doesn't clean the cup out,

You know,

That he's careful with the cup,

But he sees that it's already broken so that when it does break,

Because it will,

It is impermanent,

Interconnected,

Interdependent,

It will break,

That when it does,

No problem.

Get the dustbin,

Put it away,

Throw it in the trash,

No problem.

And so for us,

For us we do this by contemplating the five aggregates,

Right?

So that we can see beyond the appearance because the ego will always point,

But there is something here experiencing this.

Yes,

There is.

There is something here experiencing,

But we're misperceiving it,

Right?

So the more that we contemplate the body,

Its impermanent nature,

How very interdependent we really are,

Right?

When we even think about just the food that we need to survive,

The farmer on the other side of the world that's growing apples that are going to somehow,

Some truck and plane or ship are going to get them down here to me in Mexico,

And someone's going to sell them in that shop so I can buy them and eat them.

So I mean,

Again,

This mass interdependence,

The people that make the clothing,

That make the stereo,

That make the speakers,

That make the laptop,

Just how very interdependent we really are,

This body is,

Right?

For everything that we're using,

Right?

But to really see that more beyond the surface appearance of just even the food,

Of just the water,

But seeing beyond everything I'm needing for this body and music,

I mean,

How much of it is coming from other people?

How very interdependent we are.

And so the more that we can see also this body,

It's so dependent on millions and millions of people to function in this world,

To move through this world.

But again,

For being,

You know,

Just the basic sustenance,

The food,

The water,

The clothing,

The doctors,

Right?

All of these things that help this body.

So it's so interdependent,

But it is impermanent,

And I'm not in control of it.

When the body decides to get sick,

It doesn't ask me,

Meredith,

Is it okay if we get sick today?

No,

It just gets sick.

When the body gets tired,

It doesn't ask me.

It just does it.

When the body starts aging from the moment we're born,

It doesn't say,

Should we stop now at 21?

Keeps going.

Doesn't matter.

It's going to keep doing what it's doing.

I don't control this body.

And the more that I can see that,

The more that I can contemplate,

Wow,

There is nothing solid and independent in here,

In this body,

Right?

And the more that I can look at it through feelings and recognizing my feelings are just constantly changing throughout the day.

Just based on what interactions I'm having,

Just what interactions are happening in the body,

The more that I see that,

The more that I recognize that there's nothing to get attached to there in the feelings.

It's just changing.

Interdependent,

Interconnected,

Right?

Our perceptions,

Right?

The perceptions that we have of the world,

That we have of ourselves,

That we get so caught up and we get so lost in and we can recognize.

That's just a perception arising right now based on a million causes and conditions.

Don't get lost in it.

It's going to change later.

Right?

In the morning,

We love ourselves.

By the afternoon,

We hate ourselves.

And we went through it 50 iterations throughout the day.

Because it was never a solid thing.

It was just a perception coming together through causes and conditions.

Interdependent,

Interconnected,

Just arising and changing moment by moment by moment.

And we start to see that and we see there's nothing there to hold on to.

It's just changing.

It's constantly changing.

And when we see the volition,

Right?

When we see the thoughts that start proliferating around something or we see the emotions that start coming out of it,

The volition,

The will,

The actions,

The behavior that starts happening.

And we can see,

Yes,

All of that's happening.

Just,

Again,

All of these different interdependent causes and conditions,

Just all of this is just coming together.

Nothing to get caught at.

Oh,

I did that.

I'm not a bad person.

It's just that with the causes and conditions.

That's what arose there.

And the more that we can recognize that,

The less that we grasp at it as a me in there,

The more that we're able to understand how things are arising,

The less grasping we do.

And then in the volition,

Still conditioned,

Mindfulness might arise.

Compassion,

Wisdom arises.

Still conditioned,

Right?

But now that arises,

Right?

We don't get caught in it.

We don't get lost in it.

Maybe kindness arises.

We don't get caught.

We don't make it into something.

Oh,

Look,

Now I'm a kind person.

Now I'm a compassionate person,

Right?

We don't want to ever turn it into a thing.

When we did that series on kindness a couple of years ago,

And the talks are still up on my teacher's page,

I kept saying,

I think we did seven weeks of kindness.

Every week,

I'm like,

Don't turn the kindness into me as a kind person.

Don't turn it into something permanent.

Just recognize the kindness that was coming out,

The shared connection of kindness.

Don't turn it into a thing because you will turn even your act of kindness into suffering,

Right?

So we can see in the volition,

Again,

Just the changing conditions,

Right?

Nothing to get attached to there.

Nothing to hold on to.

Nothing to make ourselves out of.

It's just change,

Interdependent,

Interconnected change.

And the sense consciousnesses,

The sight,

Sound,

Smell,

Touch,

Taste,

The mind,

Again,

Just all changing based on what's happening in our environment,

What it is that we're perceiving,

Right,

Or what it is that we're seeing,

And then perceiving,

And then feeling,

And then having the volition.

And just,

Again,

Seeing all this going,

It's just arising and changing,

Arising and changing.

It's,

This is how we see beyond the appearances,

Is that when we contemplate what it is that we take,

We go,

Okay,

Well,

I can see the separate self is in me.

I can see this thought created me is in me.

But then,

So clever,

It's so clever,

The ego goes,

But there's something here.

There's something here.

I'm still trying to protect this one here,

Right,

The one that's having the experience.

But it's misperceiving this as well.

So we want to see beyond the appearances,

So that we can let go,

Because we see there is nothing to hold onto.

And in letting go,

Because we see that,

That it's just these changing five aggregates,

Right,

That we're seeing beyond the appearances,

That we're seeing there is something here,

But it is not what we thought it was.

It's just a changing process.

It's just continuous change.

So when we get pulled into the future,

When we notice,

When we're mindful,

We need mindfulness for this,

When we notice we're getting pulled into the future,

I just got to get over there.

I've just got to become something in the next moment,

Right?

We can contemplate that in that moment.

We can investigate that and go,

Okay,

Hang on,

There's a perception right now that there's something better out there in the next moment.

That's what I'm perceiving,

Right?

And my perceptions are made up of a lot of different things,

Right?

Just all my past experiences,

My memories,

My views,

My opinions,

My beliefs,

My current mood,

All of these things which are always changing.

My views,

Opinions,

And beliefs,

Always changing.

My memories,

Changing based on how I'm feeling and looking back on them.

We know how poor our memory is.

And it's always being changed based on how we're feeling in that particular moment,

How we're looking back on it.

So we can look just even then and say,

Okay,

My perception is that there's something out there,

And there's a feeling that's coming along with it,

A feeling to pull to go,

Oh,

There's something pleasant out there,

Right?

And maybe we can even feel again that volition,

Right?

Because we've done it so many times because we've reached out the habit,

The karma is there,

The habit of keeping to reach out.

And we start to realize because we've been contemplating this again and again and again that we see,

Oh my God,

There is nothing solid here.

It is just this process again.

It's just a process.

There was a perception,

There was a feeling,

You know,

There was eye consciousness on something or just mind consciousness just thinking about something,

And I was getting pulled into it and believing it again,

And believing that that's who I was.

But because of contemplating the five aggregates and being mindful and investigating,

What you see is there's nothing solid here.

Nothing separate,

Nothing independent,

Just an ever-changing arising out of causes and conditions.

We find ourselves judging someone because it's just a habit.

We judge,

Oh,

Look how she's dressed.

She shouldn't be dressed like that based on my views,

Opinions,

And belief,

And for sure based on how I'm feeling in that particular moment.

And we can just see that,

That judging,

Oh yeah,

There it is.

There's that perception and here comes all that volition afterwards about it,

All the story about why they shouldn't be doing it,

Right?

And that we believe there's a me that somehow is being threatened because of what they're doing over there,

You know,

This is what I'm judging.

And again,

We get so bound up in it,

But we see it,

We're mindful,

We're like,

It's just the aggregates.

And you can start to see them and go,

Oh yes,

Oh yes,

That's what's happening.

Because there's a body,

There's eye consciousness.

Because there's eye consciousness,

There's a feeling,

There's a perception,

There's volition.

And I can see how all this gets wound up.

I can see it.

And I can see that it is just a process.

There is nothing solid here.

It is just a process that keeps repeating and repeating and repeating.

And when I have that moment when I'm just feeling down on myself,

And I am thinking I'm such a loser,

I can't believe I did that,

Nothing ever goes right for me,

We can again see that whole process.

It's just,

Oh yeah,

Yeah.

It's just that perception again.

It's just that volition again.

Yeah,

It's just based on maybe a feeling,

Feeling a little bit,

My energy's a little bit low.

Maybe it's feeling because you made a mistake,

Something happened,

And it's like,

Yeah,

That's all it is.

Nothing to get caught up in that.

Nothing to get attached to in that.

Right?

You just,

You see it,

Right?

You see it more clearly.

So when the ego says there is something here,

Yes,

There is something here having this experience.

But it is not what you think.

And that is a good thing because what we've been thinking,

The way we have been thinking has been creating a lot of suffering.

And so when we see beyond the appearances,

When we see the interdependence,

Interconnected,

Impermanence,

Just causes and conditions coming together again and again,

There's nothing to hold on to.

There's nothing to become.

There is nowhere to get to.

There is just this moment.

Sometimes this moment is a little more pleasant.

Sometimes it's a little less pleasant,

But it is always changing.

And how much we're grasping really determines how unpleasant this moment is.

But even without the grasping,

We still experience,

You know,

Moments of discomfort in the body because we can't control it,

But we don't get lost in it.

We don't think,

Oh my God,

This is going to last forever.

What does this mean?

It's just,

Yeah,

Pain arising in the body.

Take a Tylenol.

Take a hot bath.

Doesn't mean we can't do something,

But we don't have to get lost in it.

Oh me,

This sucks.

What does this mean?

Right?

Kind of this extrapolation,

Kind of going through all these stories about it,

Creating suffering.

It's just,

Yeah,

Pain in the body.

This body comes with pain.

I mean,

The older we get,

We're all realizing how much more pain it really comes with.

It just gets worse,

Right?

But the real pain,

The real suffering is the story around it,

The clinging,

The attachment.

And so,

The more that we recognize the five aggregates are just these constantly changing just process,

Right,

The more that we can see through that,

See beyond the appearance of solidity,

But recognize,

No,

This is not solid at all,

That we let go,

That we don't get attached because we see there was nothing to get attached to in the first place.

There was nothing that we could become and then stay like that.

We were never going to become something and stay.

We could even just say we're in a constant state of maybe becoming in each moment.

Whatever it is that's arising in that moment,

Yeah,

That's what it is.

But not something to become and measure ourselves and,

Oh,

Am I getting there?

Am I not getting there?

That's suffering.

But it's just the recognizing,

Yeah,

And the causes and conditions,

This is what's arising.

That's the freedom,

That's the liberation,

That's the peace.

We're not getting caught up anymore,

We're not getting attached anymore because we're seeing beyond the appearance of solidity,

Beyond what the ego is pointing to as being a solid,

Independent experience and saying,

No,

This is an interdependent,

Interconnected arising based on all these causes and conditions.

And it is much more fluid,

It is completely fluid,

Sorry,

It is much more fluid than we could say,

It is completely fluid in this constant changing.

Why hold on to something that's always changing?

But now we're letting go because we're seeing reality,

We're seeing beyond the appearances.

So the more that we can contemplate the five aggregates,

Right,

And be mindful of when we're getting lost in the aggregates,

Oh,

Yeah,

That's happening,

That's happening,

Oh,

Yeah,

Okay,

I see it,

And it's just,

Yeah,

It's just a little process,

Yep.

You let go and you're back,

And you keep letting go and you come back.

And we can still use the self-inquiry practice as well,

Who was it that's suffering,

Who was it that was judging,

Right?

We have all these tools that we can use,

But every tool that we're using is to help us see reality,

It's not to get somewhere,

There is nowhere to get to,

There is nothing to become.

There is no place that we could land that would keep us in some fixed perpetual state,

That's just not reality.

And yet we spend so much time trying to get there,

It's not possible,

It's not possible.

So living in reality,

Living in seeing the nature of reality,

Not a fixed objective reality,

But seeing the nature of reality,

The nature of ourselves,

We flow with peace,

With harmony.

Sometimes it's a little unpleasant,

It won't last,

It won't last,

Right?

When things are pleasant,

Like enjoy it,

Yay,

It's fun,

You know,

Yay,

Don't get attached,

It won't last,

Right?

And then the experience is cool,

The experience is more pleasant,

It's more meaningful,

There's more connection because,

Again,

There's understanding of how I'm arising based on all of you,

Right?

Based on what's happening with the weather outside,

What the dogs are doing,

What the birds are doing,

What the scorpions are doing,

You know,

All of these things that I am arising based on whether the scorpion's in the house or not in the house,

Right?

Whether one of the dogs is sick or is not sick,

Right?

Whether I'm sick or not sick,

All these things just arising and changing,

But interconnected,

Interdependent,

Not separate,

Not separate.

That's the peace and the freedom.

That's the liberation,

Not in becoming something and seeing you are never anything to begin with.

Not that you don't exist,

Each of us exists,

Just not the way we think we do.

And the way we think we do is what causes so much suffering.

So in contemplating the five aggregates,

In questioning with the self-inquiry,

In being mindful,

In doing our meditation practice,

All of these things are not to become something.

They are to pull back the veil so that we can see past the illusion,

So that we can be free because we understand the nature of reality and who we are.