Page 16 - Because I know, I can let go

Although we may hear about them as anattā if we don’t know what the
aggregates themselves are it will be akin to not knowing them at all,

and then it will be just about memorizing and repeating the standard
formula: ‘form is ‘not-self,’ feeling is not-self,’ etc. etc.’ and that will
constitute the sum total of our knowledge of the pancakhandha, the
five aggregates. But how is it that the five aggregates are ‘not self?’
If we want to know why that’s so then we first need to know what the

aggregates are, so, please, pay attention.

Life is ‘not self.’ Now, what is life? Life is the body and the mind operating

interdependently, and as long as they do that there’ll be life. Life is
‘not self’ because the body isn’t a ‘self,’ neither is the mind. There’s the
body and mind, but why are they referred to as the five aggregates?
It’s because the body is one operation while the mind is made up of
four such; it’s these five operations that are called ‘aggregates.’ The

mind is divided into four parts because it performs four operations,
that is, it feels the pleasant and the unpleasant, which is called ‘vedanā,’
it remembers, recognizes, this is called saññā, when it thinks about

anything that’s called sankhāra, and when it knows clearly by way of the
six senses that’s called viññāna. The mind is thus composed of vedanā,
saññā, sankhāra, and viññāna, each being basically a mental function:
when the mind operates in this way it’s called vedanā, in this way it’s
saññā, in this it’s sankhāra, in this it’s viññāna. This is the reality of the

mind, the mind which is paired with the body.

The body is one operation, the mind is four, hence there are five

operations involved in the living of life, and these are enough, there’s no
need for a sixth, for a ‘self,’ in fact there isn’t anything that could really
be called a ‘self,’ that’s an illusion, a māyā, not a reality, although it is
something which is felt. The still ignorant will sense or feel that they

16 Because I Know...