Anatman and the Five Skandhas (Part VII; On Buddhism)
I am going to attempt something very, very difficult now. As we descend into deeper concepts of Buddhist thought, it becomes harder to find familiar terms for something so unfamiliar. So bear with me.
First, one must understand that the Buddha came from a time and a place when Hinduism was the ruling way of thinking. And the Hindus believed in what is called atman or atma; in English we would call this “the self,” “the soul,” or “the ego.” Atman is what gets reincarnated in the Hindu view. Buddha, however, taught that a person (here is where wording gets tricky: even to use the word “has” or “have” is not right) has “anatman.” Which gets translated several different ways, but we will call it the “non-self.” This is tricky, but has to do with one of the Buddha’s most emphasized points: impermanence. The Buddha observed and meditated on the fact that everything in the world is impermanent. He even applied this observation to the Hindu concept of atman and came up with what is known as the five aggregates of being (a.k.a. five skandhas).
This is basically an early psychological theory which has not lost its applicability for today. The five aggregates are what the concept of non-self is comprised of. They are as follows: form, sensations, perceptions, volition, and consciousness. Form is anything which is physical/material. Sensations are the stimuli the brain receives from the five senses; they are generally sorted as being pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. A ripe grape would be sweet and therefore pleasant; whereas one which has fermented may be bitter and therefore unpleasant. Lastly, there are tens of thousands of stimuli coming into the brain in the course of every few moments, but most we choose to ignore because they are so common-place and thus, they are neutral. Perceptions are whether your brain recognizes an object it focuses on; for instance, I perceive that I am sitting in a chair, opposed to on the floor or laying in bed. Volition is comprised of all your opinions, prejudices, thoughts, mental habits, etc. For example, an opinion I hold is that Sarah Palin is a moron. Finally, there is consciousness, which is pretty self-explanatory, but we’ll just describe it as awareness in case there was any doubt. I am very conscious of what I am writing currently, whereas I am not aware of what my cats are doing at the moment.
The Buddha concluded that we are comprised of the five skandhas and they are ever changing, shifting, and morphing and so it wasn’t right to say that there was any permanent self. Rather the five aggregates comprise the non-self. The Buddha wasn’t saying that a person doesn’t exist at all, but it is saying we are inter-dependent with everything else and everyone else. It’s sort of an anti-solipsism.
Ok, so this one is pretty heavy. Maybe re-read some of it. And I’d love any feedback, be they questions or comments.
