The Five Aggregates -- Analysing What You Are (Chapter 14)

What this chapter covers: This chapter opens Part III on Understanding. It defines understanding (panna) as a distinct kind of knowing, then systematically analyses all experience into five aggregates (khandha): materiality, feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness. Each aggregate is broken down into its types, characteristics, functions, and conditions for arising. The chapter closes by showing how seeing through these aggregates leads directly to liberation.

What Is Understanding?

Understanding (panna) means knowing things by penetrating their individual natures. It is different from perception and consciousness, even though all three involve knowing.

Perception (sanna) merely registers an object — “blue,” “yellow” — without going deeper.
Consciousness (vinnana) knows the object and can penetrate its characteristics, but cannot by itself bring about the liberating path.
Understanding penetrates the characteristics and, through effort, brings about the path to freedom.

Think of three people looking at a pile of coins on a money-changer’s counter:

A small child sees shapes and patterns but has no idea of their value.
A villager knows the coins are valuable but cannot tell real from counterfeit.
The money-changer examines each coin by sight, sound, smell, taste, and weight, and knows exactly where it was minted and whether it is genuine.

Perception is like the child. Consciousness is like the villager. Understanding is like the money-changer.

Background Note: The Venerable Nagasena told King Milinda that one of the most difficult things the Buddha accomplished was distinguishing between perception, consciousness, and understanding — since they are inseparable states that always arise together, like intertwined threads that are hard to pull apart.

The Characteristics of Understanding

Characteristic: Penetrating the individual nature of things
Function: Abolishing the darkness of delusion
How it shows up: As non-delusion, as clarity
What it depends on: Concentration — “One who is concentrated knows and sees correctly”

Kinds of Understanding

Understanding can be classified in many ways:

Two kinds: Mundane and beyond-the-world (lokuttara); or subject to mental defilements and free from them
Two kinds by function: Understanding that defines materiality, and understanding that defines mentality
Two kinds by feeling: Accompanied by joy, or accompanied by equanimity
Two kinds by stage: The plane of seeing (first path) and the plane of development (remaining three paths)
Three kinds by source: Through one’s own reasoning, through learning from others, or through meditative development
Three kinds by object: Having a limited object (sense-sphere), an exalted object (fine-material or immaterial sphere), or a measureless object (Nibbana)
Four kinds: Knowledge of the four truths — suffering, its origin, its cessation, and the path to its cessation
Four discriminations: Discrimination of meaning, of law, of language, and of perspicuity

The Four Discriminations

Meaning (attha) refers to the fruit of a cause — what results from conditions. It includes anything conditionally produced, Nibbana, the meaning of what is spoken, karmic results, and functional consciousness.

Law (dhamma) refers to a condition — what makes something happen. It includes any cause that produces fruit, the noble path, what is spoken, and what is wholesome or unwholesome.

Language (nirutti) is knowledge of how meaning and law are properly expressed. One who has this discrimination instantly recognises correct and incorrect phrasing.

Perspicuity (patibhana) is knowledge about knowledge itself — the ability to review and understand the other three discriminations clearly.

These discriminations arise in noble ones through the fruit of the noble path. They are supported by prior practice, learning, questioning, mastering the scriptures, and association with wise teachers.

How Understanding Is Developed

The things classified as aggregates, bases, elements, faculties, truths, and dependent origination are the soil of understanding. The two purifications — purification of virtue and purification of consciousness — are its roots. The five remaining purifications are its trunk.

A meditator should first perfect the roots, then study the soil, and then develop the trunk. What follows is the detailed study of the soil, beginning with the five aggregates.

The Five Aggregates

The five aggregates (khandha) are:

Materiality (rupa) — physical form
Feeling (vedana) — the pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral tone of experience
Perception (sanna) — recognition and labelling
Formations (sankhara) — volitional activities and mental factors
Consciousness (vinnana) — the knowing of an object

Everything that makes up a living being falls into one of these five categories.

The Materiality Aggregate

All states that have the characteristic of “being affected” by cold, heat, hunger, and so on, taken together, make up the materiality aggregate. Materiality is of two basic kinds:

Primary materiality (bhuta): the four great elements
Derived materiality (upadaya): twenty-four kinds derived from the primary elements

The Four Primary Elements

Earth element — solidity, hardness
Water element — cohesion, fluidity
Fire element — heat, temperature
Air element — motion, pressure

Their characteristics, functions, and manifestations were given in Chapter 11. Each of the four has the other three as its immediate condition.

The Twenty-Four Kinds of Derived Materiality

The five sense faculties:

Eye — sensitivity of the primary elements ready for the impact of visible objects. It picks up visible data and serves as the basis for eye-consciousness. Found in the centre of the eye, it pervades seven layers like oil on cotton, and is no bigger than a louse’s head.
Ear — sensitivity ready for the impact of sounds. Found inside the ear-hole in a place shaped like a finger-stall, surrounded by fine hairs.
Nose — sensitivity ready for the impact of odours. Found inside the nostril in a place shaped like a goat’s hoof.
Tongue — sensitivity ready for the impact of flavours. Found on the tongue in a place shaped like a lotus-petal tip.
Body — sensitivity ready for the impact of touch. Found everywhere throughout the physical body, like liquid soaking a layer of cotton.

Background Note: The eye and ear can apprehend objects at a distance (non-contiguous). The nose, tongue, and body can only apprehend objects that are in direct contact.

Each sense faculty is assisted by the four primary elements, consolidated by temperature, consciousness, and nutriment, and maintained by the life faculty.

The sense objects:

Visible data — what impinges on the eye. Various kinds: blue, yellow, red, white, and so on.
Sound — what impinges on the ear. Various kinds: drum sounds, voice sounds, and so on.
Odour — what impinges on the nose. Various kinds: root odours, heartwood odours, and so on.
Flavour — what impinges on the tongue. Various kinds: sweet, sour, bitter, and so on.

The sex faculties:

Femininity faculty — shows that “this is a female.” Manifested as the mark, sign, work, and ways of the female.
Masculinity faculty — shows that “this is a male.” Manifested as the mark, sign, work, and ways of the male.

These two never occur together in a single individual at the same moment.

Life and basis:

Life faculty — maintains the co-arisen kinds of matter. It makes them occur and establishes their presence. It maintains matter at the moment of its presence, as water maintains lotuses. Though states arise due to their own conditions, the life faculty sustains them, like a wet-nurse caring for a prince.
Heart-basis — the material support for the mind-element and mind-consciousness-element. Found in dependence on the blood inside the heart. It serves as the physical basis for all mind-based consciousness.

The two intimations:

Bodily intimation — the alteration in the consciousness-originated air element that causes bodily movement. Its function is to display intention through physical gestures.
Verbal intimation — the alteration in the consciousness-originated earth element that causes speech. Its function is to display intention through the voice.

Space element:

Space element — delimits matter, showing its boundaries. Because of it, we can say “above, below, around.”

The three qualities of matter:

Lightness — non-slowness, like the agility of a healthy person. Dispels heaviness.
Malleability — non-stiffness, like well-pounded leather. Dispels rigidity.
Wieldiness — fitness for work, like well-refined gold. Dispels unwieldiness.

These three always occur together.

The characteristics of matter:

Growth — the initial arising of material instances. Like water first appearing in a hole dug near a river.
Continuity — the ongoing occurrence. Like the water overflowing the hole.
Ageing — the maturing and ripening of matter. It leads matter toward its end without changing its essential nature, like rice turning from new to old.
Impermanence — the complete breaking up of matter. Its function is to make material instances vanish.

Nutriment:

Physical nutriment — nutritive essence. It feeds and consolidates material things. This is what sustains living beings through food.

Summary: Twenty-Eight Kinds of Materiality

The four primary elements plus the twenty-four derived kinds make exactly twenty-eight kinds of materiality — no more, no less.

Key Classifications of Materiality

Internal and external: The five sense faculties are internal (part of one’s own being). The rest are external.

Gross and subtle: The twelve kinds that involve sensory impact (five senses, visible data, sound, odour, flavour, and the three tangible elements) are gross. The rest are subtle.

Produced and unproduced: Eighteen kinds — the four elements, the thirteen from eye to life faculty, and physical nutriment — are produced matter, discernible through their own individual natures. The rest are unproduced.

Four sources of materiality:

Kamma-born — the sense faculties, sex faculties, life faculty, and heart-basis
Consciousness-born — the two intimations
Temperature-born, consciousness-born, and nutriment-born — lightness, malleability, wieldiness
Born from all four — most of the remaining produced matter

The three characteristics (growth, ageing, impermanence) are not born from any source. They are simply the arising, maturing, and breaking up of what has already arisen.

The Consciousness Aggregate

Consciousness (vinnana), mind (citta), and mentality (mano) all mean the same thing: the act of cognising an object.

Though one in essence, consciousness is classified into eighty-nine kinds in three main categories:

I. Profitable Consciousness — 21 kinds

Sense-sphere profitable (8 kinds): Classified by whether they are accompanied by joy or equanimity, associated with knowledge or not, and prompted or unprompted.

For example: When someone is happy on encountering an opportunity to give, places right view first, and gives without hesitation — that is consciousness accompanied by joy, associated with knowledge, and unprompted. If the same person hesitates or needs encouragement, it becomes prompted.

When children naturally pay homage to monks out of habit, that is dissociated from knowledge but unprompted. When urged by relatives, it becomes prompted.

When any of these lack joy due to circumstances, the corresponding equanimity types arise.

Fine-material-sphere profitable (5 kinds): Corresponding to the five levels of deep absorption (jhana), classified by which jhana factors are present.

Immaterial-sphere profitable (4 kinds): Corresponding to the four formless attainments.

Supramundane profitable (4 kinds): The four path consciousnesses.

II. Unprofitable Consciousness — 12 kinds

All unprofitable consciousness belongs to the sense sphere. It is classified by root:

Rooted in greed (8 kinds): Classified by joy or equanimity, associated with wrong view or not, prompted or unprompted.

Greed grasps at objects like birdlime. It sticks like meat in a hot pan. It manifests as not letting go, like lamp-black dye. It carries beings to lower states like a swift river to the ocean.

Rooted in hate (2 kinds): Accompanied by grief and associated with resentment, either prompted or unprompted.

Hate has the characteristic of savagery, like a provoked snake. It spreads like a drop of poison. It burns its own support like a forest fire. It persecutes like an enemy who has found his chance.

Rooted in delusion (2 kinds): Accompanied by equanimity, either associated with uncertainty or with agitation.

Delusion has the characteristic of blindness. It conceals the true nature of objects. It manifests as darkness. It is the root of everything unwholesome.

III. Indeterminate Consciousness — 56 kinds

This category has two sub-types: resultant (36 kinds) and functional (20 kinds).

Resultant consciousness is the passive fruit of past kamma — like a reflection in a mirror compared to the active face that produced it. It includes:

Sense-sphere resultant without root-cause (15 kinds): the five pairs of sense-consciousness for desirable and undesirable objects, the receiving mind-element, and the investigating mind-consciousness-elements
Sense-sphere resultant with root-cause (8 kinds): paralleling the eight profitable types
Fine-material-sphere resultant (5 kinds)
Immaterial-sphere resultant (4 kinds)
Supramundane resultant (4 kinds): the four fruitions of the paths

Functional consciousness arises in Arahants (those fully liberated) in place of profitable consciousness, and in certain functions common to all beings. It includes:

Sense-sphere functional without root-cause (3 kinds): the adverting mind-element and two mind-consciousness-elements
Sense-sphere functional with root-cause (8 kinds): paralleling the profitable types but arising only in Arahants
Fine-material-sphere functional (5 kinds)
Immaterial-sphere functional (4 kinds)

The Fourteen Modes of Consciousness

These eighty-nine kinds of consciousness operate in fourteen modes:

Rebirth-linking — the first consciousness of a new life, determined by past kamma. Nineteen kinds can serve this role.
Life-continuum — the ongoing background consciousness that flows like a river’s current during dreamless sleep and between active cognitive processes. The same nineteen kinds.
Adverting — consciousness that “turns toward” a new object, cutting off the life-continuum. Two kinds: five-door adverting and mind-door adverting.
Seeing — eye-consciousness arising at the eye door.
Hearing — ear-consciousness at the ear door.
Smelling — nose-consciousness at the nose door.
Tasting — tongue-consciousness at the tongue door.
Touching — body-consciousness at the body door.
Receiving — mind-element that receives the object just after the sense-consciousness has ceased. Two kinds (profitable and unprofitable resultant).
Investigating — mind-consciousness-element that examines what was received. Three kinds.
Determining — functional mind-consciousness-element that determines the nature of the object. One kind.
Impulsion — the active phase where kamma is made. Six or seven moments of impulsion arise, and this is where wholesome and unwholesome actions actually occur. Fifty-five kinds, including all profitable, unprofitable, functional, and supramundane types.
Registration — after impulsion, if the object is vivid, up to two moments of resultant consciousness “register” that object. Eleven kinds.
Death — the last consciousness of a life, the same nineteen kinds as rebirth-linking.

After death, rebirth-linking occurs again. After rebirth-linking, life-continuum resumes. The cycle of consciousness continues without break through all forms of existence — until an Arahant’s death consciousness ceases, and the cycle ends.

The Feeling Aggregate

Feeling (vedana) is the quality of “being felt” — the affective tone of every experience.

Though one in essence, feeling is fivefold by individual nature:

Bodily pleasure (sukha) — associated with profitable resultant body-consciousness when touching something pleasant
Bodily pain (dukkha) — associated with unprofitable resultant body-consciousness when touching something unpleasant
Mental joy (somanassa) — associated with sixty-two kinds of consciousness
Mental grief (domanassa) — associated with two kinds of consciousness (those rooted in hate)
Equanimity (upekkha) — associated with the remaining fifty-five kinds of consciousness

Characteristics of Each Kind of Feeling

Pleasure: Experiences a desirable tangible object. It intensifies associated states. Manifested as bodily enjoyment.
Pain: Experiences an undesirable tangible object. It withers associated states. Manifested as bodily affliction.
Joy: Experiences a desirable object. It exploits the desirable aspect. Manifested as mental enjoyment. Its proximate cause is tranquillity.
Grief: Experiences an undesirable object. It exploits the undesirable aspect. Manifested as mental affliction. Its proximate cause is the heart-basis.
Equanimity: Felt as neutral. It neither intensifies nor withers associated states. Manifested as peacefulness.

The Perception Aggregate

Perception (sanna) is the act of perceiving — recognising and making a sign of experience.

Since there is no consciousness without perception, perception has exactly as many divisions as consciousness — eighty-nine kinds.

Characteristic: Perceiving
Function: Making a sign or mark so that one recognises “this is the same” later — like carpenters marking timber
How it shows up: Interpreting by means of the sign, like blind men who “see” an elephant by touching different parts
What it depends on: An object, in whatever way it appears — like the perception that arises in fawns seeing scarecrows as men

The Formations Aggregate

Formations (sankhara) are all the mental factors that “form” or shape experience, apart from feeling and perception (which have their own aggregates).

Characteristic: Forming, agglomerating
Function: Accumulating (building up kamma)
How they show up: As intervening, as active shaping
What they depend on: The other three immaterial aggregates (feeling, perception, consciousness)

The Key Mental Formations

When associated with the first profitable sense-sphere consciousness, there are thirty-six formations. The main ones are:

The universal formations (present in all consciousness):

Contact (phassa) — the coming together of sense faculty, object, and consciousness. It is like a hideless cow: exposed and the habitat of feeling.
Volition (cetana) — the act of willing and coordinating. It marshals associated states like a head carpenter directing workers.
Applied thought (vitakka) — initial application of mind to the object.
Sustained thought (vicara) — continued examination of the object.
Interest (piti) — zest, engagement.
Energy (viriya) — driving force, non-collapse. The root of all attainments when rightly initiated.
Life (jivita) — the life of mental states.
Concentration (samadhi) — non-distraction, steadiness of mind. Like a lamp flame in still air. Its proximate cause is usually bliss.

The wholesome formations:

Faith (saddha) — trusting, clarifying the mind like a water-clearing gem. It is like a hand that grasps profitable things, like wealth, like a seed.
Mindfulness (sati) — not wobbling, not forgetting. Like a pillar firmly founded or a doorkeeper guarding the senses.
Conscience (hiri) — disgust at evil out of self-respect, like a good family’s daughter who rejects wrongdoing.
Shame (ottappa) — dread of evil out of respect for others. Together with conscience, these two are “the guardians of the world.”
Non-greed (alobha) — the mind’s lack of desire, like a water drop on a lotus leaf.
Non-hate (adosa) — non-opposing, like a gentle friend. It removes annoyance like sandalwood removes fever.
Non-delusion (amoha) — penetrating things as they really are, like an arrow shot by a skilled archer. These three are the roots of all that is wholesome.
Tranquillity of the mental body and of consciousness — quieting disturbance, cooling agitation.
Lightness, malleability, wieldiness of the mental body and consciousness — overcoming heaviness, rigidity, and unfitness.
Proficiency of the mental body and consciousness — mental health, overcoming faithlessness.
Rectitude of the mental body and consciousness — straightness, overcoming deceit and fraud.

The occasional wholesome formations:

Zeal (chanda) — desire to act, extending the mental hand toward the object.
Resolution (adhimokkha) — conviction, decisiveness. Like a boundary post, immovable.
Attention (manasikara) — directing the mind, conducting associated states to the object like a charioteer.
Specific neutrality (tatramajjhattata) — mental balance, conveying consciousness evenly. Like a driver watching thoroughbred horses run smoothly.
Compassion and gladness — as described under the divine abodes, but here at sense-sphere level.
The three abstinences — abstinence from bodily misconduct, verbal misconduct, and wrong livelihood. They draw the mind back from evil.

The Unwholesome Formations

When associated with consciousness rooted in greed, hate, or delusion, different formations arise:

Consciencelessness — absence of disgust at evil. The opposite of conscience.
Shamelessness — absence of dread of evil. The opposite of shame.
Greed (lobha) — grasping objects like birdlime. Sticking like meat in a hot pan.
Delusion (moha) — blindness, unknowing. The root of all that is unwholesome.
Wrong view (ditthi) — unwise interpreting. The most reprehensible of all.
Agitation (uddhacca) — disquiet, like water whipped by wind. Distraction of consciousness.
Stiffness and torpor (thinamiddha) — lack of driving power, unwieldiness. Stiffness removes energy; torpor smothers.
Pride (mana) — haughtiness, arrogance, vain glory. Like madness.
Envy (issa) — jealousy of another’s success. A fetter.
Avarice (macchariya) — hiding one’s own success, unwilling to share. A mental disfigurement.
Worry (kukkucca) — remorse about what was done and what was left undone. Slavery.
Uncertainty (vicikiccha) — doubt, wavering, taking various sides. Obstructive to clear seeing.

Classifying the Aggregates

The Buddha taught that each aggregate can be classified as:

Past, future, or present
Internal or external
Gross or subtle
Inferior or superior
Far or near

Past, Future, and Present

These can be understood in four ways:

By extent: In a single life, before rebirth-linking is past, after death is future, between them is present.
By continuity: What shares the same origination is present; what preceded it is past; what follows is future.
By period: Any conventional time-span (morning, day, year) is present while occurring.
By moment: The arising-presence-dissolution trio is present. Before it is future. After it is past.

Only the momentary definition is absolutely literal. The others are figurative.

Gross and Subtle

Feeling, for example, can be gross or subtle in four ways:

By kind: Unwholesome feeling is gross compared to wholesome, because it burns with defilements.
By individual nature: Painful feeling is gross because it is overwhelming and creates anxiety.
By person: Feeling in one without meditative attainment is gross compared to one with attainment.
By mundane and supramundane: Feeling subject to defilements is gross; that free from them is subtle.

These classifications should not be mixed up. Feeling can be subtle by kind but gross by individual nature.

The Aggregates and Clinging

There is an important distinction between “aggregates” and “aggregates as objects of clinging” (upadanakkhandha):

Aggregates is the general term including everything.
Aggregates as objects of clinging refers specifically to those subject to defilements — what we actually grasp at.

The path-and-fruit consciousness and its associated feeling, perception, and formations are free from defilements. They are aggregates but not aggregates as objects of clinging.

Why Exactly Five Aggregates?

The Buddha taught five — no more, no less — for three reasons:

All conditioned things that resemble each other naturally fall into these five groups.
These five are the widest basis for the assumption of a self. People say “this is me” or “this is mine” only in relation to these five.
All other classifications (like the aggregates of virtue, concentration, understanding, liberation, and knowledge-and-vision of liberation) are included within the formations aggregate.

Similes for the Five Aggregates

The five aggregates as objects of clinging can be compared to:

A sick-room (materiality — where consciousness dwells)
A sickness (feeling — what afflicts)
The provocation of the sickness (perception — what triggers craving)
Resorting to what is harmful (formations — what causes the sickness)
The sick person (consciousness — never free from feeling)

They are also like: a prison, the punishment, the offence, the punisher, and the offender. Or: a dish, the food, the sauce, the server, and the eater.

How to See the Aggregates

In Brief

See the five aggregates as objects of clinging as:

An enemy with a drawn sword
A burden
A devourer
Impermanent, painful, not-self, conditioned, and murderous

In Detail

Materiality is like a lump of froth — it will not stand squeezing.
Feeling is like a bubble on water — it can only be enjoyed for an instant.
Perception is like a mirage — it causes illusion.
Formations are like a plantain trunk — they have no core.
Consciousness is like a conjuring trick — it deceives.

In particular:

See internal materiality as foul (ugly).
See feeling as painful (never free from the three kinds of suffering).
See perception and formations as not-self (unmanageable).
See consciousness as impermanent (always rising and falling).

The Benefits of Seeing This Way

One who sees materiality as foul fully understands physical nutriment, abandons the distortion of seeing beauty in the ugly, crosses the flood of sense desire, and does not cling with sense-desire clinging.

One who sees feeling as painful fully understands contact as nutriment, abandons the distortion of seeing pleasure in the painful, and crosses the flood of becoming.

One who sees perception and formations as not-self fully understands mental volition as nutriment, abandons the distortion of seeing self in what is not-self, and crosses the flood of views.

One who sees consciousness as impermanent fully understands consciousness as nutriment, abandons the distortion of seeing permanence in what is impermanent, crosses the flood of ignorance, and becomes free from the defilement of ignorance.

Such blessings there will be From seeing them as murderers and otherwise, Therefore the wise should see The aggregates as murderers and otherwise.

This is the fourteenth chapter, “The Description of the Aggregates,” in the section on the Development of Understanding in the Path of Purification, composed for the purpose of gladdening good people.