Khenpo moves on to begin working with the five skandhas to eventually show their emptiness. He says they are
everything included in matter and mind. They are: form (material phenomena), feelings (experiences of sensations we find pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral), discriminations (sometimes perceptions; thoughts of things as hot or cold, clean or dirty), formations (catch all category for all the other thoughts and emotions that I experience, sometimes called karmic formations), and conciousness (six primary conciousnesses; one for each sense and then also for mind). He begins with the skandha of form.
Form is empty of form.
-Prajnaparamita Sutra
Before even considering this statement, a preliminary contemplation on the path to deconstructing the entire world is to contemplate the skandhas as everything. Do I believe it? Do these five categories encompass all that I take to be matter and mind? If not, then the emptiness arguments against them will have less potency. How does looking at my being as the five skandhas affect how I relate to myself? If I am a bunch of parts, then how real am I? Do I sense categories of things within each skandha?
Would you say in this case that the Five Skandha's relate to the Buddha Families?
ReplyDeleteInteresting connection... I don't really think they do in this case. The five skandhas are a relative, more Hinayana teaching. They're provisional in the sense that they are a specific way of categorically breaking up our experience so we can examine it in an organized way to reach a deeper understanding. The Buddha families are describing enlightened mind and are more fruitional. I think though when we are convinced of our own anger and not seeing it as mirror-like wisdom we are caught in a relative understanding. At that point, one option would be to look at the anger are a part of one of the skandhas and to break down the solidity that way. That could help us eventually understand the mirror-like wisdom. I think each of the neurotic states of mind mentioned in the Buddha families would probably fall in the skandha of karmic formation. The wisdom aspects represent an understanding beyond the skandhas.
DeleteHey Daniel, chatting with some folks tonight, I've discovered there is actually a traditional connection between the skandhas and the buddha families. More to come on that soon! Good intuition on that!
DeleteCourtesy of Mr. Rawie, check out this chart:
Deletehttp://www.rigpawiki.org/index.php?title=Five_buddha_families
Food for some contemplation here... Also from Mr. Rawie:
Thrangu Rinpoche in The Five Buddha Families and The Eight Consciousnesses
mentions skandhas in a chart on p.16-7 (which I couldn't see), and in the following Q&A:
p. 22-3
Question: I was wondering if Rinpoche would say something about the five skandhas, “aggregates of being,” and the process of transforming the five negative emotions into the five wisdoms?
Rinpoche: The five skandhas are form, feeling, perception, mental events or conception and consciousness. They are called “the five gates of ego” in English. How are they related to the five dhyana buddhas? Purification of the first skandha of form is realization of Buddha Vairocana, purification of feeling is realization of Buddha Ratnasambhava, purification of perception is Buddha Amitabha, purification of mental events is Amogasiddha and purification of consciousness is Buddha Akshobhya. We have related the five skandhas with the five dhyana Buddhas. You know which negative emotion is purified upon realization, therefore you can find which negative emotion is related to the skandhas.