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Can someone put the 4th aggregate in plain simple English:)? and also volition/intention/free will?
FullCircle
Explorer
Can someone explain the 4th aggregate please? I've heard it described as : volition...mental activity....karma...thought...
So is it anything that arises in the mind? And perception happens to fall under it?
I understand first as Form, second as Feeling (sense), third as perception, fourth as mental activity but that seems to me to include sense activity and perception, and the fifth as consciousness which arises to notice all this stuff... Is that pretty much it?
I still dont understand exactly what is meant by volition.. I heard one teacher explain why there is no free will and it made sense when he said it. But later I thought, well then how or why do we have intention?
But I recently heard a teacher explain the 4th aggregate as karma--which is like the energy that we've carried over from all our lives-- so
I'm confused .. so because its all because of karma thus we have no free will?
Ok sorry I'm not too articulate! THanks for any help:) !!
So is it anything that arises in the mind? And perception happens to fall under it?
I understand first as Form, second as Feeling (sense), third as perception, fourth as mental activity but that seems to me to include sense activity and perception, and the fifth as consciousness which arises to notice all this stuff... Is that pretty much it?
I still dont understand exactly what is meant by volition.. I heard one teacher explain why there is no free will and it made sense when he said it. But later I thought, well then how or why do we have intention?
But I recently heard a teacher explain the 4th aggregate as karma--which is like the energy that we've carried over from all our lives-- so
I'm confused .. so because its all because of karma thus we have no free will?
Ok sorry I'm not too articulate! THanks for any help:) !!
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A Concise Dictionary of Indian Philosophy: "It is predisposition from past impression. It is one of the five aggregates, according to Buddhism (Vide skandha). They are impressions left in the mind after any experience. Vide vasana.
By the way, we have free will. Actions are new karma (navakamma) whereas the body is called ‘former karma’ (purâ.nakamma).
This might be of interest. It is from Wayfarer’s Words by Mrs. Rhys Davids.
The Buddha is recorded to have said to a Brahmin who asserted that there is “no agency who is self or another.” To this the Buddha replied: “I have never heard or seen anything of the sort. When you move forward or backward, stand or sit or lie down, are you not using initiative? Well, isn’t that self-agency (attâ-kara)?” (A.iii.377).
Yes that seems like free will to me as well! The teacher who talked about no free will said things like Why would we get sick etc if we had free will?
Plus I wonder if there's no self- who is it that Has the will?
Yet did I not just decide to go for a walk?
Yah this is hard to get...
But for the 4th aggregate I think I understand better- the 'mental impressions left over' does sound like karma- the energy left over from our aggregates when we die... Which creates the mental activity I guess... ?:)
However, there is "free will" when you assume a Consciousness with mental cognitive abilities in a living organism, because there is Directional Thought. There is the binary Yes/No, and there are ethical and moral dilemmas to listen to. As human beings, we start to cluster ideas into Yes/No, or into groups that we can understand better.
We cannot stay in cognitive dissonance. And from that scientific sense, we start to invent the concepts "free will" and "controlled fate".
But to start off with any thought, we need to gather "sense-data" from our senses.
We collect data from sight, sounds, smell, taste, touch and thought. And once we've collected these data, we start to think subconsciously...
"What do we do with this data?"
And depending on the cultivation of your mind with the correct thoughts, beliefs and spiritual foundation cultivated ever since you were born, it will quickly switch to an answer.
At least that's how I understand the Aggregate of mental formations.
Let's look at the four others first: Form (body), feeling, perception and consciousness. The meaning of body is quite obvious, I think. The remaining three of these are states of knowing. Consciousness is being aware of something. Perception is seeing what that is. And feeling is a bit of a tricky one because of translation, but it is the value put on what is perceived, taking it as pleasant, unpleasant or neither. The Buddha said those three are intertwined and it is not possible to take those really separate. So the line between the three may be a bit fuzzy. But what's clear, these three are the knowing faculties, the cognitive aspect. It's not really an active partaking in what is going on. Can you see that?
Obvious from our experience, there is not just knowing, there is a lot of 'doing' going on as well. So what's all the 'doing' of the mind and body? That's all in the remaining aggregate of what I like to translate as volitions. So this is all (sub)conscious activity of mind and body. This includes intentions, thoughts, decisions, actions, will, etc. So it includes a lot. Do you see how these are active parts of the mind and body in quite a sharp contrast to the knowing ones? So that's why this one can be seen separate from those.
About free will, I never like this term. If we would have freedom of choice, will is not 'free', it is limited by the choices we make. So the usual understanding of free will is a contradiction. Anyway, I will use this terminology still.
So as 'volitions' are all active parts of the body and mind, there is no free will as the will is a part of volitions also. In fact, for understanding enlightenment it almost suffices to place volitions equal to the will. To understand that part is most important, because of all volitions, it is mainly to our supposed 'free will' that people are attached. This is the reason even a lot of seasoned Buddhists will defend some sort of freedom of choice. The mind just can't take the idea of not being in control and will put up any kind of magician's show to keep hanging on to the idea of having some sort of self control. But this goes against what the Buddha taught, that things happens due to cause and effect, and in fact volition or will is not-self, not controllable. Scary, but true, and liberating when you can embrace it.
With metta,
Sabre
That makes sense - And thinking of the 4th aggregate as the 'doing' is a great way to remember it thanks!
But free will... Augh... So if there isn't any- Is everything that I do and that happens- is it predestined- due to causes and conditions?
when one of the six internal sense bases meet with the relevant extenal sense base and the attention is with them (we call relevant consciousness occure)
for ex: eye contacts a flower, the eye consiousness occure
as a result of the above contact occures (salayathana paccaya passo)
what happens is 'we see a flower'
but
according to Buddha's Teaching there is only 'seeing'
for us worldling there is 'a flower' that can be any colour and any shape
seeing and recognising the flower happens to us worldling as well as Noble deciples
the difference is we take the flower as beautiful or ugly where for Noble Ones the flower is another form that consists of earh, fire, water, and air which takes a bit of a space to be there
colour of the flower or the shape of the flower is the perception and we cling to it and we build many thougt over it be they good or bad, they are the sankhara and they have the power to force us to go forward (which is called sansara)
i think before we go futher we have to see whether what has been writen above is meaningful or not
Let's simplify a bit. Say I roll a dice. It's a chance I'll hit 6 eyes, for the sake of the analogy, say that outcome is not predetermined. Still the dice has no choice in this. So for the dice, it's not predetermined and it's not free will. Still, it rolls because it is thrown.. So there is cause and effect happening there.
For us, we can go in a direction by our practice. If we do good, we get good things. Is it a 5 or a 6? Who will say. That doesn't have to be predetermined. Still it can happen without any free will involved. And if we practice, we can make sure it isn't a 1, 2, 3 or 4, so it isn't completely by chance either. It's cause and effect, there are intentions, there is karma.
I simplified a bit here, but I hope you can understand how determinism isn't automatically true if there is no free will and also, it doesn't have to be in between. Likewise, karma exists without free will, it doesn't imply some sort of 'half free will'.
Also, I won't go into details, but science as it is at the moment, shows things are not predestined (quantum shizzle) and it also seems to show there is no free will..
Yes, the harder teachings here. But this is how it is. You asked for it
With metta!
Sabre
I never considered karma vs. the fruits of karma either (thought it was one thing called karma-still lil confused on that;) So karma carried over from previous lives is the fruits of karma, but our current karma is created with our actions? lol ah well...
"Imagine, it means you can always forgive other people for what they do, including yourself. In the end, you had no choice" ...
Believe it or not, this makes sense to me! I look at it like people (and myself) only act according to how conscious (or unconscious) we are at that point in our lives-- When I look back at the rotten things I did or said years ago, I can't totally hate myself anymore, because I can see how stuck I was-stuck in my head, in my egoic self, lost and believing all my kooky thoughts..it was a painful place to be and I"m so grateful to have found Buddhas teachings.. what a miracle:) Or good karma whatever;) ! Thanks!
Whatever one intends, whatever one inclines towards or has a latent craving for; that's mental formation. Impressions on a being of the volitional nature, those that are ever present in the being's consciousness. And it is this aggregate that obtains objects of desire that may become the means for the establishment of future consciousness.
Now the original explanation of the Buddha, specifically in the chain of origination, is the clearest and is the only place to begin. Beyond that, for me, even though the Americanized diagram was helpful at first a long time ago, I find it most useful to visualize the aggregates instead (not viewing them graphically). As five interdependent functions. In this way it becomes obvious that mental formations are very critical to understanding aggregated existence.
"The teachings of Gosala had the distinction of the Buddha's condemnation as the very worst of all contemporary erroneous doctrines. He likened them to an hempen garment -- uncomfortable and giving no protection against the cold of winter or the heat of summer. Gosala argued that all beings, an created things, attain perfection in the course of time. There was nothing that could be done to hasten this process spread over the span of countless rebirths" ( Arthur Cotterell, A Dictionary of World Mythology, Revised ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), 78).
Of course your head will be spinning. The dhamma is difficult. But although I gave quite a deep explanation, don't try to grasp it with your intellect too much. Work with what you've got. If anyone has got a sense of free will, an intellectual challenge is not going to change that on a fundamental level. Only insight can. So see how you can implement the general idea beneficially. Have your boundaries. See how it fits with your experience of the practice. If ever the time comes to fully embrace it, you will know because you are quite literally blown away.
Same with karma, don't make it an intellectual excersize. People use the term karma differently. Some include the results, others use it as two distinct things. It's not really important to know what the term itself points to exactly. Important is to see actions have results in line with those actions. See how not lying makes you peaceful. See how sharing makes you happy. See how meditation makes you still. See how grasping makes the mind move, how it activates the will, the volitions and how this is dukkha. This requires deep meditation. But take it easy. Enjoy your practice! If you are confused, smile at being confused. It's not so bad to be confused.
With metta,
Sabre