Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 47-minute commentary, Ven Jampa Gendun examines each of the five aggregates as a possible candidate for the self, showing none qualifies: none is singular, unchanging, or independent. He dwells longest on consciousness — the intuition that some perpetual background knower must be the I — and dissolves it: each moment of awareness depends on a changing object, is momentary, and has parts. He then frames the analysis around four essentials, ending with a thought-experiment: if the self exists apart from the aggregates, stripping all five away should leave it there; nothing remains. A Q&A closes with a student asking how non-self squares with societal pressure to build a career identity; the teacher distinguishes fluid conventional selfhood from the ego-fixation that causes suffering.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 04 3 PA 1989 08 11.mp3
UUID: ce8a081c-e8ac-4270-b207-f9743cb987ae
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: Three Principal Aspects of the Path 1988-1990 (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1989-08-11
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 46.7 minutes
Words: ~5,191
Breath, hearing a sound, perception of thoughts, images in our mind, seeing, constantly a flux, a flow of perceptions. The mind is just flitting like a bird from one branch to another, of these different perceptions. So none of these can be the self. This perception, this quality of recognizing is not self. It’s constantly changing, constantly new perceptions arising one after another, one after another.
We would never conceive of, think about that any of these perceptions, these recognitions as being the self. We wouldn’t normally grasp at that notion. None of them has a characteristic of itself since none of them are partless, unchanging, and independently existing. Aggregate of mental constructions, the fourth aggregate, includes all the mental activities of thinking, of patterns of thought, negative emotions like desire, hatred, delusion, healthy emotions, love, compassion, patience, all of these qualities. The second and third aggregates, feelings and perceptions, are thought constructions, but for the sake of categorization, they’re separated out.
Feelings and perceptions are thought constructions, but they’re not included in this fourth category, fourth aggregate. Mental constructions also includes the predispositions, the tracks laid down by previous actions, which condition our present behavior and thinking. All of this is included in this fourth aggregate. All mental events, except for those within the feelings, perceptions, and consciousness, are included in this fourth aggregate of mental constructions. Although we might not think of mental constructions or these mental events as being the I, as being the self, we do tend to identify our self with what we conceive of as personality.
We can begin to think of personality as being included in this fourth aggregate of mental constructions. The personality is a mental construction. But we do tend to identify the self, this I, with the personality. I am my personality. Emotionally, for example, if some part of our personality is criticized, we feel, that is to say the self feels, that they are criticized.
If some part of our personality, I think you’re stupid, part of our personality has been criticized, I feel criticized, I feel hurt. I identify with my personality, the self. However, if we examine the makeup of our personality dispassionately, very carefully, all we find is a stream of ever changing mental constructions . We tend to choose certain more or less constant features of the stream. We tend to choose certain more or less constant features of the stream as characteristics of a particular personality.
We have various traits, various characteristics, various personality habits, patterns continually rising. We begin to focus in to select that which is overriding those patterns which are most domineering, constant. These we begin to focus this and grasp to it as a personality, when this type of pattern is manifested, we think I am being myself. This is who I actually am. If, for example, a person started to manifest in a more or less constant fashion, totally different characteristics, they would say, Oh, this person has really changed.
They changed their personality. We talk about people as not being in their right mind, as being deranged. When we talk in this way, the implication is that the person or the self is something other than their present state, than the present manifest quality of their mind. This isn’t who they are. They’re not in their right mind, maybe.
Get hold of yourself. What are you doing? There’s a personality that is a self other than what is being manifested at that particular moment. We have a multiplicity of identities. We tend to attach to one as oneself.
You talk about in very simple terms, for example, in the transactional analysis, the parent, the child, and the adult. Sometimes we manifest qualities, personality traits as a parent, sometimes as a child, sometimes as an adult. If we begin to fixate, then we can get stuck. We grasp that one of these as my personal knowledge. This is who I am.
We begin to focus out and actually repress other possibilities. But in fact, we have a multiplicity of identities. The possibility of allowing the free and fluid state of selflessness to exist and being able to respond from the whole gamut of personality potentials which you possess. When someone We say, Oh, he wasn’t That’s not the way he really is when someone acts unusual. He’s really like this.
And we say, That’s the person, or This isn’t really who he is. We dismiss that. Don’t allow that as a possible expression of who he is. We discount it. We refuse to acknowledge that this person has this quality.
We have a sense of who I really am, the real you. This is the self that we’re investigating when we talk about who are you really, who am I really. This is what we’re trying to look at. It is clearly not the personality or any of the mental construction. None of them exhibits a singular, unchanging, independent element that one could call a self.
All these personality traits, characteristics, mental constructions, dispositions, tendencies, patterns continually arising. None of them have this quality, an element about them which is singular, unchanging, independent. None of them is the self, though we have a tendency to grasp through the personality as the self. I’m this way, I’m this much intelligent, I’m this much pretty. I’m going to get this far in my life.
These are my limitations. We hold on to this identity, this personality as fixed, as permanent, as unchanging. But it’s not. That’s not the self. Then the aggregate of consciousness is the fifth aggregate.
All physical and mental experiences are contained within these five aggregates. There’s nothing left out. The aggregate of consciousness is the, from one point of view, it’s the mental elaborations which fill out the situation, in terms of which you find yourself in the world. But most simply, it’s awareness. Consciousness, clear and knowing.
The nature of consciousness is clear and knowing, luminosity and awareness. We’re looking at these four aggregates. You may have a feeling that behind all of this, behind all of our experiences, there seems to be some kind of constant awareness. And there’s a sense that maybe this is the I, this is the self, this perpetual knowing which is always there in the background, the knower. This kind of general sense of awareness that’s perpetually there.
We might feel that this is really what it means by I. This is really the self. It seems to be this something, this knower, this awareness, which is always in the background of our being, always looking over our shoulder. It’s somehow singular, unchanging, independent. It could be the self.
This is the I, this is the self. It’s the basis of all our experiences and the basis for all our awareness of I. And this is the I. We have to begin to analyze it. We begin to understand that every moment of experience has two aspects.
Every moment of experience. By experience, I mean seeing the table, hearing the sounds, tasting flavors, things like this. These are experiences. Every moment of those experiences has two aspects. There has to be something which experienced and something which experiences it.
In other words, there has to always be something known and something which is knowing it. There has to be an object which is known and a subject which knows it. Something which is aware of something. If either of these two is missing, then there’s no experience. We can’t have an experience without the experience or an object experienced.
To say it doesn’t mean anything. Consciousness always has an object. Consciousness arises in dependence upon an object. The object arises in dependence upon being known, upon a consciousness. We can’t have one without the other.
The same with experiences. There must be an experiencer and something which you experience. That’s for these two aspects, these two elements. Knowing arises in dependence upon an object known. When the objects which are being known are constantly changing, are changeable, this table, that sound in the hallway, it was silent, then there was a sound, then there was silent.
All of these experiences, all of these objects that are known, constantly changing. If the consciousness arises in dependence upon these constantly changing objects, And then the conscious awarenesses are constantly changing. The constant stream, like the sound of the person walking up and down the hall. It’s the changing, the constant awareness of the constant change of the sound, that experience. In each of these moments of consciousness there is a beginning, a middle, an end at that moment.
Of all phenomena, of all things, there’s a beginning, there always has to be parts. So each moment of this consciousness has parts. It’s not singular, it’s not a whole. It’s constantly changing and it rises in dependence upon its object. All awareness, all knowing has parts.
It is changing. It is dependent upon its object. None of them are self. None of them are singular, partless. None of them are unchanging.
None of them are independent existences. Each moment of consciousness has a different object. Each moment of consciousness is separate and distinct. For example, one moment we have a consciousness of form, another moment we have consciousness of sound, the next moment we might have a consciousness of mental image. One consciousness arising after another, and each one of these is distinct from the previous one.
The previous one doesn’t exist anymore. The future one hasn’t arisen anymore. It’s only the present one that exists. It’s distinct and separate from the past and the future moments of consciousness. So consciousness is only momentary.
This is the point of this. Consciousness is only momentary. It’s arising in dependence upon moments of the object. Consciousness of forms, consciousness of sound, consciousness of taste, consciousness of mental image, one rising after another, distinct consciousness moments, momentary changing constantly. It has parts, it’s changing, it’s dependent, it is not self.
Thus, this awareness that seems to be behind all our experiences is not self. It cannot be the self. At the end of all this investigation, we arrive at the conclusion that the self is simply a vague and convenient concept that we project now here, now there onto a stream of experiences. There is nothing in and of itself. When we meditate on the aggregates, we simply see the aggregates as they are.
They are not singular, they are not unchanging, they are not independent. Therefore, they are not self. We might think, Okay, the self is not the same as the aggregates. Maybe the self is different than the aggregates. The self is not identical, it’s not one with the aggregates, but maybe the self is separate from the aggregates.
In that case, we have to make use of the fourth essential, the lack of difference, the lack of separateness, the lack of unity. We have to determine whether the self exists separately from the body and mind complex. It’s not the same as the body and mind complex. Now the only other possibility which we determine by the second essential is that if it exists, it must be either the same or it must be different. We determine it’s not the same.
Now we’re going to look to see if it’s different. This is the fourth essential. The self must be completely different from the body and mind complex. It must be completely different than the five aggregates. It must be totally unrelated to the five aggregates.
If it’s slightly like the five aggregates, because the five aggregates are what? Have parts, changing, and are dependent, that can’t be the self. The self couldn’t be. If it’s a little bit like the five aggregates, then it can’t be permanent. It can’t be unchanging, The aggregates are changing.
It can’t be singular because aggregates are multiple parts. It can’t be independent because the aggregates are dependent because they on dependence upon causes and conditions. So it has to be completely separate, different from the five aggregates, unrelated to the five aggregates. If that’s the case, then we should be able to set all of the body and mind to one side and have left over the self, the I, on our seat. And that’s what we actually do.
We go through the five aggregates. We go through the aggregate form. We put arm over there. Head, look at the head on. Put the head over there.
Okay. We go through the form, and we go through feelings. Pleasurable feelings. And I sit there. And we set aside pleasurable feelings, displeasurable feelings, neutral feelings, perceptions, mental constructions, eye consciousness, ear consciousness, nose consciousness, tongue consciousness, body consciousness, awareness, mental consciousnesses.
Set them all there. None of them are the I, none of them are the self. If the I is separate from the body and mind complex, separate from the five aggregates, if it’s different, unrelated, it should be there, remaining. It should have been left over. It’s like you have a cow and a pig and a dog, and you put them in a pen, and you take away the cow and the pig.
You should have the dog left over. And if they’re in the pin, and you’ve taken out two of them, the one that’s left over should be remaining. If there is a self and there is five aggregates, if we take away the five aggregates, there should be the self remaining sitting on our seat somehow. We have to make the investigation, setting aside the five aggregates, see whether there’s anything left over that we can call an I or a self. Also, we can look at it through a process of reasoning..
If the self and the body mind complex were unrelatedly different, then whatever was experienced by the body and mind would not be experienced by the eye. The I would not age, it would not get sick, it would not be happy, because it doesn’t have any relationship to the body.. The body gets old, gets sick, it would not affect the I, because the I is completely unrelatedly separate from the body. The mind gets happy, gets sad, depressed. The I wouldn’t get happy, sad, depressed, because the I, the self, is completely, unrelatedly separate from the mind.
There’d be no relationship. Sometimes the object of negation, the object of negation, the sense of I that appears to us, induced by ignorance, is the object of negation. Sometimes it appears to be separate from the five aggregates, like to use an analogy of a shepherd and a sheep, a different type. The shepherd is a human being, the sheep are an animal. They’re completely separate.
It’s like the shepherd controls the sheep. Then sometimes it appears the eye is mixed in with the five aggregates of the same type, like a a group of salesmen, and a head salesman. They’re all salesmen, but the head salesman is in control. But it’s hard to distinguish because they’re all at the same time. They’re all salespeople.
Sometimes the I appears when we’re separate from the five aggregates, sometimes it appears mixed in with the five aggregates. When we’re trying to isolate the self, it’s necessary to look both within the five aggregates and without, outside of the five aggregates. Let’s summarize. The first point of analysis is identifying the object to be negated. At the hearer’s level, the object of negation is a singular, unchanging, independent self, I.
The second point is that we have to acquire certainty if the self exists, it must be either the same or different than the aggregates. Must be either the same or different than the body mind complex. There’s no other third possibility. The third point is determine whether it is one or identical with the body mind complex. Whether the self that we’ve identified is the same, identical with five aggregates, body mind complex.
The fourth is determine whether this I, this self, is different, separate from the body mind complex, from the five aggregates. Those are the four essentials that we have to use. Instinctive emotional attachment, or clinging to a vague notion of self, is the source of all our suffering. From the idea of such a self, from the idea of a permanent, partless, unchanging, concrete self comes a sense of other. in dependence upon this creation of self and other comes a type of interaction, comes all of the various unskillful actions of attachment, hatred, and delusion.
Various afflictive emotions arise on this way of interacting. Depends upon these afflictive emotions, these unhealthy emotions arising, we’re motivated to engage in actions, unskillful actions, and the result is dissatisfaction. This result takes the form of all kinds of suffering, and one cannot escape this suffering as long as one identifies with the self which is suffering. It’s the same, just as when you were having a dream, we used the dream analogy. Once one sees that the person that’s involved in a dream is not really oneself, Any suffering that may be felt on account of identifying with that person in the dream fades away.
That person might have been chased by a tiger, it might have been in the middle of a burning house, but once we cease identifying with that dream person as our real I, as being our real self, then any type of anxiety or suffering which is associated with identification ceases. It fades away. One sees directly for oneself that such an I has never existed. Then understanding ceasing to identify with an illusory self as being who in fact we are. One sees for oneself, one ceases to identify with the I which suffers.
Then the mind can rest peacefully in empty space, in the perfect confidence, assurance. It takes a certain amount of fearlessness. In meditation, through meditating in this manner, we can begin to remove all our subtle doubts. It’s as if we begin to wear them away, The mind begins to rest naturally in selflessness. This is the conclusion, the explanation of the hearer’s level of the progressive stages in seeing deeply into the nature of reality.
Any questions? We’re going to have a tea party. Do you have any questions? As I said, I’ve repeated it quite a number of times. Simply beginning to question.
Āryadeva says, a great Indian master, that really having to doubt as to the nature of the self I mean by doubt, mean a real open question. Now we don’t have much doubt. We’re pretty sure that we have an I, which is singular, independent, which is unchanging. That’s very much our predominant thinking pattern, our feeling quality about ourselves. But even the doubt about whether that exists shakes cyclic existence to its very foundation, shakes the ego to its very foundation.
Just beginning to question, to look into, to become aware of. I think the the self isn’t experienced quite as solidly, as concretely as it perhaps once was. This is a new way of looking. This was a great discovery prior to the Buddha, at least in the exoteric aspects of Hinduism, there was the doctrine of atma. Atma simply means self.
That there was held to exist a permanent, partless, unchanging self. And the Buddha saw that he disagreed. He couldn’t find that self. He searched and searched and searched and searched. He never found it.
And never having found it, concluded it doesn’t exist. He experienced a release, a certain freedom, a peace by this means. It’s not something that comes naturally, because we’re naturally habituated to belief in such a type of self. Just by beginning to think about the possibility, the logic, the reasoning, and actually begin to analyze our experience, we begin to open up to the possibility of change, of radical transformation. We’re learning a new skill.
It all may sound very abstract, and perhaps not of much relevance, but that’s only because of something new, I think. We have to begin this journey of a thousand miles for the first step. Just beginning to hear about this and to think about it and question it, what do I mean by I? What do I mean by self? Am I my body?
Am I my mind? It’s major dramatic step in your life, in your spiritual journey. Last night Rinpoche was talking about the fact that we’ve attained clairvoyances and magical powers many times in our past lives, but they haven’t been at all significant. They haven’t helped us at all in our spiritual journey. But we haven’t really listened to the very profound teachings on the spiritual path.
This is something very new for us. It’s very significant, and I think we aren’t cognizant of the significance. It’s hard to appreciate the possibility that such a view presents to us, the possibility of real freedom, a real going beyond, a real ability to be a benefit to others. A a problem I have is that the society that I live in seems to promote notion of finding yourself and developing an identity. And I feel particularly in terms of sort of of sort of career path to be something, to become something, and to develop that and to become very good at it.
And so I find myself in a in a bind listening and feeling, you know, a little bit and understand the things you’re talking about. But on the other hand, out in the other real world, you know, feeling the push to to develop an identity. You have an identity. Isn’t that the same as the personality you’re talking about or linked to it? We have a conventional existent self, I.
You have an identity. No problem. What’s the difference between that and the The I, the self, the person, the self image, these exist. There’s no problem with these. It’s only when we grasp at the I, the self, the person, the self image, the identity as it being permanent, as unchanging, as being independently existing, that it becomes a problem.
Then we fixate upon a particular identity, for example. We fixate upon one aspect of our potential, for example. Usually it’s quite negative, for example, and we don’t see the possibility of change. We can’t change. There’s a resistance to change because this is who I am.
If I don’t exist this way, I don’t exist at all. And we grasp at it and hold on to it with our very fingernails until they’re ripped out. There’s no possibility of change. No real, basic transformation can take place, and that’s why we suffer. So is the identity then, my identity then, is sort of loose and fluid and it’s a number of attributes?
And what you’re saying is that when I cling tightly to the notion of it very tightly, that this is it and fixed, that that’s when it causes problems. But but you’re suggesting that it’s that it’s okay, it’s in fact what happens that people, say, have an identity as an artist and that they can develop that, but at the same time still be doing what you’re saying, being fluid and and and being open to develop and expand as an artist rather than sort of Yeah, very much so. Actually, ability to When there’s a loosening up of your sense of identity, then you exist in harmony. You exist in relationship to the actual present situation rather than existing from a particular fixed viewpoint. Just for example, in the sense of masculine and feminine identities.
Someone who is not fixated on the masculine aspect of himself It’s not possible for him to get in touch with, for example, feminine aspects of himself. So he’s deprived. This is a very mundane example. He deprived the very vast potential of his personality, of being able to relate with others in the world in a very meaningful manner, isn’t very fixating. This identity of being a macho, for example.
In a very mundane sense, it has practical applications of opening ourselves up to our vast potential of our psyche, of all the possible multifarious identities which exist and which are constantly arising, we tend to dismiss or actually select out, focus out, ignore, resist, suppress. So do you mean we could actually select anything we wanted, I mean, in theory? You can’t be Napoleon, for example. But it’s not necessary. You can be anybody at any time, be nobody, whatever the situation calls for.
The Buddha is the most ordinary person in the world. The Buddha can be anything. What does he say? To be anybody in any situation, for the very means of helping. He has no particular stance, viewpoint.
Whatever is beneficial, he becomes that for that person. You know what I mean? There’s no resistance to becoming whatever will be beneficial. We have to maintain our fixed position, and therefore we can’t help people. We have our ideas about how things should We have our viewpoint, and we hold onto it.
We’re talking about perhaps two different senses, in a way. You have to be somebody before you can be nobody, perhaps. Maybe you have to have a healthy ego before you can transcend your ego, perhaps. I’m not sure, but perhaps that’s true. We may have to develop a positive self image, identity, along the way to going beyond any identity, and to be able to develop a very fluid identity.
I think so, because it seems that with negative identity you’re constantly trying to secure yourself. You feel so unsure of yourself that you can’t forget about yourself. But this is an area of more of a think this is maybe just some prerequisite, but we can be working on both of these along the same lines. Mean, at the same time, in parallel developing a healthy self image, also realizing that it’s simply an identity. It’s not fixed, it’s not permanent, it’s not unchanging.
Maybe we can develop a healthy identity in the context of wisdom, of what that identity actually is. Identity, fixed identity, is going to be a problem, is going to be a source of suffering, even the most positive. What our society would be considered the most positive. Any ego based existence is dissatisfactory. Any state bounded by ego is dissatisfactory, even if it’s a healthy ego.
It doesn’t matter. It’s dissatisfactory. So we have to maybe be working on both lines at the same time, developing a healthy but fluid ego. Dear, does the self look like at think a starting and finishing point in time? Each of the schools has a different conception of what the conventional I or the self is.
From the point of view of the final thought of the Buddha, which is the middle way school, the I or the self is the being which is designated to the mind body. It’s imputed, it’s designated, and dependence upon this mind body we say I, self. It’s merely a labeling upon mind body. The mind body has no beginning, no end. The basis for this I has always existed.
The mind body is the that’s why I can say, I can take rebirth as a dog. Last life I was a giraffe. I, I, I, I, is a constant continuum I, but the basis is constantly changing. The basis is of mind constantly changing, body constantly changing. The body ages, sloughs off, the mind is attracted to associate itself with a new body and then that body ages, it sloughs off, and the mind is attracted to associate it with a new body.
Through this process, all of these various minds and bodies, they’re continual designating labeling of I, I, I, I, and the mind body, mind body, I, I. They’re continual but changing because the basis is constantly changing. The I is constantly changing, but a continuum of I throughout this entire process of mind associating with the body, the body dying, associating with the new body, the body dying, associating with the new body, there’s a constant stream of I, I, I. The I has no beginning, no end. This process goes on indefinitely.
Yeah. There’s no agent involved. The actual process, in one way of looking at ego, is the process of securing the self in space and time. There is a self, there is an I, but there is a misconception as to the nature of the self. There is a habitual tendency to view this self as, in this example, permanent unchanging.
That is, there’s a panic that this self needs something more than it has, that it must be made more solid. There’s a grasping at the self. The ego as a process of securing the self in space and time, there’s no agent who’s fearful, there’s no one standing behind this who’s actually fearful. The tendency to view the self in a particular way. We don’t want to go back.
We’re afraid to retrace the steps of the evolution of ego. Have the conventional self, the person, the I, jampa, my existence is not based upon ego. It’s based upon mind body. That is never going to go out of existence. I am never going to go out of existence.
This I will continue to exist infinitely until Buddhahood. It will continue after Buddhahood. The I doesn’t need to be secured. It doesn’t need to be frozen. I can’t get rid of this I, even if I wanted to.
I think I mentioned in terms of it’s hard to sense, that’s my opinion. You’re walking along and there’s a first moment of bewilderment. The situation hasn’t changed in the least, that your legs are just as strong as they were, just as functional, the ground is just as firm, but there’s a sense, there’s no reason for this to rise, but it’s been there at all times. Mean, there’s a sense it’s unjustified. If it was justified, it wouldn’t be ignorance.
Ignorance is not justified. But there’s a moment of bewilderment, that somehow your ground is, even though the situation has not changed in the least, that you have to grasp at having to secure your ground. That somehow the way things are is not sufficient. There’s a lack of assurance. You know, talked about becomes fearful.
There’s a lack of confidence, assurance in the present situation. There’s not this feeling that there’s inability to relax into the present situation because there’s unreasonable fear that there’s some element that needs to be guarded against. Ignorance is unreasonable. It’s unjustifiable. That there’s something that lacks the confidence to allow oneself to relax into the present situation.
One has to somehow secure oneself in that situation. One will find reason why one has to secure oneself in that situation. One will rationalize. This rationalizing, this is the whole build up of the ego. One will build an elaborate system of why you need to hang onto yourself, a whole complex of thinking.