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Instructions for Disassembly
Aug. 18th, 2008 10:09 amIf we take a motor car, we feel quite sure about what we have . . . until we start taking it apart. But once we have . . . taken out the gearbox and transmission, removed the wheels and so on--what's left? We don't have a car any more, just a set of spare parts.
It is the same with a person. That too can be stripped down to its basic components . . . the so-called skandhas or "groups." There is 1. the category of the physical, which includes the body and its five senses; 2. that of feeling; 3. perception; 4. mental formations (impulses and emotions); and 5. consciousness or mind. When these groups of components come together in proper working order, the right conditions exist for the illusion of a self and a person to arise. But once they break down and go their separate ways--as at physical death, for instance--then that self or person cannot be found.
--John Snelling, in Elements of Buddhism, from Everyday Mind, edited by Jean Smith
Tricycle's Daily Dharma for August 17, 2008
It is the same with a person. That too can be stripped down to its basic components . . . the so-called skandhas or "groups." There is 1. the category of the physical, which includes the body and its five senses; 2. that of feeling; 3. perception; 4. mental formations (impulses and emotions); and 5. consciousness or mind. When these groups of components come together in proper working order, the right conditions exist for the illusion of a self and a person to arise. But once they break down and go their separate ways--as at physical death, for instance--then that self or person cannot be found.
--John Snelling, in Elements of Buddhism, from Everyday Mind, edited by Jean Smith
Tricycle's Daily Dharma for August 17, 2008
