The All

     "Monks, I will teach you the All. Listen & pay close attention. I will speak."
     "As you say, lord," the monks responded. 

     The Blessed One said, "What is the All? Simply the eye & forms, ear & sounds, nose & aromas, tongue & flavors, body & tactile sensations, intellect & ideas. This, monks, is called the All. Anyone who would say, 'Repudiating this All, I will describe another,' if questioned on what exactly might be the grounds for his statement, would be unable to explain, and furthermore, would be put to grief. Why? Because it lies beyond range."

Sabba Sutta: The All SN 35.23 

Translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

There is this age-old question, “Who am I”. Philosophers, theologians and mystics have been trying to understand a rational answer tot his question since human beings first walked the earth. The Buddha answered this question with definitive clarity and yet we still refuse to see it as the complete truth.

Monotheism postulates a majestic god who is the creator of all things and this creator has a plan of sorts. No one has been able to clearly demonstrate this plan, but they claim there is a plan nonetheless. Fortunately, monotheism is a minority view. Only about three-sevenths of the world’s populations subscribe to it. The rest of the world is deist, polytheist, agnostic or atheist who see no grand plan or grand maker. It is indeed difficult for a person of the Western societies to understand that most of world does not subscribe to his views about deity.

The Buddha was non-theistic in his views. He taught that live has no inherent meaning, instead we ourselves bring meaning to life. The Buddha saw human experience for what it is. Most of us cannot, either because we are unwilling or unable to make the leap into reality. In the Sabba Sutta, the Buddha lays out the hard reality of how things are: there is no reality beyond human radical experience.

If someone were to ask us the question: "Who are you?" we would immediately respond by stating: "I am so and so." The name is but a label and it can be anything. We can also say: "I am a human being." By that we have only stated the species to which we belong. "I am a man or woman." This only affirms the sex of the person. "I am what’s her names daughter, sister, wife, mother," and so we go forth into the world. “I am a lawyer, engineer, retailer”, and on and on we identify a self. These describe relationships, but we have still not answered the question: "Who are you?" We produce the identity card to prove our identity, but the identity card shows only a picture of the body with the name label. Now we believe that we have satisfactorily answered the question: "Who are you?" Thus we identify ourselves with our bodies. When we say: "I am old. I am tall. I am fat. I am dark-haired." and a billion other adjectives are mined to describe what we think we are. 

What we really mean by all these words is that the body is tall or fat or dark haired. What we are doing is identifying the body as “I”. Moreover, we decorate the body in a thousand ways regarding it as our beautiful self, "Am I not beautiful in this shirt?" We regard the body as our personal precious possession — "my face, my hair, my teeth," etc. Thus it is very clear that we cling to the material body as our very own self. This “self identification” is so widely accepted and thorough that it has appropriated general linguistic usage. In words such as "somebody," "everybody," and "nobody," "body" is used in the sense of person.

The body is composed of the material elements of solidity (earth), cohesion (water), heat (fire), and motion (air). There is nothing of value in any of these elements. They are found abundantly in the external world, but we cling to this sack of matter as "I" and "mine."

The Buddha analyzed the body with objectivity under the magnification of mindfulness. He realized the true nature of the body and found that there is nothing in it that can be called beautiful. He suggested that we do the same thing. If we do we’ll find the body is composed of skin and meat, phlegm, saliva, blood, urine, gas and feces. This is all very repulsive stuff if you look at the component pieces. We generally consider eyes, hair, teeth, and nails beautiful. But what if you found hair or nails or a tooth or an eye in your soup the next time you eat out at a fine restaurant?  These parts are beautiful only in a particular context. Even the face of a beauty queen is rarely beautiful before she goes to wash up and apply makeup. It’s not really necessary to dwell on the devastation of old age and the decomposition of the body after death. Therefore the Buddha says that this body is a bag of filth, a burden to be discarded rather than clung to as "I" and "mine."

The Buddha defined the body, or "form," as that which gets re-formed and de-formed; it is afflicted with heat, cold, and insects. The body is but a body formation factory. Biology explains that the body is composed of billions and billions of cells, there are more cells in one human being than there are people on the planet, these cells are in a continuous process of growth and decay.

Look at it this way; we say that there is rain and use the noun "rain." But in actuality there is no "thing" called rain apart from the activity of raining. The process of drops of water falling from the sky is what we call rain. Even though we use the noun "rain," there is in reality only the activity of raining that better describes the event. Similarly, what we call the body is but a process of body formation; therefore the Buddha defines the noun "form" (rúpa) with its corresponding verb "forming" (ruppati). This process of body formation is perpetual and therefore in a state of unrest. Therefore form is looked upon as impermanent (anicca). In this changing process of body formation activity there is absolutely nothing that can be regarded as a self, an unchanging ego, an "I," a permanent soul. This means our identification with the body as self is a big delusion.

Whenever I think the teaching of the Buddha as found in the original Canon, I find it exceeds all the usual efforts to solve the spiritual quandaries of humanity. It is a consistent presentation of reality as it really is (yathabhuta) instead of the speculative intellectual paradigm of unity so often offered in the spiritual marketplace. The Buddha's Dhamma shuns any hypothesis advocating for an all-embracing absolute reality outside of mundane experience in which the anxieties of daily life dissolve in metaphysical wholeness or unfathomable and enigmatic emptiness. Instead the Dhamma leads us straight to authenticity as the ultimate realm of understanding reality “as it really is”.

Ultimately the Buddha ’s Dhamma takes directly us to the Four Noble Truths of dukkha, its origin, its cessation, and the way to its cessation as the unshackling declaration of things, actual phenomenal events as they are in reality. These four truths are “noble” because they are real, undeviating, and invariable (tatha, avitatha, anannatha). It is when we failure to face the reality of these truths that causes us to drift through endless samsara. In delving deeply into and penetrating these truths just as they are, can one accomplish goal of the spiritual quest:  ending suffering.

In the Sabba Sutta the Buddha puts forth the totality of reality as it is – the five senses. By extension, the Sutta infers that how we interpret the objects of the senses absolutely creates our experience of reality. The mechanism for this Interpretation is the five aggregates, the khandhas.

The aggregate of form (rūpakkhandha) is the same as the twenty-eight kinds of matter, whether past, present, future, internal, external, superior, inferior, gross, subtle, far or near mentioned in the Abhidhamma and refers to indications of movement, color, line, sound, taste, touch, smell and thought. It is not the object of the sense itself but only the indication that there is something sensed.

The aggregate of feeling (vedanākkhandha) is the same as the mental factor of feeling, whether past, present, future, internal, external, superior, inferior, gross, subtle, far or near. Feeling is limited to three: pleasant, not pleasant and neither pleasant nor not pleasant. Some contemporary teachers call these categories of feelings but the Buddha does not. He says flatly, these are the feelings. Feeling arises because of contact with an object of the senses. It is conditional based on craving. When we crave there is a pushing, aversion to things that are unpleasant, pulling, attraction to things that we desire are opposite and equal forces. If a person is attracted to something it is because he or she is feeling aversion to something else. Feelings isolate the body from the rest of the environment and give the body the sense of self. The Khandhasamyutta (Samyutta Nikaya 22.47) holds that the uninstructed man, being impressed by feelings produced through contact with ignorance, thinks "I am this (body)."

The aggregate of perception (saññākkhandha), which is the same as the mental factor of perception, whether past, present, future, internal, external, superior, inferior, gross, subtle, far or near. Our experience of perception is similar to simple pattern recognition. Information about forms and feelings come in through our senses. In a very short time we notice a recognizable pattern. The “mind” recognizes this pattern and suddenly there is something that we have sensed before. We can put a name to it. We do not recognize that which do not know. There is evidence that we do not even perceive objects if the pattern of the object is unrecognizable. Sañña in Pali is translated as perception or ideation. Perception is nothing but the act of perceiving. Thus it is a dynamic process, an activity. What does it perceive? It perceives\ colors such as blue, yellow, red, white, etc. This definition of sañña seems to imply that the linguistic ability of man is associated with sañña, the stories we tell ourselves.

The aggregate of mental formations (sańkārakkhandha), which, excluding feeling and perception, are the remaining fifty mental factors, whether past, present, future, internal, external, superior, inferior, gross, subtle, far or near. Formations are impermanent. (Samyutta Nikaya 1.158; Digha Nikaya 2.57).  This is the realm of kamma, volition. Because formations are kamma formed they are also in the realm of ignorance, the actions we would normally call good ones or altruistic ones. With formations as a condition there arises consciousness.

Our kammic activities involve in an endless process of preparation from womb to tomb. As infants we prepare ourselves for childhood, struggling and learning skills of locomotion and speech. As children we prepare ourselves for youth, and then we study various skills, arts, and sciences trying to become successful adults. Adults prepare for parenthood. At last in our old age too we do not give up preparation. We turn to religion in our old age to prepare for heaven. This same aspect of our personalities is expressed in different words as cetaná, intention, which in turn is said to comprise the moral force of kamma that propels life from birth to birth.

The aggregate of consciousness (viññāņakkhanda), equal to the eighty-one types of consciousness, whether past, present, future, internal, external, superior, inferior, gross, subtle, far or near. In the commentaries consciousness is sometimes synonymous with mind (mano) and sometimes stands alone as consciousness (viññā). Consciousness is defined as the act of becoming conscious of objects through the instrumentality of the sense faculties. Therefore there is eye-consciousness, ear consciousness, nose-consciousness, tongue-consciousness, body-consciousness, and mind-consciousness. This cognitive process takes place so rapidly and so continuously that we identify ourselves with the function of the sense faculties as: "I see, I hear, I smell, I taste, I feel, I think and imagine." According to the Buddha there is no I, ego, self, or soul who cognizes and enjoys these sense objects. Sense consciousness is but a causally produce phenomenon, dependent on sense faculties and sense objects. Each person's sense faculties are differently constituted. Some are blind, some have weak eyes, some have keen vision, some are deaf, some are short of hearing and some have sharp hearing. Because of the differences in structure of the sense faculties our cognitive capacity too is also different. The differences may be minor but they matter. Our sense experiences are also conditioned by our likes and dislikes, by our previous experiences and memories, by our aspirations and ambitions. We see what we want to see or fear most. It is true of all the senses. No matter how much we value sense experience as authentic, no two people will experience the same sense object in exactly the same way. For example, suppose that three people are watching a fight between two boys. If the three people happen to be a friend, an enemy, and a parent of one of those involved in the fight, the three people will have entirely different views regarding it.

The Buddha described conscious as,

“And what is consciousness, what is the origin of consciousness, what is the cessation of   consciousness, what is the way leading to the cessation of consciousness? There are these six classes of consciousness: eye-consciousness, ear-consciousness, nose-consciousness, tongue-consciousness, body-consciousness, mind-consciousness. With the arising of formations there is the arising of consciousness. With the cessation of formations there is the cessation of consciousness. The way leading to the cessation of consciousness is just this Noble Eightfold Path; that is, right view... right concentration.

"When a noble disciple has thus understood consciousness, the origin of consciousness, the cessation of consciousness, and the way leading to the cessation of consciousness... he here and now makes an end of suffering. In that way too a noble disciple is one of right view... and has arrived at this true Dhamma”

Majjhima Nikaya 9.57, 58

Conscious, then, is what brings all the other aggregates together and makes a “being” – a creature. In the arising of consciousness there is also arises of all our stress, desires and the myriad of moods we experience throughout the moment-to-moment experience of life.

In the Samyutta Nikaya (1.135) we find these intriguing verse.

Māra, the Evil One 

Who forms this creature? Who is the creature’s maker? 

Who is the arisen creature? Who is the creature that ceases? 

Vajjrā, the Nun

Why do you refer to “the creature”, Māra, are you involved in (wrong) view?

This is a pile of pure determinations; there is, here, no creature to be found.

Just as for an assemblage of parts there is a term “a chariot”, 

So, when there are aggregates, convention says “a creature”. 

It is merely suffering that comes into being, suffering that stands and disappears. 

Nothing apart from suffering comes into being, nothing other than suffering ceases.

This is a terrific example of the anattā (“no-self” or “no-essence”, literally, “no soul”) doctrine. To understand this doctrine we have to approach reality on two different levels: the transcendent level and the conventional level. The transcendent reality the anattā doctrine   denies any and all psychological entities inside a person. Ultimately all phenomena, including that being we call a person, are composed of elements, forces, and a stream of successive states. The aggregates are how the Buddha organized these groups. When all mental and physical phenomena are analyzed into those elements, no residual entity, such as a soul, self, or ego, can be found. In short, there are actions execut­ed by these groups, but no actor. The workings of these groups of forces and elements appear to us as an ego or personality, but in reality, the ego or self or agent of the actions has only an illusory existence.

On the conventional level, causal laws organize the workings of these forces, elements, and states. Even though they in no way constitute any non-phenomenal self or soul, they do produce a human individual, a person, if we really want to call a some combination of material and mental processes a person. This complex combination of material and mental processes is dependent entirely on previous processes, especially the continuity of kamma, the process of ethical choices and the results of those choices. Individual differences can easily be explained even though the self or ego or personality is denied in the ultimate sense.

An individual may be an angry, hot-tempered person, for example, because in the past he or she has performed actions that leave conditions for traits, which are kamma results, to arise in the present. This happens because kamma leaves a potential for those traits conducive to anger causing ill will to arise. This is not because any kind of self of the person is continu­ing, the fact is the human individual does not remain the same for two consecutive moments; everything is a succession of forces and elements, and there is nothing substantial. What we call a person is an event, an event that arises, lives and passes away only to arise again in a moment-to-moment process. On the conventional level, individual differences have only an illusory existence. Common everyday conceptions, such as ego, self, and personality, seem to be very real, obvious, and well delineated by psychologists and laymen alike, but they are illusory on the transcendent or “absolute” level as well as in the eyes of those who have achieved enlightenment.