An ordinary person identifies their self with the five aggregates and suffers anxiety when the aggregates change. But a noble disciple, free of such identification, does not suffer.At Sāvatthī. “Mendicants, I will teach you how grasping leads to anxiety, and how not grasping leads to freedom from anxiety. Listen and pay close attention, I will speak. And how does grasping lead to anxiety? It’s when an uneducated ordinary person regards form like this: ‘This is mine, I am this, this is my self. [Read More]

An ordinary person identifies their self with the five aggregates and suffers anxiety when the aggregates change. But a noble disciple, free of such identification, does not suffer.At Sāvatthī. “Mendicants, I will teach you how grasping leads to anxiety, and how not grasping leads to freedom from anxiety. Listen and pay close attention, I will speak.” “Yes, sir,” they replied. The Buddha said this: “And how does grasping lead to anxiety? [Read More]

A mendicant should develop immersion (samādhi) in order to truly understand the origin and ending of the five aggregates.So I have heard. At Sāvatthī. “Mendicants, develop immersion. A mendicant who has immersion truly understands. What do they truly understand? The origin and ending of form, feeling, perception, choices, and consciousness. And what is the origin of form, feeling, perception, choices, and consciousness? It’s when a mendicant approves, welcomes, and keeps clinging. [Read More]

The householder Hāliddakāni approaches the Venerable Mahākaccāna in the Avanti country and asks how to understand a passage on liberation from “The Questions of Sakka” (see MN 37 and DN 21). Mahākaccāna explains it in terms of freedom from attachment to the aggregates.So I have heard. At one time Venerable Mahākaccāna was staying in the land of the Avantis near Kuraraghara on Steep Mountain. Then the householder Hāliddikāni went up to Venerable Mahākaccāna … and asked him, “Sir, this was said by the Buddha in ‘The Questions of Sakka’: ‘Those ascetics and brahmins who are freed due to the ending of craving have reached the ultimate goal, the ultimate sanctuary, the ultimate spiritual life, the ultimate end, and are best among gods and humans. [Read More]