The Five Skandhas
Examples from Life
Inspired by my rudimentary understanding of these complex Buddhist philosophies, here I list concrete examples of the five aggregates in practice. Some of these breakdowns are based on real life experiences of the author or expert sources, while others are hypothetical. Join me on an intellectual exercise.
It is important for understanding the skandhas to know that the first four–form, feelings, perception, and mental formations–are all physical and/or mental objects of knowledge that the fifth skandha, the six sense consciousnesses, comprehends. Often, we are not aware that these first four are happening until after the fact. This demonstrates the ignorance that pervades our everyday lives.
In an effort to destroy that ignorance, try to notice how the five aggregates arise in our lives’ continua. Let’s become more aware humans!
**Note that I am not an authoritative author on Buddhist philosophy or practice. Find expert sources on this site or beyond to learn more.**
Touching a Hot Stove
You touch a hot stovetop in your kitchen and it burns your hand. Breaking down your subjective experience into the five skandhas might look something like this:
Form: your hand makes contact with the hot metal surface
Feelings: unpleasant (negative)
Perception: It's hot metal.
Mental formations: The urge to move your hand rapidly off the stove arises. Your anger and pain cause your voice to shout an expletive, “F***!”
Consciousness: You become aware of the pain on your skin, think about who left the stove on, and judge how you are stupid for touching it. You become aware of the previous four skandhas to varying degrees.
Here, you likely noticed the whole event only after it happened, and not during. This points to our ignorance of these phenomena.
(Inspired by "Introduction to A New Approach to the Five Conditions/Skandhas" video with Sean Tetsudo Murphy)
Buying A Sandwich and Coffee
I get out of class early and find that there is no line at the Starbucks in the student center. I spend my gift card on a turkey pesto sandwich and a Grande mocha.
Form: I have a clear, unobstructed view of the Starbucks counter, walls, and the girl standing there behind the counter.
Perception: The logo, walls, counter, and uniform of the girl as well as my familiarity with the UMC (student center) is Starbucks, a food and beverage establishment.
Mental formations: From memory, I think how there is rarely no line at this busy Starbucks. I think: “Great, I can finally use that gift card my aunt sent me for Christmas!”
Consciousness: With my eyes, I see that there is no line. With my mind consciousness, I am aware of my memory of previous long lines and the verbal track about my gift card playing in my mind. With my body consciousness, I notice I am hungry.
Feelings: pleasant (positive)
This pleasant feeling leads me to purchase, eat, and drink the food and beverage. Those business people at Starbucks probably know more about the psychology of the skandhas than I do!
Language
Someone uses their words to tell me that I am invited to their pool party.
Form: The vocal cords in their throat move the air molecules which cause the air and water molecules inside my ears to vibrate.
Perception: My prior conditioning with the 21st century American English language discriminates those sounds from other sounds into meaningful concepts.
Mental Formations: The sounds are words and they say that I am invited to a pool party on Saturday at 2 in the afternoon.
Consciousness: I become aware of the sounds and their meaning.
Feeling: pleasant (positive)
This example is based on the understanding that we do not hear words, we hear sounds. It is through our conditioning in certain sound patterns and their conceptual associations that we know language.
(Inspired by Conversation with Dan Hirshberg on 13 March 2024)
Social Media Distraction
My phone buzzes while I’m trying to work on a project and I get distracted.
Form: Cell Phone sits on the desk next to the computer and the vibration nodes within it move back and forth to produce sound waves that move the molecules in the air, desk, and my ear.
Perception: It’s my phone that is buzzing, and it is an amusing entertainment device (I am conditioned to this point-of-view).
Feelings: Pleasant (positive)
Mental Formations: I conceptually think: “This assignment is boring. I’ll definitely do it later.”
Consciousness: I become aware of my mind saying: “This assignment is boring. I’ll definitely do it later.” My body consciousness is aware of my forearms buzzing, my ear consciousness is aware of the phone buzzing, and my eye consciousness is aware of the sight of the bright blue screen.
I end up spending an hour on YouTube. Procrastination is potent. Surely Apple, like Starbucks, knows the nature of the self and the nature of mind far better than I. Perhaps one day, if I have complete awareness of the five skandhas and 12 nidanas, I can have control over my distracting phone. Though, one would have to be a true master to break that habit.
Discussion
If we are mindful of what happens in our conscious experience of momentary events, we can notice a little bit of choice arising following the initial pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral feeling. It is right after the aggregate of feeling where we have a bit of choice to let causes come to fruition without creating more causes. Learning to recognize this flash of awareness and choice just after our base response to stimuli can help us be free from our cycle of unsatisfactory experiences.
Creating this exercise was quite taxing on my own analytical ability and understanding of what is happening as I go about my days. Given that I am not omniscient, I likely made some mistakes in trying to explain something which I barely comprehended. Despite this, it is definitely still worthwhile to try to become more aware of what exactly happens during our daily waking experience.
Thank you for reading!