Geshe la's Teaching: Sunday, 17 February 2008

It's difficult to over-estimate the importance of the five aggregates, and Geshe la's PowerPoint slide today was ample evidence of that fact.  We need to pay special attention to them in our meditations.  I have written on the aggregates previously, and so I will not repeat here what I said in that brief essay.  Click here if you'd like to reread it.  The important thing to remember is simply that what we typically recognize as our individual personalities--unified, whole--are in reality the five aggregates co-operating so seamlessly and quickly that their very separate and distinct operations only appear to be unified and whole.  It is only through meditation--having clarified our minds a bit--that we can observe the aggregates in action, working hand-in-hand, to fool us, and it is only then that we can begin to loosen our conception of the unified, inherently existing personality.

Geshe la's talk concerned, in short, the purpose of knowledge, the intention of philosophy.  In one way or another, he reminds us of this continually:  the purpose of knowledge is to remove negative thoughts and deeds.  Nothing more, nothing less.  Because our mistaken ways of thinking are so ingrained within us, Buddhist practice has a battery of techniques to help us correct those mistakes, and some of those techniques seem more suited to Americans than others.  We must make sure to build a firm foundation of fundamental knowledge about the structure of the mind before we become too involved with advanced practices. 

Americans who have some knowledge of Buddhism often want to move quickly into tantrayana, doing  the visualizations, reciting the mantras.  Geshe la often points out that a visualization of Chenrezig is only a projection of our minds.  The stronger our minds, the stronger our visualizations.  And so it is only by strengthening our minds through study and the acquisition of basic knowledge that we might strengthen our visualizations, if we decide to pursue the path of tantrayana. 

But for most of us, our minds are so poorly stocked with the necessary information that we shouldn't expect much from our visualizations.  Not yet, at least.  We have so much more to learn, and most importantly, have so much more to learn about how we apply what we learn to our daily lives, that the best thing we can do at this stage is to remember what Geshe la said on Sunday, and said emphatically:  "This is not about Buddhism, this is about life."

So we don't really have to worry about being Buddhists; we only have to try on a daily basis to apply to our lives what we take to be the truth--after a thorough examination of the material.  We move one step at a time, realizing that one, firm solid step is worth far more than five shakey ones.  Understanding will increase, as long as we are patient, and as long as we are honest with ourselves about our current situation.

Until we correct our general misconceptions about the world around us and within us, our problems will continue.  Again, one of the most effective ways to accomplish this is by meditating on the five aggregates.  When we do this over a long period of time, we become familiar with some of the core concepts of Geshe la's teachings:  dependent origination, cause and effect, gross level, subtle level, the origin of suffering, all of these are finally revealed through a careful consideration of the aggregates. 

Many advanced practitioners devote their lives to a consideration of the Four Immeasurables (equanimity, love, compassion, joy); so we can profitably spend a few months on the five aggregates.

Sidney Burris, Tibetan Cultural Institute of Arkansas