Five aggregates
Notes from training weekend two
In the name of God, the Most Compassionate, the Most Merciful.
A storm is on the way. 90 mile an hour winds are expected in the morning, so I'm driving up to Bristol now, after my Friday night class, for training weekend number 3.
It's half past midnight, I'm writing this at a service station just outside Bristol while my horse is feeding (my car is charging). It's dark and windy and raining, and there's only one other car charging under the quiet glowing hum of the car chargers.
I didn't write a post after the previous weekend. I was pretty exhausted. We had our first group inquiry session - a deliberately totally unstructured discussion session - which was unexpectedly full of friction and big emotions. I think it was unexpected for me because the first weekend felt so blissful and transcendent, yet the session heavily featured reactivity, misunderstanding and resentment. A good reminder that, yes, we're a room full of spirits, witnesses to the Divine, but also a room full of egos, caught in long embodied patterns.
One of the talks at the last weekend was on the five aggregates - processes we can observe in ourselves. They're called aggregates because they are in themselves bundles of things, not a single thing, and possess no inherent, independent reality. My understanding is that these are:
body;
consciousness;
perception;
vedana (instinctive responses to the environment);
sanskaras (volitional tendencies - deeply ingrained habits that we get caught up in).
I started off thinking we were talking about the nafs, the ego. But then it seems we're talking about the heart too. And all of it is embodied - all of them are happening in the body, right now, observable. They are all just inseperable dimensions of the same 'thing'.
As explained by Imam al-Ghazali in The Marvels of the Heart, the intellect, the heart, the soul and the spirit all have their own definitions, and all share in common having a second definition of being
a subtle tenuous substance of an ethereal spiritual sort (latifa rabbaniyya ruhaniyya), which is connected with the physical heart. This subtle tenuous substance is the real essence of man.
It's interesting to look at this alongside the Buddhist idea. 'Both the Theravada and Mahayana traditions assert that the nature of all aggregates is intrinsically empty of independent existence and that these aggregates do not constitute a "self" of any kind.' (Wikipedia)
There's a lot to say about intrinsic emptiness of independent existence, but I don't think I'm the one to say it. And it seems like the more important thing is to experience it and to know it.
I'm glad to be taking classes, at the same time as I'm taking this course, that are gently but unapologetically directive about the kind of good character I want to embody - how I want my heart to be. One of my takeaways from tonight's class on Imam al Haddad's Book of Assistance was about how we build and keep good relationships with our relatives and neighbours. We aim to be gentle and kind, going against our grasping lower selves. Rasul Allah peace be upon him taught:
None of you has true faith until he loves for his brother what he loves for himself.*
It sounds so elementary - the Golden Rule common to all traditions - but it's so important and, actually, very difficult for me to honestly say that I practice.
Ya Rab. I ask you to help me embody this teaching this weekend with my classmates - my sisters and brothers - in our group inquiry, in our practice therapy sessions, in the kitchen, at lunch. Let me honour and respect and welcome them the way I'd want to be honoured and respected and welcomed.
Bismillah.
*Anas ibn Malik reported: The Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, said, “None of you will have faith until he loves for his brother what he loves for himself.”
Source: Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 13, Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 45
Grade: Muttafaqun Alayhi (authenticity agreed upon) according to Al-Bukhari and Muslim