The term Skandhas is often interpreted as “aggregates” or “heaps” but neither of those words are very helpful to Westerners. According to Red Pine, in his book, The Heart Sutra, the term skandha really refers to the trunk of a tree, or a pillar made of wood. In this context, the skandhas are aspects of experience that form the pillars of a “self” one believes in.

The skandhas then are points of view that are intimately connected to each other, and not in any way self subsistent or standalone aspects of reality. It is their interconnection that gives rise to the persistent notion of a self. The skandhas are:

• Form
• Sensation
• Perception
• Memory
• Consciousness

The world we view as the “outside” world is the world of Form. The other viewpoints we consider to come from within us. A little bit of creative thinking will quickly show that they are all interconnected. For example Perception is connected to form, the sensing of the outside world, our memories, the awareness that we are sensing something as well as our ideas about what is going on. All of these get factored into the recognition that the viewpoint of Perception implies.

Consciousness is worth a couple of comments, because it is the most likely to be identified with a self. Consciousness includes knowledge - that awareness which separates, divides, and discriminates. Consciousness includes the awareness which separates object from subject, and this object from that object. Consciousness as used in Buddhist scriptures is awareness, but always awareness of “something” such as form, perception, etc. Thus, sometimes Buddhist teachers will refer to “eye consciousness” which is not just physical sight, but the awareness of seeing.

The really important point about these points of view is that their rapid intertwining in the mind creates the notion of a separate self – something independent of everything that is thought to be “not-self.” There is a lot of stuff going on in people’s mind all the time, and that constant activity leads people to believe there must be a “real someone” stirring up or sourcing all that stuff. According to Buddhism, it’s just stuff happening – interdependent stuff. The basic conclusion or misdirection about the existence of an independent self is one of the fundamental causes of suffering.

In Buddhism, the skandhas are the soil of the endless conditioning that shapes our lives. Our beliefs are there. Our memories are there. The effects of past actions are there. All the admonitions of culture are there. This conditioning of experience can get so heavy it practically forecloses the opportunity to respond to life creatively – to do or think something other than what we’ve always done or thought before. Life with heavy conditioning becomes a painful mechanical drudge.

And now here’s the sting. This conditioning in a way becomes the “self” that we think we are, and the belief in this “self” reinforces the conditioning that causes this belief. As we cling to this conditioning to secure ourselves, we suffer the fate of one at the end of a hanging rope who is “secured” by the rope that snuffs the very living creativity out of him.

Part of the natural difficulty for humans is language. We can easily, and often to our great amusement, create words to abstract experience – both real and imaginary. The nature of words is that they have a tendency to make even imaginary things real in our minds – particularly in the absence of apparent contradiction. The word “I,” usefully used to designate a particular collection of ongoing mind activities, quickly settles into the thinking as something real and independent all by itself – to the point that it is almost never seriously questioned or examined again.

Buddhism’s use of the skandhas asks one to suspend judgment about the reality of an “I” behind what one experiences during consciousness. When I’ve suspended the normal immediate leap to conclusion about an “I” doing things, I’ve found all the skandhas in some form or fashion, but no “I” — just an ever changing flow of ideas, emotions, memories, feelings, etc. There is seeing, but the one who sees can’t be found. There is thinking, but the one who thinks cannot be found. There is hearing, but the one who hears cannot be found. Try it. It’s a bit spooky, but when you look for the “I” that is supposed to be doing these things, you find lots of activity flitting back and forth among all the viewpoints identified as skandhas. But you only find the thing that’s being done, never anyone or anything you can solidly identify as THE DOER, though it is the most natural and common assumption in the world that there is one.

There are Buddhist systems of thought which analyze these viewpoints in great detail, but in fact, the Buddha spent very little time discussing the skandhas in any depth at all. They are loosely defined, and mostly used to underscore the point that there is no personal independent self to be found in the world of individual experience. The Abhidamma details all the various aspects of the skandhas, levels of consciousness, and how they are all intertwined. The Abhidamma may be useful for a few, but it’s not essential Buddhism. The Buddha never emphasized that intricate detail. For those already naturally inclined to heavy conceptualization, the Abhidamma is probably much more of a hazard than a help. Not unexpectedly, some schools of Buddhism eventually embellished the rough concepts of the skandhas into refined ideas that contradicted the Buddha’s teaching.

Western psychology and philosophy generally start from the assumption of a self. And they try to helpfully manipulate the images that seem to control people so that people can obtain relief from some of the more painful ones they seem to be stuck with, and can embellish some that appear to offer more socially constructive wish fulfillment. Constructive fulfillment of wishes and a positively enhanced self image are generally assumed to be close to happiness itself. Buddhism starts with a different premise that the wishing doesn’t come from a self, and that fulfilled wishes and a fortified illusion won’t bring either freedom or permanent happiness.

The denial of an independent substantial self appears to threaten one with alienation and psychological annihilation. But I have found this threat to be hollow. Buddhism does NOT deny that there’s lots of stuff going on, or that it feels like a self, or claim that you have to destroy any of this stuff that forms the notion of an apparent self. It’s like watching a world class magician perform an astounding magic trick. One can completely enjoy the spectacle without believing in the independent reality of what the senses are registering. The question one asks is “How did they fool me?” rather than “How did they suspend the laws of physics?” One even enjoys emotions aroused by such illusions without becoming stuck by a need to do anything about them.

It is humbling in a sense to realize that a basic level I often don’t know why ideas arise or sometimes even “where” they might have come from. I can see decisions made in the face of informational uncertainty, and after-the-fact can often provide a plausible rationalization for them. But the reality is that I often cannot tell you until the moment of decision what that decision will be or exactly how I finally arrived there, though I can point to things that influenced it. I have no doubt though I would have another ready explanation for a different choice, if at that tipping point of decision, some other alternative had been selected.

The viewpoint that thoughts, feelings, emotions, memories, etc. arise without an “I” sourcing them actually brings considerable freedom. The first aspect of freedom is that the immediate identification with the prevailing thought, feeling, idea, etc. of the moment is broken. Space – an interval in time – is created between the thought and the cascade of follow-on thoughts and actions that precipitate quickly when I believe those thoughts to be me. That interval provides crucial potential for consideration of other information, consequences, etc. before acting. Just as important, the non-identification with the mind things arising often provides significant leverage in dealing the prevailing mind wind. The trance-like effect of what’s happening in one’s mind is seriously interrupted as long as one sees a mind event rather than a “me.”

The second aspect of freedom comes from the acceptance of much broader bands of information and feeling without being either intimidated or astounded by them. Sometimes thoughts flitting through one’s mind leave one almost shuddering with horror that they could be there. A normal reaction is to deny them, project them, repress them, or attempt to fling them back into the pit of a personal subconsciousness that they must have come from. Alternatively, indulgence of other thoughts have potential to catapult one into cosmic fantasies. But the reality is that one does not need to react much to this mind stuff at all. It’s just mind stuff – arising from who knows where – and soon sinking into oblivion unless it is given energy by means of attention, either positive or negative. There is no need to be horrified, intimidated, exalted, or awed by the stuff that occasionally goes on in one’s mind. One can just watch and experience its coming and going.

The third aspect of freedom is the freedom of not having to support the burden of an integrated “I.” The normal human being often tries desperately to make all the pieces of his mind, being, character, etc. fit into some whole picture or image of himself. And he does so at the price of huge blind spots where his actions and experience are heavily blurred or filtered to keep them from intruding into the picture of the “good” or “bad” person he has created and is maintaining. Aspects of his own character that are unacceptable are often projected onto other people – where he can flog them with disapprobation. Cherished aspects of the “I” character he’s created are carefully safeguarded from contrary information, sometimes by very stupendous rationalizations and distortions of memory. All of this falsity is a considerable tax on one’s energy and creativity. And it’s quite unnecessary because there is no integrated consistent “I” that has to be maintained. Rather the “I” of the skandhas is like a river – a continuous flow – normally within reasonably defined channels, but with potential (e.g., under flood conditions) to change course, wreak damage, or even cease to flow there. Use of conscious energy to observe this flow and perhaps influence it is a much wiser strategy than any refined effort at pretending that it is other than the changing, somewhat unpredictable current it is.

These aspects of freedom I’ve personally experienced. They’ve proved to be of considerable help, even at this conceptual level. I think, though, this understanding is not the gut level knowing of an undivided whole (resolution of self/non-self) that meditation can help one realize. The embedded “I” in the (I)dentifications of my life is rooted in personal psychology and habits that are not easily dislodged by mere ideas. It is this condition that meditative practice seeks to address by facilitating development of a more profound realization of truth that can finally put the matter to rest.