The 5 Skhandas. These are the aspects of the ego (self) to dissect so we can have a deeper dive. They're also called aggregates, meaning fragments of a whole. Let's check out these segments. The photos I chose below are random, but they are things that make a whole thing.

1. Form. This is the physical material existence, and the senses through which we perceive them. We have five senses of taste, touch, smell, sight, and sound. They are how we experience the world and gather information. The overwhelm of self-consciousness is noticing that you are a separate form (being) from everything else. It’s awkward, like a teenager trying to create an identity. We feel like we have to create a security because its uncomfortable being exposed as a separate entity, so begins the process of defining who we are. It’s all-consuming, so we end up forgetting our divine connection. It’s like we are watching ourselves from an external point of view, having this sense of subject (self) and object (other), and basically objectifying and identifying as this subject.

2. Feeling. This is about the sensations that arise in response to our experience. This is like the flavour of our experience. It's our way of grasping or having aversion or indifference to an experience. This isn’t emotion, but sensation, which is the conditioning factor of our reactions. Feelings are defensive and protective because we are led towards liking or disliking or being neutral towards experience. Good, bad, whatever...A bit like hot, sweet, and sour. The sensations of feeling create projections that we react to.

3. Perception. This is the recognising, labelling, catergorising, and remembering part of self. It is the mental process of interpreting information from our senses. This is the attaching of values to things and situations. It is the distinguishing characteristics of experience, kind of like an adjective in a sentence; a describing word. Perception creates concepts like time and place, ownership, self-image and identity, past and future, and value. It’s the concepts that cause the attachments. We end up being satisfied with our superficial perception because it was born from us and not imposed upon us. We have this internal narrative that makes our experience into a story and then stores it away for reference later. If we aren't mindful, then we can’t be open because we get limited by our preconceptions, which are stored up opinions. All of our ideas and opinions and language can be like a mirage, or a hallucination, where we think our story or perspective is real. Such is the classic example of "I'm not good enough", which is usually a rubbish statement. So we judge and react based on our impulsive perceptions.

4. Concept. This one has to do with thought, emotion, attitudes, habits, tendencies, intention and volition. This is the intellect at work here confirming and interpreting ourself. The ego needs to create a logic of security and confirms our story as being real. It seems like we don’t have an ego at all. It seems that our way of thinking is the right way. Conceptualising is the building blocks of mind states. Intention and volition (free will, or the act of choosing) is like a seed planted and our actions are the fruit. There is a space between thought and action. It is crucial to see how our mind leads us into an action to be able to understand our intention. Why do you want to shift your posture? Why are you eating more snacks? Why did you say that thing? What is compelling you to carry out your habits? This ongoing mental chit chat is like a narrative for our lives. Our minds construct the obstructions. we create a bigger ego when we identify with our constructions. Such as I’m hungry, I’m upset, this is my sadness, my laziness, my joy, this is my self-esteem. Take out the “me” and the “I” and then we just have the expressions arising, not belonging to anyone in particular. They don’t have to take root and make a home in our soul. Can we see our conditioning from our past experiences and see how emotions and thoughts trigger each other and colour our experience? Desire, lust, aversion, conceit, greed, happiness, excitement…. they’re all impermanent states that arise out of conditions.

5. Consciousness. This is the subjective sense of knowing. Your awareness of the previous four. Cognising. Knowing. It’s a mirror-like quality. It's like how the sun is always shining above the clouds regardless of how big the clouds are. Consciousness is always shining amidst the clouds of our moods. Moods colour our experience, but the the knowing faculty is the same regardless of the mood. Consciousness is like time, which is arising and passing continuously and simultaneously. Mindfulness refines our awareness of consciousness. Language conditions how we experience things. When we identify with anything, then we make this sense of self more concrete and it becomes the centre of our experience and we become very one-directional. If Consciousness is at the centre and the mental factors are are the edge of this spinning top of experience, then we can abide in the present and that is where spirit and openness and love are.

So.... Is this ego thing born from a mixture of nature and nurture? Or is it a malleable thing that can be shaped? Language is one of the tools that helps to shape it. In the last post on the ego, I said that it is the material we are working with, like the clay, and life is the shaping of the clay. So having a spiritual practice is to intentionally shape this self. It's the art. The final outcome being who we are, always a work in progress. No one is born an expert, because we all learn along the way.