In the daily sutta of today, we read the SN 22.95, and the poem part of the sutta is like this:
Form is like a lump of foam,
Feeling like a water bubble;
Perception is like a mirage,
Volitions like a plantain trunk,
And consciousness like an illusion,
So explained the Kinsman of the Sun.
I was wondering if these comparisons “Form is like…” were made as particular similes or are just more general similes for the same idea — being void, hollow, unsubstantial.
What I mean is is there any characteristic of a “lump of foam” specific to form, a “water bubble” specific to feeling etc. or the verse could also be like “Perception is like an illusion”?
You might find an answer in the commentary to that sutta. Unfortunately there is no published translation I am aware of. (Remember not to post AI translations here.)
Yes, or if the similes have specific characteristics for each specific aggregate. Like, what does a lump of foam tell about form that the water bubble can’t.
Can you provide an explanation of the commentary? Tried to find myself in that tool, but I was very lost.
The center column is the sutta (AKA root text). The bold parts in the right column match exact phrases in the sutta. The rest in the right column is the commentary on those passages.
And of course you can click on the words to bring up definitions.
As you can see, the sutta itself does not do much to explain the precise relationship between the aggregates and their illustration in the simile. The commentary will probably give you some opinions. And you will likely get some from folks here too.
You could also check the CIPS to see if the objects are used elsewhere to describe the same or different thing. For example a mirage is also used to describe the world in Dhp170.
This is gold! That settles it. It is outstanding the ability of the Buddha to find and exposes such complex similes to talk about such a complex subject!
Form is like a lump of foam because not only is the body just a phenomena with its own growth, change & decay but it also is floating down the river or down the stream of life to its inevitable end. Where as feeling is like a water bubble growing and then popping with each sense contact.
Yes, the similes are specific to each aggregate to highlight the salient character of each aggregate. Therefore, while the lump of foam undergoes many changes on its journey down the river, the lump of foam maintains a degree of continuity throughout its journey until its final end. For example, the physical scars on my body from childhood will remain on my body until the body ends its life and disintegrates. Therefore, form, despite its changes, has some continuity. But feelings are arising & bursting with each sense contact throughout life.
Therefore, there is one salient form/body floating down the river for a number of years during a single life time; while there are billions of feelings growing & popping like water bubbles throughout a single lifetime. I suggest to read SN 12.61, which says:
This body made up of the four principal states is seen to last for a year, or for two, three, four, five, ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, or a hundred years, or even longer.
But that which is called ‘mind’ and also ‘sentience’ and also ‘consciousness’ arises as one thing and ceases as another all day and all night. It’s like a monkey moving through the forest. It grabs hold of one branch, lets it go, and grabs another; then it lets that go and grabs yet another. In the same way, that which is called ‘mind’ and also ‘sentience’ and also ‘consciousness’ arises as one thing and ceases as another all day and all night.
SN 12.61
These commentaries have some valid points but they also often miss the mark of the teaching in SN 22.95. For example, the teaching of the tree is referring to a tree with no pith or no hardwood/heartwood core.
Suppose there was a person in need of heartwood. Wandering in search of heartwood, they’d take a sharp axe and enter a forest. There they’d see a big banana tree, straight and young and grown free of defects. They’d cut it down at the base, cut off the top, and unroll the coiled sheaths. But they wouldn’t even find sapwood, much less heartwood. And a person with clear eyes would see it and contemplate it, examining it carefully. And it would appear to them as completely vacuous, hollow, and insubstantial. For what core could there be in a banana tree?
SN 22.95
Its best to think about the similes for oneself rather than copying & pasting Theravada commentaries, because it ends up becoming like how the lineage of Brahmin Teachers are described in MN 95.
I like Dhammanando’s direct reference material from which I quote a part
188
Spk: One evening, while dwelling in that abode, Blessed One came out from his fragrant cottage and down by the bank of the Ganges. He saw a great lump foam coming downstream and thought, “I will give Dhamma talk relating to the five aggregates.” Then addressed the bhikkhus sitting around him.
I want to attempt to capture the Buddha’s experience of formulating a thought:
The foam, which is a temporary collection of air bubbles collected in a frothing of layers inspired the Buddha with another way to address the matter of aggregates - those things that are aggregated together to describe experience → mind → memory, because at the time mind was synonymous with memory, and Buddha’s expertise was his familiarity with the nature of mind.
At the moment of seeing the foam it was suddenly valuable as analogous to the some processes in mind, but I do not think that the following is a fair result from that inspiration:
Form is like a lump of foam,
Feeling like a water bubble;
Perception is like a mirage,
Volitions like a plantain trunk,
And consciousness like an illusion
the aggregates are listed as
Form (rūpa) · Feeling (vedanā) · Perception (saññā) · Mental Formations (saṅkhārā) · Consciousness (viññāṇa). - these translate well to the biophysics of brain mind if we take Form to represent any physical aspect of reality that may be sensed as well as any recalled memory. Feeling would represent the sum of all momentary active mental contents both from memory and currently being sensed - i.e. the total experiential mandala of now. Perception would represent what would reflexively emerge in mind - associations from memory triggered by salient aspects among the feelings - Perception is the knowing or the familiarity that a being has from the feelings he/she feels. Mental Formations expanded as volitions in Moxu’s quote are chains of reflexes or associations that continue from one moment to the next as in movement arcs, or learned activities. Consciousness summarizes all of these things but is not a physical object, it is an aggregate of the right contemplation upon mind and mental contents through time.
I realize this is not a scholarly response, but it is a contemplative one
What would happen if this was the very first teaching on the five aggregates you encountered? Would you read back onto the similes that their figurative language is likely indicative of something else you know about the five aggregates? Or how else might you approach the descriptions? It’s an interesting passage, thanks for bringing it up.
@Meggers
I think the 5 aggregates is a reasonable approach to an open-ended understanding about ongoing conscious experiencing.
The Buddha’s personal magnetism and confidently clear familiarity with mind, mental processes, people, and life in general could take an instance of natural foam forming on a flowing river and through that inspiration, project a recognizable reflection of the process of consciousness, in which immaterial contents can foam up and resonate and persist to become forms with the same reality as solid forms in life.
Perhaps it is an echo of form is emptiness and emptiness form, but with the river metaphor, we also get the aspect of change motivating everything, both the foam and the rest of the body of water.
Thanks for thinking I brought it up, I am sure it was part of an earlier comment. I was just going with the flow.
As a first teaching, really, this is still the first teaching, we are thankfully involved in beginners mind; and my words are just foam as well.
Thanks. Actually I meant if you approached the passage as the first teaching you’d ever heard and that was all Buddha said. Just those five lines. But you made me realize that water wasn’t including in my thinking about foam until the simile for feeling brought it in. And I reflected on the two together in the context of other teachings on the five aggregates.
