I recall passages, roughly, that demonstrate that one doesn’t ‘own’ or ‘control’ the khandha-s , notably in not being able to counteract aging, sickness, death.
Can someone remind me where such passages are found? (It would seem a rather complex notion to do algorithmic search on.)
A couple of weeks ago, Sayadaw Thuzana (at a weekend retreat dhamma-talk, Tathagata Meditation Center), mentioned the list of 3 “characteristics”, and for the 3rd he phrased it as something about being uncontrollable – i.e. not the usual no-self or not-self sort of expression.
I want to look more closely at such passages (but have a rather poor memory for exact citations).
The idea resembles the notion in Antonio Damasio’s hypotheses as to neurological construction of “self” functionality, where at the 2nd stage (of his three stages or levels: 1) primal self, 2) core self, and 3) autobiographical self) the aspects of agency, recognition of “ownership”, of control first emerge.
Damasio’s hypthotheses (in “Self Come to Mind: The Construction of the Conscious Brain”, 2010) have fascinated me as several aspects of his theories strikingly resemble notions elaborated in the Abhidhamma texts (i.e. phenomenological “deconstruction” of consciousness), though he has avowed (heard in a PBS interview) that he knows next to nothing of Buddhist thought.
(Please forgive bringing up Abhidhamma around here. It is, though, the Suttanta sources that I’m looking for.)