So let’s assume the intention to practice has arisen, then I do some satipatthana practice. Is it the aggregates “doing” the satipatthana, aggregates observing other aggregates?
It’s aggregates observing aggregates except for the section on mind. That’s about citta, not viññāṇa. Personally I think the EBT support momentariness, so it’s new aggregates all the time. Even if we discard that though, it’s just aggregates being being paid attention to (bar viññāṇa). Unless of course you take the commentarial view that viññāṇa and citta are the same thing. Then it’s all of the aggregates.
I think that who or what is the unconscious processing done by the brain. Thinking and obsessions are done by the unconscious. How much of a role consciousness plays can be debated, but I think we overlook these unconscious processes. Since we think of the aggregates as things we are aware of, we loose sight of them, but they are arguably the “missing” element of the five aggregates and a big part, if not the source of our confusion over self. I think self is the brain’s representation of itself.
Added later: I wonder if vicara is supposed to be unconscious involuntary thought that occasionally makes itself known to consciousness as flashes of insight or recall of memories and associations. Perhaps, it is part of perception though we do not think of it as such.
Which you’ve been told 3 times now by 3 different people that
seeing myself as just the aggregates
is not the Buddha’s teaching, which you either intentionally ignore or for some reason not able to understand.
If you truly want to understand the Buddha’s teaching, I would resolve this misunderstanding first and foremost before judging the dhamma based on a misunderstanding, and talking about other dhamma topics.
If you’re going to reject the dhamma, then reject it as it really is, at least on a theoretical level, and not as you want it to be.
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I think as others have pointed out, you are missing the point of Buddhism. As the commenter above me says, the fact that you say Buddhism says I am the 5 aggregates shows that you may be missing the point.
Buddhism isn’t about finding a self, nor is it about denying a self (in my opinion). It’s about letting go of all our attempts to find happiness in this or that view, in this or that doctrine. It’s about the fact that our search for happiness is misguided, and ends up only bringing us more unhappiness.
I understand this arrow to be craving, desire, etc. The goal of Buddhism is to pull out this arrow, and when you do, “you don’t run, you don’t sink”.
Craving is insatiable. No matter how much you try to satisfy it, it will always want more. This is why in Buddhism, trying to satisfy that craving, thinking that is the key to happiness, is how we end up entangled in unhappiness.
The question is, if you aren’t convinced of rebirth, then why would an eternal self as taught in Advaita be any more convincing? It seems what you are looking for is eternal existence. When I started my spiritual journey, I started with Buddhism, but found it unsatisfying. I went through Shaivism, Advaita, Christianity, and so on, all in the hope of finding this eternal self. The more I got into philosophy, the more I realized I would never be able to prove such a thing, even if it exists. Epistemically, I am limited, and I can never have 100% certainty on anything.
Ultimately I came to the conclusion that putting all my hope on something I can never be certain of was pointless. It was also taking up a lot of my energy, trying to prove to myself something I just can’t prove. Then, suddenly, Buddhism made sense to me. The “arrow in the heart, so very hard to see,” was causing me to run here and there, but to no avail. Suddenly it made sense, I was trying to satisfy the unsatisfiable.
Anyways, I don’t want to ramble on for too long. If you choose to follow Advaita, go ahead, if that is what will bring you happiness. I personally didn’t find Advaita very convincing, but who’s to say that I’m right?
With Metta.
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I don’t understand it. The only Buddhist answers that make sense to the question of “what am I?” is either a.) we are the aggregates or b.) there is something more to us than the aggregates that can exist independently of them. I really cannot imagine any answer being so different from either “a” or “b” such that it could be its own answer.
There is a third response that Buddhists sometimes give which is c.) asking “what am I?” only brings suffering. But that’s not an answer, its choosing to not engage with the question for the purpose of being happy. And what’s more, I don’t think its even a satisfying way to be happy! Its basically saying “out of sight, out of mind”.
And another response that could be given is d.) the question “what am I?” is ill conceived because, if you go looking for it, you won’t find a “what” that is static and unchanging. But this isn’t any different from answer “a” because it’s kind of a given that the aggregates are always in flux.
Do you have another answer?
According to the dhamma, you are not anything. But if you must squeeze a self into something, then the most proximate self would be the 3 poisons (greed, hatred, delusion), which taint the aggregates. When those 3 poisons are destroyed, then you are not anything, and “you” no longer produce kamma. You could say the 5 aggregates are the car/vehicle, and the 3 poisons are the agency.
The 3 poisons produce kamma, without the 3 poisons the aggregates do not produce kamma. I remember a sutta where the Buddha says that there’s only one thing you actually carry with you, and that"s kamma, which comes from the 3 poisons.
But again, the truth is that the 3 poisons are also not self, but if you must identify with anything, it should be the 3 poisons. It’s still delusion, but less so than identifying with the aggregates.
DN9 for example talks about the 3 acquisitions of a self (material, fine material, and formless), which of course come from the 3 poisons.
Potthapada, there are these three acquisitions of a self: the gross acquisition of a self, the mind-made acquisition of a self, and the formless acquisition of a self. [9] And what is the gross acquisition of a self? Possessed of form, made up of the four great existents, feeding on physical food: this is the gross acquisition of a self. And what is the mind-made acquisition of a self? Possessed of form, mind-made, complete in all its parts, not inferior in its faculties: this is the mind-made acquisition of a self. And what is the formless acquisition of a self? Formless and made of perception: this is the formless acquisition of a self.
"I teach the Dhamma for the abandoning of the gross acquisition of a self, such that, when you practice it, defiling mental qualities will be abandoned, bright mental qualities will grow, and you will enter & remain in the culmination & abundance of discernment, having known & realized it for yourself in the here & now. If the thought should occur to you that, when defiling mental qualities are abandoned and bright mental qualities have grown, and one enters & remains in the culmination & abundance of discernment, having known & realized it for oneself in the here & now, one’s abiding is stressful/painful, you should not see it in that way. When defiling mental qualities are abandoned and bright mental qualities have grown, and one enters & remains in the culmination & abundance of discernment, having known & realized it for oneself in the here & now, there is joy, rapture, serenity, mindfulness, alertness, and a pleasant/happy abiding.
Sutta formula repeats for the other two acquisitions of self.
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Why is that?
It seems to me this is basically answer “d” from my above post.
Because a “self” is a concept, and concepts aren’t tangible things. Concepts describe things, they aren’t the thing. It’s confusing the map for the territory. When you look at a map, do you say this is the land? No. It’s a piece of paper with an idea of the land, it’s not the land itself.
Realistically a stranger and your own child/parent are the exact same thing, but because the child/parent has a relationship and orbits your fabricated “self” you are disturbed when they die, but not when that other flesh bag of water and blood dies which you label “stranger”. So the concept of self which you apply to reality (5 aggregates) is causing craving and suffering.
2,500 years of philosophy, and to this day philosophers still argue about how to define consciousness. 2,500 years of philosophy, and philosophers still don’t agree what self is. Buddhism says forget that, and just focus on the how.
The fact that there isn’t a satisfying answer is not the Buddha’s fault. Human beings are limited, and although we’ve made a lot of progress, there is still so much that lies beyond our horizon. What doesn’t lie beyond our horizon, however, is experience. We can observe experience directly. We can gain insight into how it works. We can make the necessary changes, and hopefully eventually go beyond it.
Again, you want an answer that I’m not sure even exists. I’m not saying “the self doesn’t exist therefore you are chasing a phantom”. What I’m saying is that philosophers and scientists don’t agree about what self is, if there even is a self, what consciousness is, etc. One the of questions the Buddha was always asked was, “is the universe eternal or not?” and well, unsurprisingly, to this day people are arguing about whether time is eternal or not, does everything exist eternally or not, is the universe infinite or not, and so on.
For me, it’s not a matter of “out of sight, out of mind,” I actually find philosophy very interesting, and I love reading various answers to these questions. The question is, should I expect happiness from any one answer? should I cling to any one answer? The problem isn’t the question, it’s the attitude towards the answer.
As always, I do apologize for the long post.
With Metta.
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What about the Brahmaviharas? If we are just concepts, how can I have compassion for someone else?
I think you are confusing subjective experience with personal identity. Subjective experience is not denied. Its identity, essence that is not found. Since everything is constantly changing, it is selfless. But there is still subjective experience, and there is causal continuity. The reason the path is possible at all is because there is not identity. If there was identity, it would not be changeable. Because it is changeable, because it is impermanent, the path is possible.
I hope this makes sense.
With metta.
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I added more to my post for clarification, but I’ll repeat it.
The only reason you are distraught when your body dies over a stranger’s body dying is because you mistake the concept of self for reality. If you didn’t have identity view, you would be equanimous to your own body as you would a stranger’s body, i.e. unaffected by a stranger’s death.
The purpose of Brahmaviharas is to get rid of the hatred poison which is also craving. Hatred poison is craving for things to be removed or cease from your experience, whereas Greed poison is craving for things to arise or stay in your experience. Hence you crave for your child to not die, and you crave for your enemy to die, therefore the purpose of compassion is once again to remove the self and treat your body like you would a strangers, neither craving for or against.
So the concept of self, when confused for reality, also known as delusion, results in hatred and greed.
Meditate like water. For when you meditate like water, pleasant and unpleasant contacts will not occupy your mind. Suppose they were to wash both clean and unclean things in the water, like feces, urine, spit, pus, and blood. The water isn’t horrified, repelled, and disgusted because of this. In the same way, meditate like water. For when you meditate like water, pleasant and unpleasant contacts will not occupy your mind.
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The “person” is designated dependently upon the aggregates. Does that help?
There is no objective “who” or “what.” We could say the processes/conditions of the consciousness aggregate observes and discerns but, in fact, the five aggregates are not entirely separate from each other.
In Dependent Origination, the entire process of coming into existence, birth, old age, and death all arise and cease without a self, “who”, or “what” mentioned anywhere in the suttas that teach about DO nor about Dependent Liberation, such as SN12.23.
Same for the 4NTs.
It may feel like there’s an unchanging awareness, and the consciousness aggregate can be aware of it’s own processes – but there’s no who or what in any of these teachings.
With respect and metta
I didn’t say I want that. I agree with the Buddha that clinging causes suffering and, through meditation, I have found a joy and peace that increases my confidence in the Buddha. I don’t want to be caught in samsara forever; what I want is to experience nibbana forever. But there doesn’t seem to be anyway for that to happen so its the anxiety that I will no longer experience the bliss of nibbana that causes me angst.
As the Buddha said, what is impermanent is suffering and it seems that our experience of Nibbana is impermanent since it ends with our death (after enlightenment).
Ah, one thing you can be rest assured then. Nibbana is permanent, not suffering, and also not self.
The deathless.
It’s a bit simplistic to think of nibbana as the eternal heaven of Christianity.
If you had seen “the good place”, season 4, the last few episodes describes why eternal heaven of the Christian imagination is still suffering.
The people in the good place (heaven) enjoy all sorts of sensual pleasures etc until they got fed up with it. After they did everything, experienced everything, there’s still more time. Infinitely more time. They experienced everything again and again. Until nothing is awesome anymore.
They created a way out then. A sort of gate
where people who walk through are gone. It’s a very crude analogy to nibbana, but still it shows that any form of existence whatsoever, even eternal heaven is also subject to change, thus suffering. Nibbana is always superior to any sort of heaven.
You see the arahants, they enjoy nibbana in the here and now for being freed from the 3 poisons. If they have the ability to go into the cessation of perception and feelings, they might wish to go there to just hang out and take a break from the physical part of samsara. It’s the pleasant dwelling here and now for them. Also the Jhānas for them is a place to hang out too. The sutta said it’s like workers who had done their job, just waiting for salary.
The sutta which describes the better kind of happiness is a good thing to analyse, investigate, and internalize as well.
From sensual pleasures, to the first jhāna, vastly different sort of happiness. Jhāna happiness is better. Then 2nd jhāna happiness, then 3rd jhāna, where joy disappears! That’s strange, no joy is better happiness than joy!
Then 4th Jhāna where even pleasant feelings is gone, only neither pleasant nor unpleasant feeling is left. That’s even a superior happiness. That’s very strange for the common people.
Then the formless attainments one by one up until neither perception nor non perception. Then even better happiness is one where feelings is no more, ceased. That’s profound, deep. Because if any sort of feelings are left whatsoever, there’s also the potential for it to change, thus it’s impermanent, and subject to suffering.
Cessation of perception and feelings absorption is temporary, the arahant has to emerge from it again, but parinnibbana is permanent.
Another analogy for what is nibbana is a frog meeting a fish in the pond. The fish asked what’s land like, can you swim through it? Can you drink it for air? Is it wet? Can you go up and down through it? Frog has to answer no for all those questions.
Then fish said, land is nothing. Frog cannot describe the concepts of nibbana well to the people in the pond (samsara).
Ok, yes, this last analogy seems to give one some form of hope of some form of eternal thing leftover in parinibbana. But that’s counterproductive. It’s just that it’s not easy to imagine what nibbana is, without at least being a stream winner who can see the water in the well, or arahant who can actually taste it.
The delusion of self itself would try to construct the better version of nibbana to perpetuate it’s own existence as the delusion of self has the mandate of self preservation. If we tell you that in Nibbana the delusion of self is gone, that delusion of self will struggle a lot, might even lose interest in wanting Nibbana. It’s deluded into thinking that happiness can only come when there’s a self concept to enjoy it. It doesn’t see that it’s exactly because of the delusion of self that suffering comes about. This is not annihilation. There never was a self to begin with and the delusion of self itself is not a self. It just feels like annihilation because you still don’t see that the delusion of self is not a self.
That’s part of the path then, to be able to coax the delusion of self to want Nibbana in order to walk the noble 8fold path until it’s weaken sufficiently to be able to be happy to disappear for true, eternal happiness to remain (or for suffering to end.)
Now I sort of see the wisdom of the Buddha, why it was so hard for people to understand Nibbana.
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Firstly, thank you for engaging with me and putting so much time and effort into your responses. I appreciate it.
As for your explanation of final nibbana… I have a hard time discerning the difference between it and simply having no conscious experience at all. In conventional terms, I just see it as permanent death.
Furthermore, the logic is entirely dependent on human anatomy. Emotions have their basis in physiology. The more we experience a certain kind of sensation or emotion, the more our brains become acclimated and thus, in a sense, immune to that level of stimulation. This is why addiction is so dangerous: we keep needing more and more of a thing to achieve the same level of satisfaction.
But our brains also have the ability to “reset”. Thats why we can enjoy something for a time and then come back to it later and enjoy it just as much.
And then of course, everyone has different physiologies so that one thing which is pleasurable to one person is not as pleasurable to the next.
All of that to say… I don’t think it’s crazy to suggest supreme bliss could be experienced in a much different way. It might be possible to enjoy something for eternity.
That’s an oxymoron! 
This is why
The experience of Nibbana requires a person to irrevocably break the final fetter of ‘I am’. (SN22.89)
Unless there is no ‘I’ left, Nibbana can’t be experienced. (duh!)
When there is no ‘I’ left and Nibbana is experienced, its not the ‘I’ that knows the experience.
So, this anxiety is groundless. 
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Even though these venerables use Buddhist terminology, what this boils down to is the old brahmanic idea of vimoksha. Reverting back to the original mindless, bodiless spirit. It doesn’t matter what you call it, spirit/brahman/atma/consciousness without feature etc, it’s the same idea. In this view, wheel of samsara becomes a wheel of embodiment and enmindment. I think the Blessed One taught ‘jati’ , a subtly different idea.
I think the mistake here is misunderstanding the peacefulness/detachment of higher mind states for the third Noble Truth. Even peacefulness of higher mind states including all other associated dhammas come under the first Noble Truth.
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