The Five Aggregates From the time that I knew I had OCD, I have had a keen interest in things like psychology and how the mind works. I have read many popular self-help books, most of which were about the benefits of positive mental attitude. These have been very helpful to me and I would say that they are partly responsible for keeping me on the straight and narrow all these years.

There is also much that Buddhism can offer to the student of the mind. 2500 years ago, the Buddha categorised human experience into five divisions or "aggregates". The study of these can lead to insights which may help us in our quest to reduce our stresses. In brief, the five aggregates are our:

1. bodies (our physical manifestation)
2. feelings (our pleasant, unpleasant or neutral sensations)
3. perceptions (our memory and our ability to identify objects)
4. mental formations (our ability to form complex ideas and mental objects)
5. consciousness (our ability to note things as they happen around us)

Buddhists believe that the key to easing stress in our lives is in our relationships to each of these aggregates. The more we identify with them as being synonymous with our "selves", the more we are subject to stress and suffering. For example, our bodies will grow old with time. If we cling to our body and think of it as a constant, immutable possession of ours, we will end up causing anxiety for ourselves sooner or later.

The same goes for the other four aggregates. If we cling to them by thinking of them as unchanging phenomena, then we experience stress when they inevitably do change. Everything changes, it is a law of nature. If we look all around us, things are in a constant state of change and flux, from the four seasons to the birth and death of people.

As an OCD sufferer, I know all too well how this process of clinging causes immense stress. When I have an obssession, I cling to a mental object and do not let go of it. It is only after maybe doing a compulsion that I loosen my grip on the object. This object can be the thought of contamination or it could be a fear that I've harmed someone. The mind clings on and won't let go.

The Buddha refers to the idea of clinging-aggregates when talking about that which causes us stress and suffering in our lives. The following quote is taken from the first discourse given by the Buddha and it is very important because it defines the first of Four Noble Truths which form the cornerstones of Buddhist practice.

"Now this, monks, is the noble truth of stress: Birth is stressful, aging is stressful, death is stressful; sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, & despair are stressful; association with the unbeloved is stressful, separation from the loved is stressful, not getting what is wanted is stressful. In short, the five clinging-aggregates are stressful."

- Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta (SN LVI.11)

  ¶ 8:19 PM