Corporeality, Sensation, Perception, Discriminations, and Consciousness.
The word Khandha may be variously translated as group, aggregation,
coagulation, formation.
The Khandhas do not represent _parts, pieces_ of the _I_-process, but
_phases, forms of development_, something like the shape, colour and
odour in a flower. An actual process, a proceeding of the nature of
combustion or alimentation, never can have any parts. It is only in
connection with dead products like a table, a chair, and so forth, that
one can speak of such; as also where one intentionally conceives of
things after this fashion with a definite end in view. From the purely
anatomical standpoint, the eye, the brain, the lungs, the liver, and so
forth in a corpse, are parts of the body. Truly speaking, in the living
person they are forms of development, since all have come forth from
one common root. One must keep firm hold of this if one makes claim to
think in terms of _actuality_.
“_Material_,” in contradistinction to matter, is that which is
specially worked up by an energy. “Matter in itself” is all as hollow
a figment of thought, projecting like a blind end out of actuality, as
is “force in itself.” Both are products of faith: the one pertaining
to science, the other to religions. _Actuality has no “substance,” no
“matter,” but only material_, _i.e._ matter worked up by energies;
it has no “force,” but only energies, _i.e._ forces apparelled,
substantialized, so to speak. Actuality always and everywhere is only
the unity of opposites--a process.
To allow one’s thought to occupy itself with a “force by itself,” or a
“substance by itself,” means to work with half actualities possessing
as much content of actuality as one side of a sheet of paper imagined
by itself. I assert that to think thus is an intellectual _breach of
discipline_.
Now the manner in which I represent myself corporeally, receive
sensations, acquire perceptions, exercise discriminations, become
conscious of things, is one peculiar to me and to me alone, a thing
unique. This means:--
_In every motion, corporeal as mental, physical as psychical, I am the
form of Kamma itself._
This fact, that every living being is wholly and entirely the
embodiment of his Kamma, is expressed by the Buddha in the word
“anattā,” not-self. All beings are “anattā,” but this does not in
any way mean, as science would fain make out, that they are all of a
purely re-actual nature. It only means that they do not conceal within
them a “force in itself,” a “constant in itself,” but are _out and out
processes of combustion, of alimentation_, such as cannot conceal any
“constant in itself,” since at every moment of their existence they
represent a fresh biological value, and hence hold nothing that could
possibly justify the notion of an _I_-identity, a genuine self.
“The body, O monks, is ‘anattā.’ If the body were the self (_attā_),
then this corporeal frame could not go to decay, and in this corporeal
frame, this wish of mine would find fulfilment: ‘Let my corporeal part
be thus! Let not my corporeal part be so!’ But, O monks, because the
corporeal is anattā, therefore does the corporeal go to decay, and the
wish, ‘Let my corporeal part be thus! Let not my corporeal part be so!’
does not find fulfilment.”[1]
Following the like scheme, the remaining four Khandhas are then dealt
with; and so, step by step, the idea of an _I_-identity is banished.
The Buddha conceives of the entire _actual_ world, _i.e._ the world of
self-sustaining processes as an infinitely large number of combustion
processes. Every being burns in virtue of a purely individual
_in-force_, Kamma.
This his world-conception is given by the Buddha in that famous
“Fire Sermon” which, shortly after the inauguration of his career of
activity as a teacher, he delivered to his followers on a hill in the
neighbourhood of Gayā. It is the “Sermon on the Mount” of Buddhism.
“All things, O monks, is a burning. And why, O monks, is all a burning?
The eye, O monks, is a burning. Visual consciousness [that is, the
conscious representation that results in virtue of visual impressions]
is a burning. Visual contact [_i.e._ the act of the encountering of
eye and objects] is a burning. That which arises in virtue of visual
contact, be it a pleasant, be it an unpleasant sensation, be it a
neither pleasant nor unpleasant sensation, is a burning.”[2]
Following the like scheme, the ear and the audible, the nose and the
olfactory, the tongue and the gustatory, the body and the tangible,
thought and concepts are then dealt with.
The place of the Buddha between and above the opposites, faith and
science, may be briefly formulated as follows:--
Faith says, “_Everything stands_,”--namely, in the place in which it
has been set by that “force in itself,” God. Science says, “_Everything
falls_,” which means that she neglects actual forces in general. The
_Buddha_ says, “_Everything burns_,” meaning that every process exists
in virtue of a single _in-force_, peculiar to itself.