Skandhas

[jacobs.598]

Also, I am having trouble figuring out how the skandhas give rise to
oneself and what the cause of dukkha is in terms of the skandhas. If
anyone could help me with this, that would be great! Thank you!

[Charles Reichheld]

Buddhists have a different understanding of the self than Indian
philosophies. Rather than the existence of a first independent thing
called atman, there was originally conditioned co-production.
Everything existed as harmonious change. Rather than considering it as
an independent thing, Buddhist believe that the self exists in reality
as a combination of processes called skandhas. These five skandhas;
perception, sensation, discriminating conscious, mental tendencies,
and material compostion, all work dependently upon each other and form
the notion of the self, much like the parts of a car are assembled
together to form the car itself. Note, there is no need for the
existence of any "essence" of a car; the mere conception of it is
formed by its parts. So like the car, each experience we have is a
combination of the skandhas, and it is important to realize that the
self is not separate from any of these experiences, it literally is
the experiences. In respect, the self is a process reliant on many
other processes. Our names give us a false sense of permanence by
referring to ourselves as something permanent and hence, by realizing
there is no difference between yourself and other's selves, the value
of compassion naturally follows. Dukkha is also encouraged from these
misinterpretations of the self, and our habits to retain permanence.

[Nicholaos Jones]

Charles's post is on the right track. Let me add a few words about
dukkha. If you think that the self is a thing that can persist
through change (a mistaken thought, according to Buddhists), then you
will tend to worry about what will happen to this self. The result of
this can be greed or selfishness. Also, if one thinks that there are
things in the world that persist through change, one will tend to try
to attain those things in the hopes that, having attained them, one
will receive pleasure from them. But inevitably the things one
attains change -- this can lead to misery, or anxiety about what to do
once the sources of one's pleasures have gone away, or boredom from
being burnt out chasing pleasures and not knowing which pleasures to
chase next, etc. All of these results produce dukkha -- a general
unsatisfactoriness in one's life.