21 - The Five Heaps or Skandhas

Summary

This is a convenient moment to introduce the ‘five heaps’ or ‘skandhas’ since they are crucial to the way the anatman doctrine is interpreted, presenting us with the field wherein no self is to be found, as it were. We have talked of body, mind, and soul, of the passions, dispositions, thoughts, and so forth. We have noted that even Descartes demurred at the idea of a soul screened from sight within a body but talked rather of a union which rendered ‘human being’ a primitive notion. A person’s feelings show in their demeanour, in their breathing; their anxiety shows in the tension in their shoulders. We can make these distinctions, but it is a matter of distinguishing the elements within an integrated whole, the various aspects of agency. Take, for example, the idea of a generous act.