#five aggregates

- no separate self outside of these interconnected ever-changing processes

1. Form - physical body, including brain and nervous system

2. Feeling - encompasses all sensations

-pleasant

-unpleasant

-neutral

Important to differentiate from. perception. Perception recognizes and labels an object - feeling is the effective response

3. Perception - how we interpret sensory input. We make sense of the world around us by categorizing and labeling experiences.

Shaped by:

- past experiences

- cultural conditioning

- individual biases

Works in conjunction with mental formation to construct our understanding of reality.

4. Mental formations - the most dynamic

Include:

- thoughts

- emotions

- intentions

- volitional impulses

- all mental activity that shapes our responses

For instance, seeing a snake (perception) might trigger fear (feeling) and the thought "I need to move away" (mental formation).

5. Consciousness - the awareness that experiences all of these

- The Knowing aspect of our being

- The subjective experience of the other four aggregates

- not a thing; a process

- a constantly changing flow of awareness

This is not mine. This I am not. This is not my self. netaṃ mama. nesohamasmi. na meso attā.

It's a quote from the Buddhist Discourses. It's about non-self and usually relates to the five aggregates. It's sort of like that recent thing "you don't have a soul, you are a soul, you have a body" except this goes a little further.

Your body is not your self, it is form, which is impermanent and dependant on the world around you.

Your feelings aren't your self, they are impermanent and dependent on the events that happen around you and your perceptions of them.

Your perceptions are not your self, they are impermanent and dependant on the world around you.

Your volitional formations, or 'will' is not your self, it is impermanent and dependent on your desires and cravings for the things in the world around you and a desire for them to be permanent, which they are not.

Your consciousness is not your self, it is impermanent and dependent on there being a world around you to be aware of and the world around you is form, which is impermanent.

The second part is the same thing but in Pali, the language that the Buddha spoke.

I find the quote really calming, especially when having anxiety or panic attacks. It helps to remove me from the situation and help me look at what's going on from this non-self point of view. If I'm having nausea and it's causing me to panic, I can think about how this body is not mine, not I, not self, and the feeling of nausea is not mine, not I, not self, Then I can meditate on the phenomenon of the nausea and look at it as if it were just signals in a system rather than something that's causing a life threatening situation, which is what the panic is trying to tell me.

I made the script by tracing sections of a Burmese Palm Leaf Pali manuscript from the late 19th century. I really liked how it looked. I formed latin letters out of the shapes. I think it came out looking neat. Then I made a second one where I just put the latin text onto a similar format as the palm leaf.