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The human personality

Theravada

Theravada Buddhists dedicate their life to attaining enlightenment and - some are monks and nuns. Theravada Buddhists believe that the human personality is made up of what are called the Five Aggregates (also called , meaning collections or groups).

Infographic depicting the Five Skandas

The Five Aggregates are:

  • Sensation (vedana) - This is emotion or physical pain that comes from our physical bodies touching another form or object.
  • Perception (samjna) - This allows people to know and understand what things are. This can arise from previous experience and memory.
  • Mental formation (samskara) - This leads a person to do good or bad things. It is a person’s thoughts, or the things that happen in their mind.
  • Consciousness (vijnana) - A person’s general awareness of things and the wider world around them.
  • Form (rupa) - This refers to the sense organs (eg the ears and the nose) and how they experience material and matter.

Mahayana

Mahayana Buddhists are different from Theravada Buddhists as they strive to become enlightened, but they delay nibbana to help teach enlightenment.

Mahayana Buddhists are especially concerned with three concepts:

  • Sunyata - This means ‘emptiness’. This idea can be understood as meaning that everything depends upon something else. All things lack an nature. Basically, everything is empty. Sunyata can be understood as being very similar to anatta (one of the Three Marks of Existence).
  • Attaining Buddhahood - This is when a person achieves enlightenment and becomes a Buddha. Mahayana Buddhists strive to achieve Buddhahood through and Buddhist practice. In their lives, they move away physically and mentally from the distractions in life that would prevent them from achieving enlightenment.
  • Buddha-nature - This is concerned with the idea that all beings can attain Buddhahood. Mahayana Buddhists believe that everyone has the opportunity and essence of a Buddha within them. They believe that, once a person has understood the Buddha’s Dhamma, they will become enlightened. The idea of Buddha-nature encourages Buddhists to meditate in Buddhist practice and be generous as this helps to end some suffering in the world.

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