Hi Siebe,
I think you are right on the identity crisis that every sentient being is going through. We tend to cling on to the notion of a self via the workings of our 5 khandhas. I liken life as a continuous stream of consciousness, something like lighting up a long series of candles. The person lighting up the candle is actually a prison himself! He borrowed the fire from the preceding candle and light up the current candle (current life). Can we say that this fire is different from the preceding one? No, I don’t think so. Neither can we say they are the same. Accompanying the borrowed fire is a transference of a set of kammic energies that needs to be spent when the right conditions are met. But why does this person keeps on lighting up the candles? Because he thinks that it is worthwhile doing just that. Learning Dhmma helps us see through the peril of staying in the sansara.
Both our mental and physical bodies are sankata of our past kamma. First, let’s talk about this physical body. There are uncountable number of cells that made up this physical body. The white blood cells in our body are helping us to fight viruses and bacteria without us telling them to. The enzymes in our body will automatically disintegrate our body when we become a corpse. Isn’t that amazing? It does not matter whether we acknowledge their presence or not. The more I think of it, the more I felt that it is not just about ‘my self’ or me anymore. This physical body is just like a conglomerate. We are the boss sitting high on top of the organisation and there are many employees whom we do not even know personally. But does that imply that the organisation will collapse? There is a system in place to ensure that the modus operandi of the body will continue to function for as long as our kammic energy allows.
Next, let’s talk about thoughts and emotions. There are times we cannot control our thoughts and emotions. They are like advertisements which we did not subscribe but are shoved right into our face. I like the term uncontrolled mental outflows to reiterate this point. Having this mental and physical bodies in this life, we just have to face the fact that they have to go through their natural stages of arising and perishing. It is a way which nature imparts vipaka onto us. Energies have to be unleashed. They just cannot be stopped. I believe the Buddha’s teaching to disregard the workings of the 5 khandhas as our self is not just a strategy to help us cut our defiled habitual tendencies, but also a way to keep us from generating more sankhara to perpetuate suffering. I see it as a doctrine to help us avert the identity crisis (illusion) which if left unmanaged, would entrap us further in this never-ending sansaric journey.