Definition of the Week (51): Form

☞ Purbu Chock:
Definition: That which is suitable to be form

☞ This comes from a sutra where the Buddha said:
“Oh bikkhu, because it exists as form and is suitable to be form it is the contaminated form aggregate.”
The word suitable in the definition means that form is suitable to cause the harm of future lives through meeting with the physical sense powers.
Through the meeting of outer forms with the sense powers, attachment or anger are generated in the consciousness—attachment when the form is perceived as pleasant and anger when the form is perceived as unpleasant.
Through these disturbing thoughts one creates karma, which in turn functions as cause for future lives, in which one is again exposed to the different sufferings of cyclic existence.

☞ Form and matter are synonymous, and the definition of matter is that which is made up out of particles. Therefore the aggregate of form encompasses everything that is made up out of particles.

Divisions: The form aggregate is elevenfold: the five physical sense powers, the five sense objects, and non-revelatory form.

The contact between the consciousness and the form object seems non-descript, it seems such a simple thing. But the potential harmful impact on one’s life is enormous. Once attachment or anger for the object have been generated, it will be very hard not to act on this attachment or anger, in this way causing further suffering to oneself and others.

The Great Je Lama Tsong Khapa:
Engaged in they do not satisfy and are the door to all suffering.
The perfections of cyclic existence cannot be relied upon,
Please bless me to recognize their shortcomings,
And to generate strong aspiration for the bliss of liberation.