ccook70 wrote:Could we say that to "perceive" means to observe and subsequently form ideas about something?
How exactly does one cling to perception in the first place?
Clinging to your beliefs and opinions, viewpoints, ideas?
Perception is labeling things. For example, you see a color but it's just a color without a name. There is a perception which assigns a label to this color, saying that it's "blue". The idea of "blue" isn't really there, and in fact there are quite a few other colors that you might have seen and also called "blue". If someone told you that it was "blue", you wouldn't know from that alone exactly what color it was. Perception is the labeling that we use to make sense of the world.
Reading through The Five Aggregates: A Study Guide
can help with a number of these questions. One thing found in that study guide is a quote from SN 22.79 that discusses this to some degree.SN 22.79
SN 22.79: Khajjaniya Sutta wrote:And why do you call it 'perception'? Because it perceives, thus it is called 'perception.' What does it perceive? It perceives blue, it perceives yellow, it perceives red, it perceives white. Because it perceives, it is called perception.
To some extent clinging to beliefs, opinions, and views involves clinging to perceptions. One example might be clinging to the perception of strength, and then being unable to lift a heavy object. Without the clinging, it's much easier to see that the object is just too heavy to lift. With the clinging, one might become upset or try too hard and injure themselves trying to lift the heavy object. It gives rise to a mental sense that things 'should' be like what the label means, instead of how they actually are. Ajahn Chah has a good story about this kind of thing in It's Like This
Ajahn Chah wrote:Suppose there are two groups of people: one group intelligent, the other group stupid. They go to buy things in the market. The stupid group doesn't know anything, so they buy a shit-pot and use it to fix rice -- because they don't know anything at all. The intelligent people see that and they get disgusted -- "How can they use a shit-pot as a rice-pot? It's disgusting."
Why do they find it disgusting? The shit-pot is still new; it's never been used, so it's like an ordinary pot. It's still clean. So why are they disgusted by it? Because they hold onto the idea that it's a shit-pot, that's all. Actually, it's just an ordinary pot. They suffer and get disgusted because they cling to their ideas about it.
ccook70 wrote:Could we say that "Consciousness" means sensual awareness of something?
How does one cling to consciousness?
Being attached to sensory stimuli?
Yes, "consciousness" is awareness of something, but it's not really distinguishable from that something in a useful way. It doesn't really matter so much if the desire-passion that is clinging is "for" a particular aggregate. When there is desire, passion, and clinging, that is a cause for becoming to arise. That is an indication that disenchantment and dispassion are not fully cultivated. All aggregates are to be treated the same way: they are inconstant, stressful, and not self, and are best seen with disenchantment and dispassion. "Consciousness" is more a quality of experience than a separate "thing" to be isolated from the rest of experience.
ccook70 wrote:-How does clinging to the aggregates give rise to "becoming?"
-What does "becoming" mean?
-What sorts of "intentional actions" are you referring to?
"Becoming" is the state of change of things in a particular direction. It's different from "Being" because "being" implies that a thing can be a something as a constant state, whereas "becoming" is much more suggestive of the reality that it's moving things towards some state that will either not be acheived, or if it's achieved then as soon as it is achieved things will continue to change and the state of affairs will no longer be the same. When craving arises, desire and passion for that which is craved can follow it. The desire and passion forms intentions which form actions which change the world ('becoming') in a way that attempts to bring about whatever was craved. In the end, this either yields frustration if the attempt fails or increased cravings in the future if the attempt succeeds.
Intentional actions are of three sorts: bodily, verbal, and mental. Bodily actions are things like moving an arm to grab something. Verbal actions would be things like asking someone else to hand it to you. Mental actions would be things like choosing to pay full attention to thoughts and feelings of how nice it would be to have that thing. These intentions shape actions which change what is experienced.