shadows and light

Tradition relates that after the Buddha's complete enlightenment he uttered the following words :-

'Seeking but not finding the housebuilder,
I have traveled through the round of countless births.
How painful is birth over and over again.
Oh housebuilder! You have now been caught!
You shall not build a house again.
Your rafters have been broken. Your ridgepole demolished.
The unconditioned consciousness has been attained.
And every kind of craving has been uprooted and destroyed.'

The meditation course i undertook recently brought into the light thoughtforms within my own mind that create suffering in my life

The process of continuing towards enightenment reveals things known as sankharas, falsehoods, conditioned responses to outside stimuli, emotions

The journey i was on at the retreat revealed deeply held conditioned beliefs
allowed me to see them as impermanent sensations within my own body
to work towards a deeper understanding of why we suffer every day
why we can become elated or depressed by the actions of others
to reveal those deeply held conditioned sankharas is the goal
to see them for what they are and release them to change
the change the way we see the world and ourselves...
to reveal a truth hidden since the day we were born
that we crave pleasant things and are averse to
unpleasant things, literally creating our own
misery because we try to hold on to
things that are impermanent
that change constantly
letting go is the key
not holding on
loving life
more
x

In the first (passive) sense saṅkhāra can refer to any compound form in the universe whether a tree, a cloud, a human being, a thought or a molecule. All these are saṅkhāras. The Buddha taught that all such things are impermanent, arising and passing away, subject to change, and that understanding the significance of this reality is wisdom. Saṅkhāra is often used in this first sense to describe the psychological conditioning (particularly the habit patterns of the unconscious mind) that gives any individual human being his or her unique character and make-up at any given time.
The last words of the Buddha, according to the Mahāparinibbāna Sutta (in English and Pali), were "Disciples, this I declare to you: All conditioned things are subject to disintegration – strive on untiringly for your liberation." (Pali: "handa'dāni bhikkhave āmantayāmi vo, vayadhammā saṅkhārā appamādena sampādethā ti.")

	Ignorance
	↓
	Formations
	↓
	Consciousness
	↓
	Name & Form
	↓
	Six Sense Bases
	↓
	Contact
	↓
	Feeling
	↓
	Craving
	↓
	Clinging
	↓
	Becoming
	↓
	Birth
	↓
	Old Age & Death

The Five Aggregates (pañca khandha) according to the Pali Canon.
	form (rūpa)   4 elements (mahābhūta)         ↓     contact (phassa)     ↓ ↑ consciousness (viññāna)	→ ← ←	mental factors (cetasika)   feeling (vedanā)     perception (sañña)     formation (saṅkhāra)
Form is derived from the Four Great Elements. Consciousness arises from other aggregates. Mental Factors arise from the Contact of Consciousness and other aggregates.
Source: MN 109 (Thanissaro, 2001)  |  diagram details

In the second (active) sense, saṅkhāra (or saṅkhāra-khandha) refers to the form-creating faculty of mind, often described as "volitional" or "intentional."^[7] States the Buddha:
'And why do you call them 'fabrications'? Because they fabricate fabricated things, thus they are called 'fabrications.' What do they fabricate as a fabricated thing? For the sake of form-ness, they fabricate form as a fabricated thing. For the sake of feeling-ness, they fabricate feeling as a fabricated thing. For the sake of perception-hood... For the sake of fabrication-hood... For the sake of consciousness-hood, they fabricate consciousness as a fabricated thing. Because they fabricate fabricated things, they are called fabrications.'^[8]
In the doctrine of conditioned arising or dependent origination (paṭiccasamuppāda), saṅkhāra-khandha is understood to be that which propels human (and other sentient) beings along the process of becoming (bhava) by means of actions of body and speech (kamma).^[9] The Buddha stated that all volitional constructs are conditioned by ignorance (avijja) of the reality (sacca) behind appearance.^[10] It is this ignorance that ultimately causes human suffering (dukkha). The cessation of all such fabrications (sabba-saṅkhāra-nirodha) is synonymous with Enlightenment (bodhi), the achieving of arahantship.
As ignorance conditions volitional formations, these formations in turn condition consciousness (viññāna). The Buddha elaborated:
'What one intends, what one arranges, and what one obsesses about: This is a support for the stationing of consciousness. There being a support, there is a landing [or: an establishing] of consciousness. When that consciousness lands and grows, there is the production of renewed becoming in the future. When there is the production of renewed becoming in the future, there is future birth, aging & death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, & despair. Such is the origination of this entire mass of suffering & stress.'^[11]