The five sheaths · pañca-kośa

Five layers around a centre, each within the last and each "of the same shape": food, breath, mind, understanding, bliss. You are none of them — and what you find at the middle when you have set them all aside is, in this tradition, full.

The exact reply to the Buddhist model, on the same toggle. ☸ arranges five heaps around a hollow and sends a probe inward that goes out at the centre. ॐ arranges five sheaths around a centre that is full. And Judaism has its own five — nefesh, ruach, neshamah, chayah, yechidah — which do not surround anything: they ascend, and they are yours. Three traditions, the number five, three incompatible answers about what is at the middle of a person.