This paper analyzes the Buddhist concept of identifying with the five aggregates (*khandhas*) as "I am this," challenging the traditional view that the aggregates are the objective constituents of a person by proposing they are instead passive, phenomenal representations of subjective experience. Drawing on Nikāya similes that imply a distinction between the individual and the aggregates, the author argues that key cognitive faculties like the mind (*citta*) operate separately from the *khandhas*, which are better understood as the end-results of cognitive processes rather than active agents themselves. Consequently, the fundamental error of identifying with the aggregates is interpreted as a mistaken projection of agency and identity onto one's own phenomenal self-representation, a process which, by attaching to something inherently distorted and unsatisfactory (*dukkha*), becomes a primary source of suffering.
