And who is the bearer of the burden [of the five aggregates]? The individual (puggalo), it should be said;

This infamous passage became a point of contention centuries after the Buddha, as the “Pudgalavādins” argued that the “puggalo” here was an ultimately real being “neither identical with nor separate from the aggregates” — a position which earned them much ridicule from the Theravādins.

But, if we don’t read this passage as metaphysical, how should we read it?

Bhante Sujato, in his notes on this translation, proposes that we read this sutta instead as a reformulation of the Four Noble Truths, with “bearing the burden” here meaning not “what metaphysical entity owns the aggregates” but rather, “who is responsible for them?”