Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 46-minute session, Geshe Dhawa Gyaltsen teaches seven kinds of mistaken consciousness through striking examples: a diseased eye seeing one moon as two, a boat passenger perceiving the stationary shore as moving, a spinning fire-stick appearing as a wheel, and an angry person seeing everything tinted red. Grounding his teaching in Lama Tsongkhapa, he emphasizes that renunciation paired with bodhicitta—compassionate intention toward enlightenment for all—is essential to the Buddhist path. He walks through conceptual confusions like misconceiving sound as permanent, then sensory errors with their four sources: flaws in the perceiver, the environment, the object, or the conditions. Throughout, he identifies the deepest mistake: grasping at a permanent, independent self.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 09 Lo Rig.mp3
UUID: 9e9b16e7-f164-422d-935a-947d6c757237
Teacher: Geshe Dhawa Gyaltsen
Collection: Nature of the Mind (Geshe Dhawa Gyaltsen)
Date: 1995 (exact day not recorded)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 46.0 minutes
Words: ~2,321
So as a quotation from Lama Tsongkhapa’s text, what he explains in the teaching, in his teaching, is that in order to achieve the fully enlightened state — that which is free from all obscurations and that which is perfecting all the qualities, and also perfecting in the perfection of others like helping others — so in order to achieve this state, this enlightened state, one needs first to generate the thought of renunciation, which is conjoined with the thought of bodhicitta. So, if the thought of renunciation is not conjoined with the thought of bodhicitta, whatever practice one does, that doesn’t become cause for the fully enlightened state. And like for example that of the arhats and the Pratyekabuddha. They have the thought of renunciation, but because it’s not conjoined with the thought of bodhicitta, their practice doesn’t lead to the complete fully enlightened state.
So in order to abandon all the abandonments and in order to gain all the realizations, what one needs in practice is the Three Principal Paths. And among the three, the first is renunciation. So the next important part is bodhicitta, and bodhicitta becomes very important. If one doesn’t have bodhicitta, then one doesn’t become a Mahāyānist. So, as Lama Tsongkhapa explains, if one’s practice is not conjoined with the thought of bodhicitta, then it doesn’t become a main cause for the fully enlightened state.
So the arhats and the Pratyekabuddha — they do, through their practice, achieve the state of liberation, but not the fully enlightened state. That is because their practice is not conjoined with the thought of bodhicitta. So if one’s practice is conjoined with the thought of bodhicitta then one receives many other qualities — like one becomes an object worshiped by others, and that’s one quality. And secondly, one also has the quality — or one receives the name of being a son of Buddha. And then thirdly, one also becomes — that’s another quality of generating the bodhicitta.
So in order to generate a genuine — what do you say — bodhicitta within oneself, as a cause for that one needs to practice love, compassion and — before that — recognize all living beings as one’s mother, and like remembering their kindness and repaying their kindness. So these are all the causes for bodhicitta. So even if one is unable to generate this genuine thought which is bodhicitta, if one sets up one’s motivation and does these different practices like meditation on compassion or meditation on bodhicitta, these different practices — like set up, do these practices with setting up a motivation of bodhicitta, a bodhicitta motivation — that also becomes a cause for the fully enlightened state, those practices. So whenever one is listening to a teaching, one should, like, listen to the teaching with generating the thought of bodhicitta. That is a genuine one or just a built-up motivation.
So the main part of teachings — what we talked about last time — was that of the direct perceivers, direct valid perceivers. That’s what we talked about last time. And now what we will be talking about today is conceptual — like, conceptual apparent direct perceptions. So on this part, we will be talking. So the conceptual apparent direct perception — as a definition or meaning — a knower which is mistaken with respect to its appearing object. Mistaken. Mistaken. Which is like the conceptual apparent direct perception and mistaken awareness. These are synonyms.
So what is wrong consciousness or mistaken awareness? Here, one is mistaken with the object that one is apprehending. So this apparent direct perception, we have like seven different types, seven kinds. So these seven are — the first six which are conceptual apparent direct perception. And then the last one, the seventh one, is non-conceptual apparent direct perception.
So the first among the six is a mistaken conception. And then second is conventional conception. Conventional conception. And then third one is conception that gives rise to inferential cognition. That’s the third one.
So then the fourth one is conception that arises out of or from the inferential cognition. Mhmm. That’s the fourth one. And then the fifth one is conception of recollecting. And then sixth one is conception of future.
Conception of future. What are the conceptions or thoughts for the future? So among these six, the first — example to the first one, the mistaken conception — as an example, it is a mind, a knower apprehending sound being permanent. So this statement, like, mind apprehending or perceiving sound being permanent, is also mistaken and it’s also wrong consciousness. So it is wrong consciousness because the object that it apprehends is mistaken.
So this, like, apprehending sound being permanent — this is to its appearing object — appearing object is also mistaken. And also, like, the object itself, it’s also mistaken. So what the person holds there — like, a person, like the awareness apprehending sound being permanent — the person holds that sound is permanent, and that is mistaken. So there are those who apprehend that sound is permanent.
So sound is not permanent. So this doesn’t exist. Like, sound being permanent doesn’t exist. So this statement is a mistaken statement. So then the second — example to the second one, the conventional conception.
So example to that one is inferential cognition apprehending sound being — sorry — impermanent. So this, like my inferential cognition of sound being impermanent, that is also a convention — that is the conventional cognition.
And that is like it’s mistaken also with respect to, like, to the appearing objects. To its appearing objects. So this is like a conventional conception because it’s mistaken to its appearing object. How is the appearing object? It is the general image of the sound being impermanent. Yeah.
So then the third one — example to the third one is that conception that brings or that gives rise to inferential cognition. So that is like a conception that gives rise to inferential cognitions, which is like those different reasons. For example, sound being impermanent because it is a product. This statement — looking to this statement, those different reasons. Sound is impermanent.
This — the reason that you give — sound is impermanent. And how — if it’s impermanent that has to be a product. Mhmm. So all this and then sound is also because of that a product. So these different reasons, these different conceptions of the thoughts — yeah.
Are the examples for that. So, in short, those reasons that — as a result of those different reasons — if it brings forth the inferential cognition, inferential understanding, that is what — yeah. Those reasons are what is known as the conception that brings or gives rise to inferential cognition. So now the fourth is that the conception arising after or conception arising from the inferential cognition.
Conceptions or thoughts arising from the inferential cognitions. These are like, as an example, like the first moment of inferential valid cognition. That is like the direct valid perceiver. And then from its second moment — all the second moment of inferential cognition — known as which is conception which is brought out of inferential cognitions.
And then the next one is conception of recollecting. That is like so like remembering of the past, memory of the past. Like today remembering the past. So then the next one is that conception of future, which is today the remembering of the future. The remembering of the future.
So these six are known as the six apparent direct perceptions, which are conceptual. So now then we go to the next, which is the non-conceptual apparent direct perception. And it again has been divided into two, which is that of the mental one and that of the senses. So the non-conceptual apparent direct perception — that of the mental one — is that of a dream consciousness, like apprehending blue — a dream consciousness apprehending blue. That is the example to the mental non-conceptual. So dream consciousness has to be mental consciousness.
There’s no other — no sense consciousness involved. So this is like a wrong consciousness also. And that is because it’s wrong consciousness — dream consciousness apprehending blue is wrong consciousness also because — so it’s wrong consciousness because there isn’t a blue, but then to the dream consciousness, it appears blue. So there isn’t like a form or object that is — what is it — that is existing. So there isn’t like a — what you call — a physical form that is being, that exists for the mental consciousness. So because of that, whatever appears in the mental consciousness — for example, in the dream, in this dream consciousness — that object doesn’t exist.
So if that blue exists, then, as in color, then it has to be perceived by the eye consciousness. Go to the next, which is the sense — what do you call — non-conceptual apparent direct perception. And it is divided again into four. So then these mistaken are like — one, the first one is a mistake, or error, existing in the — what do you call — the subject, or you can — yeah — in the subject.
Error existing in the subject. Then second is the error existing in the place, like the environment. And then third is that the error or the mistake existing in the object. And then the fourth one is that the mistake or the error existing in its immediate preceding condition. Immediate condition.
So then the first one — as an example — mistake existing, or the error existing, in the subject or to the person is that of an eye consciousness which is blurred — blurred eye consciousness. So the eye consciousness which has a disease, for example, sees a single moon being doubled. This is what — a single moon seen as two. That is like with this — like, error or the mistake existing in the subject or the person. So the cause — the mistake — the cause of this mistake exists within the person.
So this happens to a person that there’s eye sickness — you have like a pimple in the eye. When you have this sickness, then that causes, if you’re to look at the moon, then you see two moons, which is like two moons to the one. So then the second is that of the mistake or error existing in the surroundings, or the environment. That is like when you are riding a boat — to your consciousness, the outside things seem to be moving. Seeing the outside things moving.
That’s the example. So, like, while we are going in the car quite fast, we could see — like, we have this — we can see that the houses and the trees on this side of the road are moving. So this mistaken eye consciousness — the error or the mistake — where it is then — it’s in the place, like in the car, or the environment, or the place. So then the third one is a mistake existing in the object. The example to that is if one lights a fire to a stick and then if you circle it, then what you see is a wheel, a fire wheel.
So that is another mistake. The icon is mistaken and that mistake or the error exists within the object, which is the object that has been — this article — the stick with the fire. So then the next one is that of, like, a mistake existing in its immediate preceding condition. Which is like a person when one is overpowered or overwhelmed by anger, then the eye consciousness sees everything red. So then what causes one to have that mistaken eye consciousness?
Like seeing everything red — as a cause of error — it is the anger that just arises before the eye consciousness. So, among these four, the first one is mistaken — mistaken in the number. Seeing like two — two, where there is only one. So there’s only one moon, but you see two.
So it’s a mistake with numbers. So then the second — the mistake or the error existing in the place — is that it’s mistaken with the action. So then third — the stick with the fire, like a circle — that is like mistaken with the shape. So then the last one is mistaken with its base. So this mistaken consciousness can be caused in two ways.
One, like which is temporal, and one which is innermost, like a more deeper sense. One at a more superficial level and one at a more deeper level. So what all these — want to say — these four different, I would say, mistaken awarenesses are the superficial ones. Not like that of that which is caused by — temporary — how to say — temporary, what do you call — temporary mistaken procedure. So then that of the innermost ones, the innermost mistaken awareness is that of the grasping of self, of person, the grasping of self of phenomena.
These are, what do you say, known as the innermost, or the deeper mistaken, awareness. And similar to that, like, the body — what you want to have — the contaminated body that which you want to have, that one holds it as being permanent. So this — what is it — this way we hold that our contaminated body is permanent is also caused by the inner — what do you call — the innermost mistaken awareness. That which causes it.
Then there are these three different — like, non-conceptual wrong consciousness — and then the apparent direct perception — and then the awareness that clearly perceives non-existent things. These three are synonyms. They have the same meaning.