Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. A mirror and a conscious mind can both receive the appearance of objects — but only the mind moves toward what appears and actually knows it. This contrast opens Khensur Rinpoche’s 19-minute introductory session on Lo-rig (the Tibetan study of awareness and knowledge), and it anchors his core definition: consciousness is “that which is clear and knowing.” He illustrates with everyday examples — seeing a flower, looking around a room — before distinguishing the eye sense faculty from eye consciousness. He then unpacks three fully synonymous terms — awareness, knower, and consciousness — explaining each through a cross-language analogy: “water,” “pani,” and the Tibetan “chew” are different names for the same thing. A strong entry point for those new to Buddhist philosophy of mind.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 02 AK 1988-10-05.mp3
UUID: b5a131c1-44e8-403d-b866-54b3489cbfe3
Teacher: Khensur Rinpoche
Collection: Awareness and Knowledge 1988-1989 (Khensur Rinpoche)
Date: 1988-10-05
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 18.9 minutes
Words: ~996
So the text begins with the is divide initially divided into three parts. Definitions, divisions, and the explanation of individual divisions. In the first, knower. So, you know, we can look around the room.
We see many objects. We can see people. We can see the house. We can see money. That which is doing the thing is the knower.
Do do all of you see the road, the flower? Okay. Therefore, by because we see the flower, then we know we can understand that we know the flower. There is a knower. So by by looking, then we can see the flower and therefore we we say that we know the flower.
If we were to close our eyes, then we would not we would not be looking and we would not we couldn’t know the flower. So the the flower is the object and the the seer or the eye consciousness is the subject. So the the definition of consciousness is that which is clear and knowing. Sometimes this word clear is also translated as luminous. That which is clear and knowing.
So so there’s two parts to this definition. There’s the term clear. Now, what is meant here is that for example, whatever is placed in front of the mirror arises within the mirror. If we placed a mirror in front of you, then all of you would, for example, be able to see your face. The, that the, this clarity exists, that this, this ability for there to rise the image within the mirror.
And likewise, there’s the ability for there to rise the image within the mind or the or the consciousness. But, even though, in all the various, you know, that we can all appear in the mirror, that is, that the objects can appear in front of, in the reflection in the mirror, but the mirror itself cannot, from its side, know the various objects, cannot go from its side and know the various objects. Awareness is not quite the same as a mirror. They are similar only in the fact that they both are able to, the objects are able to appear both in the same way and for a consciousness consciousness or for a mirror. But the mirror the mirror itself cannot know the objects, cannot go forward and move toward the object in order to understand the object, whereas consciousness is able to move toward the object and know the object.
So for example, if we take the flower, within the eye, there there’s a a very extremely small subtle matter which is the eye sense faculty. It’s not the eye consciousness but the eye sense faculty. And this, the, the flower, the image of the flower arises within the eye sense faculty and the consciousness knows that image that which is being reflected within his eye sense faculty. There’s the image which is being cast to the eye sense faculty and the eye consciousness knowing the image, the eye, the flower. So, in this definition we have clear and knowing or luminous and knowing.
So this, the first term denotes that the quality of the object being cast and appearing in the, being cast and making its appearance. And then from, and then the, the knower, that is the knowing part going forward and actually understanding what object is being cast. So there’s a movement from the object side which is, which produces an appearance. And then from this consciousness or the awareness side, there’s a movement toward the appearance and there’s a knowing of the appearance. So this together makes a consciousness, of that particular object.
So this is the, this clear and knowing, it’s trying to give you the understanding of the meaning. You know, trying to get across the meaning of what it means. What it, when it says, when it defines this term, it’s clear and knowing as as the definition of consciousness. So there are three terms. There’s the term awareness, knowing, and consciousness.
These three are mutually inclusive. They’re synonymous. So, when we say awareness, we mean simply that the ability of any object as we explained in the example of a mirror, any object object which is placed before a mirror, persons or whatever type of object is able to appear in that mirror, is able to arise in that mirror. Likewise, when we say awareness, it’s the quality of any object which is placed before it, to arise within that arise as an appearance for that. But when we say knower, we mean the factor which moves out toward the object and actually knows the object, understands the object.
And then when we say consciousness, we mean the discriminative quality of the mind which is able to discriminate this is this, this is that. The knower, the understander of these qualities, this discriminator is what we mean when we say consciousness. Though they have individual names, these three terms are have the same meaning. For example, in English we use the word water, in Hindi they use the word pani and in Tibetan they use the word chew. Those have different, these are different terms.
They all have the same meaning. They’re synonymous. Likewise, these three terms awareness, knowing knower, and consciousness, though they have in other distinct terms, they have the same meaning. You understand? Rinpoche has enjoyed himself very much, and I think we’ll we’ll we’ll stop here for the day.
So the study of mind is on when is it Tuesday night? Thursday night. Pardon? So the study of mind which is, you know, which is another it’s the same subject. The study of mind, awareness and knowledge, the actual translation is on Tuesday night?
No, Thursday night. Thursday night. It’s on Thursday night. Lo-rig, awareness and knowledge, is on Thursday night and the opening eye of new awareness is on Tuesday night. And now we’re we’re dedicating the positive energy that we’ve created.