Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. A sustained classroom debate about whether space is a manifest or hidden phenomenon — working through examples of filling a cup or a car trunk to ask whether “empty space” is merely a conception — gives this 46-minute session its distinctive character. Ven Jampa Gendun opens by listing the synonyms for permanent phenomena (non-thing, non-product, uncompounded phenomena, conventional truth), then frames the two truths, noting that “ultimate truth” is a technical term here, not a moral judgment. He defines ultimate consciousness as cognizing its object fully without obscuration — Buddha-mind as the example — before distinguishing manifest from hidden phenomena via the smoke-and-fire inference. The session closes with a precise contrast: thought consciousnesses engage only general, blurred images (trees in general, one’s mother as a composite idea) while sense direct perception engages the unique specific object exactly as it exists. Suited to students already several weeks into the Collected Topics curriculum.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 08 CT 1988 03 29.mp3
UUID: 54627a4c-103f-49d6-8e0f-741943aa7959
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: Collected Topics (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1988-03-29
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 46.2 minutes
Words: ~4,698
If they just said that which is not momentary, if they just said that, then anything which is not momentary should be a permanent phenomena. Even non existent things, even those which those those I don’t want to say things. That which is not existent would be permanent, wouldn’t it? Because it’s not momentary. So you have to say, and has a common base with phenomena.
It must be it must be two things. It must be a phenomena, and it must be not momentary. Then it is permanent. Just being not momentary is not enough to make it a permanent thing, a permanent, because nonexistent, that which is nonexistent are also non momentary. So, there’s a reason for, especially later on, there’s a reason for all the different words.
And if you analyze the definitions, you’ll learn a lot about the objects themselves. Because, as we said last week, the definition is the thing itself. There’s various terms that we use are not the thing, they’re merely what the object is called, but the definition is the thing itself. The second synonym of permanent phenomena is non thing. So we had thing and now we have non thing.
Okay, this is just going to be the opposite of what we just said thing was, that which is devoid of the ability to perform a function. That which is devoid of the ability to perform a function. The next synonym is non product. We had product before, now we have non product. Can anybody guess what the definition of a non product is?
Pardon? Not much. Isn’t that what you’re saying? Or you could just say simply uncreated phenomena, something uncreated phenomena, that’s right, or a phenomena which is not created. The next synonym is uncompounded phenomena, uncompounded phenomena.
Anybody want to take a stab at that? The definition of uncompounded phenomena? That which is not suitable for the future. Yeah, right. Everybody that or perhaps we should say phenomena phenomena which is not suitable to be created, abide and disintegrate.
The next synonym is conventional truth. Again. Anybody want to guess? Very good. Perhaps a phenomenon which is not ultimately able to perform a function.
Doesn’t Okay, we’ll come back to that. And the last synonym is generally characterized phenomena. Generally characterized phenomena. Phenomena. So the definition of a generally characterized phenomena is a phenomena which is established as merely imputed by conception.
A phenomenon which is established as merely imputed by conception. So all the objects, all phenomena are divided into either ultimate truth, ultimate truth, and when we say ultimate truth as we’re going to learn, you know quite often in English in the West, we say truth. It’s like some moral judgment or some factual decision that what you say is true. But the word truth is being used slightly different here. This a truth, you know, this is an ultimate truth, this piece of paper is an ultimate truth, I’m an ultimate truth, this building is an ultimate truth.
So we’re going to have to We’re going to get used to a new way to use that word truth. So all phenomena are divided into ultimate truths, which are synonymous with, for example, impermanent phenomena and specifically characterized phenomena, as we already know, and conventional truths, which are synonymous with things like permanent phenomena and generally characterized phenomena. All phenomena are divided. There are two truths. There’s nothing which exists outside of the two truths.
They’re either ultimate truths or conventional truths. Okay, why are things called ultimate truths? Now, have a definition of ultimate truths To begin to understand what we mean when we say ultimate truth, things are ultimate truths because they’re capable of fully appearing to an ultimate consciousness. Those phenomena which are capable of fully appearing to an ultimate consciousness are said to be ultimate truths.
Now, all the various schools, all the various tenets are going to have a different they’re going to agree that anything which is able to fully appear to an ultimate consciousness is an ultimate truth, but what they call an ultimate consciousness is going to be different with each of the schools. Therefore what they call ultimate truths are going to be different. What do we mean by an ultimate consciousness? An ultimate consciousness must perceive its object fully and without any obscuration. It must perceive its object fully and without any obscuration.
This means that the objects, when we say fully, all the specific characteristics of the object must appear. And without any obscuration that none of them are being hidden. All the very specific characteristics of this particular object must appear to that consciousness, and they must appear not just that, but they must appear in a way that they actually exist. Again, there must be no deception. All the various characteristics of the object appear, and they exist the way they appear.
A consciousness which is able to see that is called an ultimate consciousness. An example of an ultimate consciousness? Buddha. Buddha. Buddha consciousness?
Is that a person? Is it clear and knowing? Is it clear? That’s the definition of consciousness, clear in knowing. Is it clear?
It’s clear. What’s it clear about? What does the word clear mean there? The word clear. Definition clear and knowing, the definition of consciousness, there’s the word clear.
What do we mean when we say clear? Clear and knowing. There’s no obscurations. There’s no defilements. So any consciousness has no defilements or obscurations?
I just the Buddha’s consciousness. Then clear and knowing is not the definition of consciousness because all consciousnesses are not clear and knowing. Because some consciousnesses have obscurations, don’t they? Is ignorance a consciousness? Is it clear and knowing?
It’s not a consciousness? But it’s not clear and knowing. It’s not a conscious? It’s not clear and knowing. Consciousness has to be clear and knowing.
It’s the definition of consciousness. So it’s saying that it’s clear and knowing, but it’s not a consciousness. The word clear, term clear and clear and knowing can be taken several different ways, but one of those ways is non physical, non physical, non obstructive, immaterial. Is it? What do you think?
Is air obstructive? Everything physical is obstructive, would you say? Obstruct something? Something cannot occupy that same place, like even an atom. Is space obstructive?
Is space obstructive? Is it material? No. So in some ways consciousness is like space, isn’t it? It’s nonobstructive.
It’s immaterial. Pardon? Space is not alive. That’s right. So it’s not conscious, is it?
It’s coming close. Some people are spaced out. They get mixed. In ultimate consciousness must all the various characteristics, the specific characteristics of the phenomena must appear to it, and the way that those characteristics appear is the way they actually exist. If that is the case, then that perceiving consciousness, that cognizing consciousness is an ultimate consciousness.
Many of you had when we studied awareness and knowing, there are two types of valid cognitions. Remember, anybody? Two types of valid cognitions. Anybody like to say? I think we had this the first day, didn’t we?
Two types of valid cognitions? It’s one that’s an intellectual one and one that’s actually experienced and knows the future. Yes. That’s correct. There’s direct perception and inference.
Direct perception. These are two ways we can validly know things. Through direct perception, through the eye consciousness, ear, nose, tongue, body consciousnesses, or we can know things through reasoning, for example. We can infer them. So there are two types of valid cognitions.
Now why are there two types of valid cognitions? Maybe this is too difficult. I don’t know. But we can investigate. Why are there two?
We can know things through reasoning and we can know them through our senses, two valid ways of knowing. Can we know everything through the senses, or can we know everything through reasoning? Or are there different types of things that we know through one and different types of things that we know through the other? Is there any reason that it appears that there are these two types of valid cognitions? There are two types of objects: physical and non physical, those which we perceive with the senses and those we can’t.
That’s good. You’re right, there are two types of objects. Are these two types of objects? You’re saying that If something is physical, then it should be known through perception, through direct perception if something is physical. Yeah.
Yeah? If something is immaterial and then it’s known through It has to be. It can only be known inferentially or through the mind. Yeah. Let’s say, well, let’s take an example of someone out in the hall, someone is walking down the hallway.
Can you validly know that there is a person walking down the hallway without seeing him? Can you have a valid cognition that there’s somebody in the hallway without any sense awareness of that person? And you can’t have a valid cognition, have you said? Well, you can infer that, you know, for example, I was thinking, I can’t see the bottom half of the But can’t we have direct perception of material things, We have direct perception of material things and inference of non material things. And you’re saying we have inference of material things.
We can answer that too. Yeah. So then, this isn’t the basis, then this wouldn’t be the basis, material and immaterial, for these two types of cognition. Cognize Mhmm. Which are direct directly experienceable.
But because they’re not directly experienceable, inference is required to connect. Yeah. That’s great. And you don’t have to have a direct perception to be able to evaluate cognize it somehow. Yeah, that’s right.
So we call these two types of phenomena: manifest phenomena, manifest phenomena, and hidden phenomena. Manifest phenomena and hidden phenomena. Now, a manifest phenomena is an object realized by direct perception and not an object realized in dependence upon a correct sign. Okay, I’ll repeat that. A manifest phenomena is an object realized by direct perception and not an object realized in dependence upon a correct sign.
And not realized in dependence upon a correct sign. We can just substitute rather than saying sign, can say reason. It’s much simpler. in dependence upon a correct reason. Yeah.
A manifest phenomena is an object realized by direct perception and not an object realized in dependence upon a correct reason. Can you give me an example? What’s an object that we realize with direct perception? Direct perception, we’re talking of eye consciousness, ear, nose, tongue, body, roughly speaking. There is mental direct perceivers, yogi direct perceivers, and self knowers.
Generally, we’re talking about these sense consciousnesses. We’ll use those as our discussion for now. You can say that that is a table without having to kind of go into an explanation of why. So we can know this table is a manifest phenomena. We can know it through direct perception, our eye consciousness for example, without having to use any reason.
That’s right. The definition of a hidden phenomena is an object realized in dependence upon a correct reason. An object realized in dependence upon a correct reason. What would be an example of an object realized in dependence upon a correct reason? If you saw if you’re going past the house and you saw smoke rising up from your chimney, you could say that there’s a fire inside that house.
That’s very, very good. That’s very good. Yeah, we’ll use that example. In general we can say things like impermanence, emptiness, you know, these are But Dale’s example is a very good example. Okay, well let’s take the example of a fire on top of hills, Adelaide Hills, right?
You can see smoke coming up from the hills. Now, but the fire is not visible, but you see smoke. Now, is that fire on the hill, is that a manifest phenomena or a hidden phenomena? Which one is it? It’s a hidden phenomena.
That means it cannot cognized with direct perceiver. No one can see that fire? It’s just that it’s realized, independent, upon the inference. How about somebody on top of the hill? And for a person down in the valley?
So, then it fires both manifest and hidden? Two different per secret. That’s right. That’s right. So for one person it’s a hidden phenomena.
For one person it’s a manifest phenomena. One person, he must rely on his reason to understand the object. The other person can see it directly. It’s the same phenomenon. Then they wouldn’t be valid cognizers.
We’re talking about valid cognizers. So, the same object for one person must be approached through reasoning, and the other person can approach it through direct perceiving, for example, with his eye consciousness. This definition that I gave you for manifest and hidden is the one I took out of this Collected Topics, but it’s not quite right. Why? It has to be refined a little bit.
The way we refine it is to say, initially, the very first time that we have a valid cognition of this particular object. If we can do it through direct perception, then if it’s possible to have it, if we are capable of having initial perception, then it will have to manifest phenomena. If initially we have to rely on reasoning, the very first time we have a valid cognition of this object, we have to rely on reasoning, then it’s a hidden phenomena. For example, impermanence. The very first time that we have a valid cognition of impermanence, emptiness, we have to rely on reasoning.
We cannot have direct perception of it the first time. Therefore, it’s said to be a hidden phenomenon. You know, we went through this sequence of consciousnesses last week, beginning with a wrong consciousness, then going to doubt, and then going to, what, assumption. And then we went to inference. Emptiness, selflessness, impermanence, these things, our initial valid cognition must be in dependence upon reasoning.
Therefore, it’s a hidden phenomenon. Okay, we said that an ultimate consciousness must cognize its object. You know, cognize means simply we’ll say, I don’t want to use the word understand because when we say cognize it doesn’t necessarily mean that we understand the object. We can cognize wrongly. It just means, as we talked about this, it’s registering on the consciousness.
It cognizes an object fully without any obscurations. Objects of ultimate consciousnesses are ultimate truths and specifically characterized phenomenon. So we’ll begin to learn a little bit more what we mean when we say specifically characterized phenomenon. Objects of ultimate consciousnesses are ultimate truths and are specifically characterized phenomena. Then there’s the obverse of that.
The objects of conventional consciousnesses are conventional truths. Conventional truths. We can say truth for an obscured consciousness, truth for an obscured consciousness. The objects of a conventional consciousness are also generally characterized phenomena, generally characterized phenomena. This a lot.
Why are permanent phenomena conventional truths? Why are permanent phenomena conventional truths? We said that we listed all the synonyms of permanent phenomena, and one of them was conventional truth. What is an example of a permanent phenomena? Example of a permanent phenomenon.
Anybody? Space. Okay. Space is a permanent phenomenon. Why is space a permanent phenomenon?
It’s doesn’t it’s not momentary. In what sense is it not momentary? It’s not continually arising and changing. It’s not. How about you you have a cup, an empty cup, and there’s some space in there, isn’t there?
And you slowly fill it, and slowly that space becomes smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller. Isn’t that space changing, isn’t it? No? The water is occupying its place. But how about the space that’s left in the cup empty?
Yeah. You know, first there’s a big space, little space, little space, like your car trunk or something. You get to the place where you can’t bring anything more in it. There’s no more space. There’s merely a conception of that part of the cup, of the part of the space.
The pardon? Empty space is merely a conception. The actual space is not changing. So there’s empty space in space. No, empty space is a label.
It’s a conception. And space is not a label. No. It exists on its own side objectively. Then it’s not a permanent phenomenon.
Is permanent or impermanent, or neither? Does it exist? Yes. Okay, if it exists. Is it permanent?
If it exists it must be either permanent or impermanent. Must be one or the other. Is that true? Is there a third possibility? You have a cup, right, then that cup kind of takes up a certain amount of space.
So it doesn’t matter whatever you put in it, you still need that. The space that that cup takes up still exists. How about the space inside the cup? Don’t you want to have space when show up a cup? No, the actual light.
There is this physical thing and it takes up a particular amount of room in this room. And it doesn’t matter what it is, what you put in the cup or what you pour out is still that amount of room. But how about the room how about the space in the cup which is being decreased as we fill it? Is it being decreased? Is there?
There’s never a point where you can’t pour more liquid in it? It’s not being decreased? Cover the space in your trunk. You’re piling things in there and finally say, I got no more space. You have to leave it behind.
Space is all gone. You put a in a room, what happens to the space? Nothing has space. So space is always there. If we put a hundred people in this room, somebody says, You got space in there for another one?
Space is the way that those people are occupying that space. They can’t be occupied by two people. So that space can’t be you, that space is gone. I can’t sit in the space that you’re sitting in. But the space can’t be gone otherwise I couldn’t be here.
I can’t. This building takes up a certain amount of space, if somebody knocked that down and built a concrete thing, space would still be there. So whether because of that whatever. Maybe space is not a thing. It’s not a thing.
Well, it’s distinct from objects or A space of phenomena? So it performs a function? No? That’s what Kim I mean, you can’t do anything, Why? You could open a parking lot or something.
You fill because if you could fill up it would always be filled up. You can’t fill all that. We couldn’t fill this room up with people. Wouldn’t you run out of space eventually? So maybe there’s two kinds of space.
So there’s a There’s something like pervasive space, pervasive space, and then there’s occasional space. If I leave this room then there’s space that somebody else can come in my place. But there’s always pervasive space, whether I leave or don’t. Space is the absence of obstructability, absence of obstructability. So how do we Okay, the absence of obstructability.
Do we know if it can we So space is a phenomenon. Is that agreed? Obstructibility or obstructibility? Obstructibility? Obstructional?
Obstructional? Pervasive and occasional? Okay. How do we cognize space? Is space a hidden phenomenon or a manifest phenomenon?
Can’t you see it? When you’re driving down the street You can’t see that space. That’s occasional space. You can see the absence of form. Is absence is absence of form space?
Capture. Gives the form space. What about if you’ve got a hollow box? You can’t see in that box, but, you know, So can you Is space a hidden phenomenon or a manifest phenomenon? Both.
Both. Okay, if it’s a manifest phenomenon then we should be able to initially It’s both, you know? Can you initially cognize space and dependence on either? If it’s both then it can be cognized initially by both. By inference and By inference and projection.
How can it be initially cognized by both? Doesn’t it have to be one or the other first? Or they go at the same time? Hold hands when they The first time that you have a valid cognition of space, can you do it through direct perception, or can you do it through inference or conception in general? Then would it be either one of those?
Which one would it be? Occasional space? Okay. Then, you know, just Can we see the mirror absence of an object, the absence of a truck in this room? Is that space?
The absence of a truck in this room. Can you see the absence of a truck in this room? Can you see that with the eye consciousness? Yeah? Then do you see the space of where that truck would be if it were here?
You see the truck? You see with your eye consciousness the space which is vacated, which is You see with your eye consciousness the space which exists because the truck is not there, and the car which is not there, and the plane which is not there. You see all those with your eye consciousness. Very busy eye consciousness. Really, what do you think?
Really seeing the absence of a particular object. I don’t know if you see the you wouldn’t see the space. You see the absence of like liquid? Yeah. But do you see the space?
If we didn’t see space we wouldn’t see objecting because we wouldn’t be able to define things. What do you mean? We know that non existence exists. Yeah? We know that Space is a nonexistence.
Space is nonexistence? Generally, say that space is an object of conception. We have to use reasoning to understand, to perceive space. We can see with our eye consciousness the absence of an object, but merely seeing the absence of an object, we do not see the space. How can we see the essence of an object?
For example, my conscious does not see it sees the nonexistence of the elephant in this room. I can directly perceive with my consciousness the nonexistence of the elephant in this room. But I can’t see the space that that elephant would have taken up if it were in here, because there’s an infinite number of possibilities. So does that mean that space is a hidden phenomenon? What do you think?
Well, you’re saying that it has to be established through reasoning. And when when I think about it, I I kind of agree in that. If, you know, if I saw somebody far away or say I saw you over there, I become aware of the space between the two of us. But I don’t actually see the space. I see form over there.
If you were to maybe if you came up and you were looking for a parking place and you saw you saw the non existence of a car and you would think, Ah, there’s space for my car. Maybe something like that. You would think, Oh, my car can fit in there. There’s a space for my car. That’s sort of like the occasional space that I’m talking about.
Yeah. No. Yeah. That’s the occasional space. Also, would that also apply to pervasive space?
How do you Well, it seems the only way when you see an object, you know it’s inhabiting a space. Can you? Well, it’s taking up a certain space. Do you see that? Or do you to No.
You have to. But as soon as you see that object, you can immediately infer that that space is You can infer, yeah. So the idea is that some things we can we know space through we develop an image or an idea about space. When we talk about thoughts about conceptions, we’re talking about thinking with our thoughts, ideas. We have an idea about what space is.
We have to develop some understanding of the difference between direct perception and conception. Direct perception and thinking, or thought consciousnesses. What is the difference? For example, of a tree. What is the difference between the direct perception of a tree and the inference of a tree, or thinking about a tree?
They both can be valid cognizers of the tree. We can understand the tree through both reasoning through direct experience, for example, the eye consciousness. What is the difference? So in one case we’re working with the specifically characterized tree. Right?
So specifically characterized, we see all the specific characters of that present tree. The other one, we see the general characterized tree, an image of the tree and our idea about the tree. Thoughts, thinking, conception are always working, have as their objects generally characterize phenomena. They never have specifically characterized phenomena. Therefore the objects of thought are permanent, are conventional truths, therefore they are conventional consciousnesses.
Direct perception eye, ear, nose, tongue, body consciousnesses take as their object that specifically characterized phenomenon, you know, the various details of the phenomena. Therefore their objects are ultimate truths and they are ultimate consciousnesses. We will go into that some more. For example, when a tree appears to direct perception, eye consciousness, all the details of that tree can appear to that eye consciousness, the color of the tree, how many leaves it has, the branches, even things like its impermanence appear to the direct perception. All specific characteristics of that tree appear to direct perception.
It perceives the unique tree, specific tree, unique. It perceives the unique nature of a unique tree. But an individual unique tree cannot appear to conception, to thought consciousness. A thought consciousness is obscured with regarding to the specific characteristics of the tree. The thought conscious cannot know the specific characteristics of a tree.
It takes the general characteristics of a tree as its object of understanding, our ideal about the tree, Not the specific tree, oak tree, with this color bark, with this many branches, this many leaves. It takes our idea about trees, our image, our mental image, and that’s its object of understanding. That’s what appears to it. Our idea about a tree, our mental image about trees. It’s general tree, the general nature of trees in general, not any specific qualities of trees.
So it’s not the actual tree which is appearing to a thought consciousness. You know, if it was an actual tree, would be a specifically characterized phenomena. So it’s not a it’s not an actual tree. It’s a generally characterized phenomena. It’s an image of a tree.
You you think about my mother? No, you don’t think about my mother. I think about my mother? Do you think about your mother? What appears to your mind is not any specific moment with all the complex specific characters that make up when you would see your mother or hear your mother, It’s some idea, image that you have within your mind, is a general kind of a blurred image of your mother.
It may be in a particular situation, but that mother, which is acting out in this particular imaginative situation is still a generally characterized phenomenon. It’s an idea, a composite of different qualities of your mother. It’s not the specific mother, it’s a generalized mother. So a specific phenomena, direct perception arises through the force of the actual specific phenomena casting its aspect onto the consciousness. Through the power of the actual object itself, a consciousness arises.
Whereas thought consciousness arises through the power of a mental image, not the actual object itself. We understand trees inferentially, We understand trees inferentially, that is by thinking, not through the actual tree, but our idea, our image about the tree. So it’s through this image that we understand the tree. We can understand tree validly, but we don’t understand the specific characteristics. We only understand a general tree, our blurred idea about tree.
It doesn’t matter how clear your brain is.