Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Whether space is permanent or impermanent — and what that reveals about the nature of consciousness — anchors this 47-minute class with Ven Jampa Gendun on Collected Topics, a traditional Buddhist logic curriculum. Working through live debate, students discover their own contradictions: if space does not disintegrate moment by moment, it must be permanent, and therefore a conventional truth rather than an ultimate truth. The session then unpacks why thought consciousness perceives only generic mental images — a blurred composite unable to perform the actual function of the object — while direct consciousness grasps specifically characterized phenomena. A closing illustration traces how mental images form through gradual elimination, using the example of building up an image of a stupa entirely from scratch. Pitched at students actively working through the Collected Topics text.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 10 CT 1988 04 05.mp3
UUID: e466420d-2fba-4bd3-8f79-84dd9ecb1b69
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: Collected Topics (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1988-04-05
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 46.9 minutes
Words: ~4,916
Alright. So we’re studying collected topics of the three of the three divisions, lesser, middling and greater. We’re looking into the lesser. And of these eight subdivisions, the second. The first being color, the second being established base.
I’ll have to make some more copies of these. Maybe we need some more, don’t we? I’m gonna have to I’ve got one. One set maybe would you hand it back to Bobby or please. You might find it of interest.
So last week, what did we cover? So we begin. What is the the most pervasive or overall category? Which? Existent. Existent.
That has how many divisions? And that has what divisions? Nonexistent. Okay. If we divide the nonexistent, how many categories do we have?
Just one category. Aren’t there lots of divisions of nonexistent? Not here. It’s nonexistent, the categories of none? Okay.
And if we divide existent, how many divisions do we have? And what are they? Two. Name one among them. Yeah? Good.
What was the definition of thing? That’s right. And generally, when we What function are we speaking about when we say able to perform a function? That’s right. Good.
Yeah. I do have another set. So, existent is divided into permanent and thing. The last time we talked about thing, the various phenomena which are mutually inclusive, mutually inclusive with thing. How many did we list?
How many phenomena are mutually inclusive with thing? What were they, Gina? That’s very good. Excellent. So there are five other phenomena which are mutually that we listed, which are mutually mutually inclusive with thing.
And then we Were there any questions about that? It was We got into a very difficult area, which I didn’t Lisa? What did you miss? You hear that? I’m joking.
Thing? Impermanent? Product? Compounded phenomena? Ultimate truth?
Specifically characterized phenomena? What is an example of an ultimate truth? Is this table on ultimate truth? Pardon? What?
If it exists, it’s an ultimate truth? If something exists, is it an ultimate truth? Yeah. Is space an ultimate truth? Does space exist?
Is it an ultimate truth? Is it impermanent? It’s impermanent. It changed from moment to moment? Is it momentarily disintegrating?
Then is it not impermanent? I’m confused. Pardon? I’m confused. Okay.
Where are you confused? What happened to bring about the confusion. Is Is anything which exist something which exists an ultimate truth? Anything how should we say? Whatever is whatever exists an ultimate truth?
If something exists, is it an ultimate truth? Question. You can guess, yes or no? Yeah, we can. Okay.
Then, is space an ultimate truth? I think so. Does it disintegrate momentarily? Not that I’m aware of. And is it not impermanent?
Is it not impermanent? Is it permanent or not? Is space permanent or impermanent? Permanent. Then is it an ultimate truth?
Yes. How can something be an ultimate truth if it’s mutually inclusive with permanent? I don’t know. Can something be both permanent and impermanent?
No. So is space permanent or impermanent? I don’t know. Does it momentarily disintegrate? No.
Then is it permanent or impermanent? What is the definition of impermanent? Is that the definition of impermanence? That is not. Then what is According to your notes, what is the definition of impermanence?
What what what is the definition of impermanent? What? May or may not have an end, may or may not have an end, the definition of impermanent? It’s changing. May or may not have an end.
May or may not have an end. Then is Are the horns on a rabbit’s head, Are they impermanent? Not really. They are? Do they exist?
Not really. Then something for it to be impermanent, doesn’t it have to exist? Then are the horns in a rabbit’s head impermanent? No. They are because they may or may not have an end.
They are impermanent because they may or may not have an end. That’s your definition of impermanent, isn’t it? So that that’s either So the Can that be the definition of impermanent? Okay. So I think we established the what?
Disintegrate moment by moment? Or Yeah? I know what we said. Does space disintegrate moment by moment? What do you mean?
If you were to guess, what would you say? No? No. I’d say that it didn’t. Then is space impermanent or not impermanent?
Must be permanent. Must be permanent. Therefore, is space a ultimate truth or a conventional truth? It’s a conventional truth. Therefore, if something exists, it doesn’t have to be an ultimate truth.
Okay. Good. That’s good. That’s good. So it doesn’t matter whether you guess right or wrong, as long as you can logically come to see your own self contradiction.
Then that’s good. That’s training of the mind, a debate is supposed to develop. It’s not that we’re trying to get all the right answers. Just train the mind. So we looked at things and permanent phenomena.
And there were how many mutually inclusive phenomena with permanent phenomena? Okay. That’s good. And then we talked about conventional truths and ultimate truth, roughly speaking. And what were the things which How do we determine whether something is an ultimate truth or a conventional truth?
How do we determine whether an object or a phenomenon is an ultimate truth or a conventional truth? Alastair? We look it up in the book. Yeah. Okay.
That’s correct. That’s what you’re asking again. If we were to say from the meaning We talked about the two types of consciousness. Ultimate consciousness and conventional consciousness. And that which is an object of an ultimate consciousness is a what?
An is what? Ultimate truth. So this would be a good way to think about it. And that which is the object of a conventional consciousness. And what did we What was the example of a conventional consciousness?
Linda? Margaret? What what what objects are What is an example of a conventional consciousness? No, consciousness. Consciousness.
We’re talking about the consciousness. Peter? What do we mean when say conventional consciousness? Is that a conventional con an eye consciousness? Perception.
Is an eye consciousness a conventional consciousness? Then is a table a conventional truth? Yes. Then it’s not an ultimate truth? Pardon?
It’s not an ultimate truth. But tables are not ultimate truths because they are conventional truths. Pardon me? Do you perceive it in the conventional consciousness? You can either disagree or you can either accept my reason or disagree.
I said that tables are not ultimate truths because they are conventional truths. Do you agree that are they conventional truths? They are conventional truths. Then they are permanent? They’re permanent because they are conventional truths.
Pardon? I think they’re impermanent. They’re not impermanent because they’re permanent. They’re permanent because they’re conventional truths. Do you agree they’re conventional truths?
Yes. Then they must be permanent. Then a table is permanent. Table is permanent, and it doesn’t disintegrate moment by moment. It’s not a compounded phenomenon, an aggregation of causes and conditions?
It is. No, it’s not because it’s permanent. It’s an uncompounded phenomena. Is the table an uncompounded phenomena or a compounded phenomena? Is it an aggregation of causes and conditions or not an aggregation of causes and conditions?
Causes and conditions. Then it’s not made from wood and a carpenter and glue and nails and screws coming together as causes, aggregating? It’s not. No? It’s not because it’s a non compounded phenomena.
It’s not an ultimate truth because it’s a conventional truth. Is the table a conventional truth? It is a conventional truth because it’s the object of an eye consciousness, which is a conventional consciousness. It’s a conventional truth because it’s the object of a conventional consciousness, such as an eye consciousness. Are our tables an object of conventional consciousnesses?
It is. Then it’s a conventional truth. Then it’s an uncompounded phenomena, and it’s not made up of aggregation of causes and conditions. Is it a table a compounded phenomenon or a non compounded phenomenon? It’s a compounded phenomena.
It’s not a compounded phenomena because it’s a permanent phenomena. It’s a conventional truth. Or I’ll just say a non compounded phenomena. It’s not a compounded phenomena because it’s a non compounded phenomena. Is is the table a conventional truth?
It is the conventional truth because it’s a non compounded phenomenon. No, it’s an ultimate truth because it’s a compounded phenomenon. It’s not an ultimate truth because it’s the object of a conventional consciousness. No, it’s an object of an ultimate consciousness. It’s not the object of a conventional consciousness?
No. It is the object of a conventional consciousness because it is the object of an eye consciousness. It’s not an obscured consciousness. That’s very good. You see, I mean, what you’re doing, you try to show the contradiction of your position.
And you keep going back until you make the opponent reverse his major premise that tables were an object of conventional consciousness. So you go along, you show the consequences of him holding that position. Many contradictions will arise. He’ll have to say that the table was not compounded of causes and conditions. And that’s odd, you know, that would be difficult to maintain that position when you, you know, it requires a carpenter and wood and nails and all the various causes coming together.
So this is what we’ll learn in debate, and develop to show the contradiction of the opponent’s position, his self contradiction. Jasper. Yeah. I’m not quite sure. I was under the impression that as far as conventional truth and ultimate truth, a conventional truth was something that was ascertained by an obscured mind, and an ultimate truth was the opposite.
Is that right? Anybody agree with that or disagree with that? I can’t read my notes about it. But what I want to know, if that is right, is how it relates to performing a function. I can’t see the connection there.
It’s how it relates to performing a function? Because it says that which is ultimately able to perform a function, And I can’t see how that relates to seeing it with a valid cognizer, or from an obscured consciousness, or seeing it as a thing. So things which are purely creations of the mind cannot ultimately perform any function, can they? Or can they? No.
Yeah? No. No. But if you see something, I mean, you might not see the ultimate truth of that object. Oh, we’re not saying we’re not saying we That object still performs a function.
You don’t see it conventionally through an obscure consciousness. This piece of paper an impermanent phenomenon? Yes. Do you see the impermanence of the piece of paper? No.
No. So it’s an impermanent To see it to see it is an impermanent phenomenon, but you don’t necessarily see it as impermanent, do you? You don’t see that quality of it. So I see it as a conventional truth. Is that right?
You don’t see it as either. I don’t see it as either. No. You don’t you don’t see you can see, you know, there’d Trying to see its ultimate nature. No.
You see, this we’re talking about examples. This is an example of impermanent phenomena, but Mhmm. You don’t necessarily have to see its impermanence. Yeah. But it is an example of an impermanent phenomenon.
This is, you know, there’s someone driving down the road, and you see that person, but he may be an American. So then that person is an American, but you may you may not know he’s an American, but you still see the person. Not but, know, he’s an example of an American. So all these various this table is an example of an ultimate truth, but you don’t see it as an ultimate truth. But you can Yeah.
But I see it as performing function. Do you? Yeah. It’s there to put things on them. Yeah.
But you don’t what do we say? You don’t know what you don’t know what to call it, a thing. I mean, in in in a philosophic sense. You might call that a thing, but anyway. You don’t know the name.
You may see that it’s able to perform a function, but you don’t know how that if it’s able to perform a function, it’s a thing. Or you don’t or you yeah? Hang on. Could you say that again? Sorry.
So do you wanna clarify your question again? I think I I don’t feel that I’m kind of Okay. Maybe you’ve answered my question, but Let’s clarify let’s let’s clarify the question. I’m gonna remember what I was trying to say. What I was trying to say is that we’re talking about conventional truths and ultimate truths.
An ultimate truth is that which is ultimately able to perform perform a function, and a conventional truth is implicit. Mhmm. That which is not able Whereas I saw a conventional truth, an ultimate truth, say, an ultimate truth is that which is ascertained by an unobscured consciousness. Right. That’s another way of looking at the same Yeah.
But I could see I can’t see the connection between the two. It’s hard to see the connection. Yeah. Okay. So Is it that you can’t you see your consciousness?
Well, I mean, if you see something not as an ultimate truth, you can also you can still see it as performing a function, which doesn’t mean you’re seeing it as an ultimate truth. But as far as I can work out, we must be seeing it as an ultimate truth, although you’re not seeing your emotions so you can’t. That’s all I can’t see. What’s your mother’s name? My mother’s name?
Heather. Heather. If I see you as Daryl, do I necessarily have to see you as Heather’s son? No. That’s another name we could call you by, couldn’t we?
Makes sense simply by knowing you as Daryl doesn’t mean I have to know all the various names that you could be labeled or that you could be called. Likewise, being able to see this table as being able to form a function does not mean you have to know it you would necessarily know it as an ultimate truth. But it says that an ultimate truth is that which is ultimately able to perform a function, which means if you saw it as performing a function, then you’d be seeing it as an ultimate truth. You would know its name. The ultimate truth, in other words, is not the thing itself.
That’s the name we call the object by. The actual thing itself is that which is able to ultimately perform a function. That’s its nature. That’s what we would see. Then we give that as a shortened notation, we say, we’ll call that an ultimate truth.
But you may not know that name. I may know your name as Daryl, but I may know you as Heather’s son. Quite it’s a lot easier to say Daryl than Heather’s son. What? Hey.
I’m still not caught. How stupid you don’t understand? Within the other schools of thought ultimate truth has other meanings, doesn’t it? Generally, we can we can take the meaning of objects which are the phenomena which are an object of an ultimate consciousness. But what they determine as an ultimate consciousness varies in the various schools.
In the sūtra school, in which this is being discussed, it’s simply a direct perceiver, such as eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind. Direct perceivers. So, you’re saying that your eye consciousness sees that this table is able to perform a function, but you don’t know that it’s an ultimate truth. I don’t see the ultimate nature of that table. Don’t see Well, what’s the problem?
You don’t see it as I see it as like this solid object. Yeah? But I also see it as performing a function. Yeah? So do I see its ultimate nature?
Do I see it as an ultimate truth? Is it an ultimate truth? Would I see because of It is an ultimate truth. But whether you see it as an ultimate truth is open to question. Now that Yeah, that’s what I think I’m trying to say, is that although you can see it’s functioning you see it with your eye consciousness?
With your eye consciousness, can you see that this table is able to perform a function? I can see the stuff on the table. It’s able to keep things from falling? Keeping that stuff up. Okay.
You can see that. Yeah. But so if I see that, if I see it as performing a function, I don’t necessarily have to see its ultimate in that nature. See it as an ultimate truth. Is it an ultimate truth just because I see it performing function?
Is that what an ultimate truth is? That which is able to perform a function is an ultimate truth. Yeah. So would your eye consciousness be able to see the name, the term we use to apply to this? Even if it could that the table was able to perform a function, Could it see or understand?
Could the eye consciousness understand that it’s an ultimate truth? So the eye consciousness doesn’t see it as an ultimate truth. But it sees it performing a function. But it sees it’s able to So the thing is that which is able to perform a function. The name we give that which is able to perform a function is ultimate truth.
Thing so ultimate truth is a convenient label we use to that which is able to perform a function. But what I was saying was that understand that. But what I was saying was that because I think that my old eye consciousness must see it is an obscured consciousness. Why? Because of the fact that it doesn’t see the ultimate nature of that table.
It doesn’t? I can’t see the emptiness of that table. Can see how it’s It’s not empty. This is the Cittamātra school. This is truly existent.
It’s not empty. Yeah, that’s right. Forgot. This is Vaibhāṣika. Yeah.
Is You see this as truly existing. It appears to be truly existing, and that’s the way it exists. You see the ultimate nature of this table in the Sūtra School. Yeah? Okay.
Okay. So that as far as we know, that’s how it exists, so it’s an ultimate truth. That’s right. Okay. So apart from thought, what sorts of other examples of ultimate truth?
Is thought a conventional truth? Yeah. I think so. Right. Is the thought consciousness a conventional truth or an ultimate truth?
Thought consciousness. Yeah. Conceptual consciousness? Do you mean thought or thought consciousness? Thought.
Thought itself. Yeah. Okay. Let’s look at the sheet where it says permanent phenomena. Permanent phenomena and conventional truth are mutually inclus Are they mutually inclusive?
Are permanent phenomena and conventional truth mutually inclusive? Yes. All these four examples that are given here are examples of what? Conventional truths? These are all conventional truths?
What are they? What’s the mutual exclusion? Okay. We are We’re gonna cover this tonight. Yeah.
We’ll go with it. Any more Any questions up to now? Anything that needs Yeah. Yeah. What’s Yeah.
Well, maybe we shouldn’t go any further without clearing up what’s what’s needs to be cleared out. What was an example from conventional consciousness? An example with with Anybody? Is a conventional consciousness necessarily mistaken? No, won’t say that.
Is it necessarily You wanna answer that one, Deqwan? What were you gonna say? I was just gonna maybe try and give her an example of a conventional. Which one’s that? I will.
I was gonna to whisper it, so What’s it? Give me another Well, I just thought of the the striped rope and seeing it as a snake, and the striped rope can’t perform the function of a snake. So are there no valid cognizers which are conventional consciousnesses? Are there no valid cognizers which are conventional consciousnesses? Are there no valid?
How many types of valid cognizers were there? I can’t remember. That which is established with reasoning, that which is seen direct often. We’re talking about consciousnesses. There are two types of valid cognizers.
Direct and inferential. Is an inferential consciousness a conventional or an ultimate consciousness? Is an inferential consciousness a conventional consciousness or an ultimate consciousness, or both or neither? Cath, what do you Any ideas? Conventional. Conventional.
An inferential consciousness is a conventional consciousness. Why is that? That’s correct. Who is it correct? Anybody?
Alison? Why not? It’s an obscured consciousness. Thought consciousnesses are conventional consciousnesses. They’re obscured consciousnesses.
But there are valid and invalid thought consciousnesses, aren’t there? What would be an example of a valid thought consciousness? Anybody? An inference you’re talking about an in at the inference of fire when you see smoke? That’s good.
So an an in an inferential cognizer? Yes. A direct cognition as well? We’re talking about valid thought consciousnesses. Direct would not be a thought consciousness, would it? Or would it?
No, because you don’t. Why isn’t a thought consciousness a direct cognizer? Because when you see it directly, you’re not using reasoning, logic, things like that. When you see it through a thought consciousness, you must kind of go through a process before Through the power of a what? Through reason.
Through the power of a generic image, through the power of a mental image, not the object itself. You don’t directly perceive the object by the power of the object. You direct it. You perceive the object through the power of your idea about the object, your mental image of the object. For example, you know, the kitchen is a brown table.
You can understand that there You can understand validly that in the kitchen there is a brown table. But what do we understand? Do we understand brown table directly? If we’re sitting here understanding brown table in the kitchen? What do we understand then?
Memory. Memory. Memory of it. We’re taking our conception Not our conception. Conception.
Our mental image of brown, our mental image of table and kitchen, and sticking them all together. We come up with a new valid mental image which accords with what is actually taking place in the kitchen. We’re using these symbols or mental images, generic images, mental images, mental constructs. We’re putting them together just in our mind. It has nothing to do with what’s going on out there on the table.
That’s why it’s not able to perform a function. These ideas we’re working with, like space, all these various permanent generic images, our idea of a table is not able to perform the function of a table. In our mind only, I would say. Yeah. So the ideas of a conventional the idea the objects of a conventional consciousness are just our mental our idea or mental images or constructs about the world that they themselves are not able to perform a function.
So the objects of the conventional consciousness are conventional truths. They’re not able to ultimately perform a function. And an ultimate consciousness is something that works with real objects, which are able to perform function. I understand. Yeah.
Peter, you had some doubts? Yeah. A mental something fabricated out of the mind. That’s right. I can’t quite I guess you could call it imagine, but that’s not such a good word to use.
Yeah. Our idea about a table, our idea about red or brown in this case, our idea about the kitchen. And it accords with reality, therefore we can say that we understand because we understand the brown table in the kitchen. There is a brown table in the kitchen, we could go out and see it with an ultimate consciousness. It would be validated.
But when we were understanding it by inference, we didn’t understand an actual table. Therefore, we were obscured from seeing the actual table. Were just The thought consciousness is obscured. Yeah. It cannot get at the object itself.
You cannot see all the specific We don’t When we see When I think of my mother, I have an image of my mother in my mind, but it’s like a blurred image. It’s like a composite of all my ideas about my mother. I’ve taken all my history of relating with my mother and stuck them together, And I think and that makes it my my image, my mental image of my mother. It doesn’t have any specific characteristics of one particular moment when she was baking cakes for me and she was had a her hair was such and such and She was wearing such and such a dress, but it’s a very blurred image. So it’s obscured from seeing the action.
It doesn’t really see the specific characteristics of the object, just general characteristics. That’s why the objects of a thought consciousness are called generally characterized phenomena. And the objects of the direct consciousnesses, ultimate consciousnesses, are specifically characterized phenomena. Because we see, you know, this particular piece of paper, not the general piece of paper, but this one, this one’s got this mark on it, and it’s crinkled on this corner. But when we think about paper, all these very specific qualities of a particular piece of paper do not appear to the mind.
This general piece of paper, you know, just our idea about paper. Objects of conventional consciousness? That’s a good question. Anybody wanna anybody wanna join the answer today? Because I probably can’t.
That’s a good point. Once you’ve had that mental image, it can’t change. Okay. What Then you’ve got new mental image next time I think of you. That’s good.
That’s a different conscious moment. That image isn’t changing from moment to moment. You know, it’s not being it’s not made up of cells like your mother. Yeah. Your image of your mother is not made up of cells and metabolism, the blood flowing throughout the body and all that.
It’s it’s not changing from moment to moment. But you could drop that image and take up a new one, like what you do all the time. So you drop that and you take up a and you take up a form a new mental image, but that moment that new one is not changing from moment to moment. That’s what we mean by impermanent. Something which is changing from arising, abiding, ceasing, or having been aggregated out of causes, arising out of causes — a product.
So this image isn’t being created out of the various causes. It’s difficult. That’s a difficult point. So if somebody tells you it’s a brown table and you have this image in a brown table, it says this one and they say it’s a low Yeah. It doesn’t It’s not Yeah.
What you do, you drop that old image and you have a new image. Know, that’s very interesting the way we form as we grow up our our generate our mental images, you know. We can get into this later, but, you know, like what is — I didn’t have any idea what a passionfruit is before I came to Australia. I always heard this, you know. Now, I was so I was beginning to form a mental image.
We form mental images by a process of elimination. It’s not a conscious process. Somebody says, if I say to you, do I say? Chorten. There’s a chorten in Nepal.
And I say, chorten, and then I say, Oh, a chorten’s white. All my mind starts eliminating everything that is black, green, blue, orange, everything that’s those colors. But this could end up You know, everything with white in the world is a huge It takes in a huge amount of items. So you’re At that moment, you know, this could be a chorten, you know? But, you’re just Your mental image of what a chorten is is very vague, but you’ve eliminated the fact that this is a chorten.
You do have some idea, but it’s very indefinite. So you begin to refine it. Say, Oh, most Chortens are about twenty feet high. Ah, then this isn’t a Chorten. This isn’t a Chorten.
So you begin to refine, refine, refine, refine, until you finally Chorten is a reliquary monument. It’s a stupa, which they put relics or ashes of holy people. But anyway, I’m just giving that for information. But slowly, as you learn more and more information, your mental image becomes more and more and more and correct until it’s exactly the way the object is, and then you have direct perception. This is what you’re doing when you use direct mental image.
In mental image, you become more and more familiar. It becomes more and more exactly like the object, and then you actually see the object itself. Anyway, it’s a long process of clearing away what it isn’t. It’s a negative process — what isn’t a chorten. You learn as you grow up.
It’s a very interesting process, you know, what our mother is. Our mother is a big breast, you know, for her. Something like that. Right? Then we have to refine into more refined images.
Anything up now? Any questions? What if you see a picture of a chorten? Is a picture of a chorten?