Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. The puzzle that drives this 47-minute session: if you point to a gray cat and say “cat,” how does a child later recognize a black cat by the same name? Ven Jampa Gendun uses this question — drawn from Buddhist logic’s study of identifying isolates — to introduce the concept of the meaning generality, the mental image to which a name is actually applied rather than to the specific object present. Working through the three functions of an expressive term (name, convention, and appellation), he shows that when we learn a word, we apply it to “the opposite of non-cat,” a generality that covers all instances of cat regardless of color, size, or shape. The session closes with a class debate on how we determine whether two things are similar in type. Suited to students working through formal Buddhist epistemology and logic.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 29 CT 1988 05 24.mp3
UUID: 31f95880-0fdf-4d50-98be-f73c88e8df87
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: Collected Topics (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1988-05-24
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 46.9 minutes
Words: ~5,523
The third section, the third subdivision of the lesser path of reasoning. Anybody know what the third subdivision is? How many subdivisions of the lesser path of reasoning? Eight. Good.
And what is the third? It’s something that isolates, but I don’t know. The second. Correct. Identifying isolates.
So actually, we’ve been leading up to it in a way because studying about naming and generalities, meaning generalities, meaning generalities. We’re working our way up to it because it’s not so easy to understand at first glance. Second glance. So we’re talking about a word, a word or an expression, an expressive term. We talked last week about it, it has three functions.
It can function as a name, in the sense that it leads the mind to an object. For example, the word pot. The word pot. The word pot. That’s the root pot.
This has the ability to lead the mind to an object, in this case the pot. The expressive term pot has the ability to lead the mind to a pot, and thereby it functions as a name. It can function as a convention. It brings to the mind the fact that the, for example, pot is able to perform the function of holding fluids. So when we hear the term pot, it brings to mind that the object, that it’s the pot, is able to perform the function of holding fluids.
Such as and it’s useful for pouring water and tea, things like that. Then it also acts this word pot acts as an appellation. The first time we connect an object with its name, we’d like to hang a tag on it. And then we put a tag on it. This tag is the appellation.
The first time that we use it a distinctive function of an expressive term, appellation or a tag, label. We put a label on it. We’re looking at how we develop our mental images, our meaning generality. Actually, word the literal, if you were to translate the Tibetan term literally, it’s meaning generality. Sometimes use different ways of translating the same words.
Sometimes they use mental label, mental image. Mental image, the word mental is not there at all. They’re putting that in when they say mental image. Generic image, this idea of a general, generic. You know, whichever they said most meaningful to you.
The literal meaning of the term or the translation is meaning generality, meaning generality. The meaning is the thing itself. You know, we talked about definitions and definiendum. The definition is the thing itself. The meaning is the thing itself.
We’re making some generality out of that object itself. For example, a pot. We’re making a generality out of the pot, a bulbous thing which is able to hold fluids. We take the example of a child, the first time a child has someone who understands terminology, someone who understands English words, they point to, let’s say, a gray cat, and they say cat. So the child associates this term cat with an object.
This is the first function of an expressive term, this appellation. He puts this tag. But the question is, does he put the term cat on the gray cat or on something else? Somebody says, Johnny, cat, cat, so pointing out an object. In his mind he’s taking this term cat and placing it.
It becomes an appellation, a tag or label, and he puts it on cat. Does he put it on cat? Does he put it on gray cat? Or does he put it on something other than those two? The first time he hears associating a term with an object.
What are you thinking? What is he associating the term with? This cat out there, this gray cat or cat? If he associates this term cat with a specifically characterized cat, then when he sees a black cat, how does he know that’s a cat? He knows when he sees a black cat, he says, Cat.
He’s Well, I don’t You have to have it repeated then. So he can’t know the name of something from only the first lesson, only the first time it’s been introduced? Is he applying the name to the cat? To the specifically characterized cat? So if he applies it to that specifically characterized cat which is present, then another time he sees for example a great cat, and another time when he sees a calico cat, he cannot apply that term to that cat.
Right? I think it’s my fault. He can’t? How about you? Could you do it?
Then when the first time you see a when well, the first time I saw a what a gray koala bear. I don’t know. So I said, oh, there’s a koala going up that tree. Then I saw then later on, five minutes later, saw one of the qualla, the brown koala. And then I saw, Oh, there’s another koala.
How did I the first time I saw they were applying this when I applied this someone pointed out this kuala bear in the tree and I applied this term that they taught me to this object. Was I applying it to the kuala bear that was going up in that tree which was present at that specific time? I think you can do that, because you have an idea what range of meaning is associated with koala. Whereas I think with a child, its first experience is just naming things, naming individual things, and later it learns to generalize. But I think if we were confronted with something totally out of our experience and it was named, we might have difficulty recognizing another one of the same same thing, not exactly the same.
How about a Martian? Martian can do that. Yeah. I think they’re quite difficult to know. With ten heads?
It said we saw a Martian that was green. And then the next day you saw a Martian with orange. Which was orange. I just think that’sand someone called it a Martian. Once they called it, it’s an orange Martian.
It’s another Martian. Yeah, another Martian back in time. Because, you know, there’s so many factors to make when that person was pointed out, its shape and everything. And the only thing that’s different is the color. Therefore, you know, if there was a few other things that were different, then I might have lost.
And within your experience, cat. That’s a sapling. That’s my word. Shape name and shape together. Yeah.
Yeah. That’s one thing alone. That’s what I what I remember. Imagine that a child seeing first on his cat than in Persian. I imagine that a child seems fast on his cat than in a Persian.
Yeah. I think he’d have troubles generalizing that. That’s two different completely different looking cats in terms of shape and color. It’s a cat. But if the lion comes along, they say cat too, because it looks similar and when they pick up.
I experienced it. When I was a kid, oh, a cat. No. That’s a lion. Even the lion, it’s a lion.
You know, the line is a lie. No. Shape. I think name and shape. Yeah.
I do. I got this vibration. Yeah, you’re right. That’s the way we develop the idea of similarity of type, usually by shape. Shapes.
Same shapes as we recognize things as being similar in type, and therefore because it’s a similar type then we can give it the same name. I don’t know. If you associated a name with just the object which was present, the specifically characterized object which was present, then there’d be no way to, when you saw something of a similar type later, to apply that same name, would there? That’s the only to do that. But how do you do that?
If it’s only like this, you know, this is a unique table, there’s not another one I like in the world. So, I learn table by applying it to this specific one, then I can’t associate it with this one. This is like the only table in the world, isn’t it? But we’ve learned to discriminate and categorize. Yeah, okay.
How do we do that? If it is as you say that we apply the name to the object which is present at that specific time that we’re learning the name, then you’re saying that the second time someone says, Table. You say, Well, wait a minute, that’s not a table. A table is like this. And you say, Somebody’s wrong.
Somebody’s wrong. One of you is wrong. No, no, you’re both right. How can you both be right? This is a table.
You told me last week this was a table. But doesn’t a specific characterised phenomena have to be present in order to appear? Appears. So it couldn’t. It’s a similarity.
You notice a similarity, not exactly the same, but near so. The similarity in type. Yeah, we’ll get to that. No, what I’m saying the first question is, to what are we applying the name? Are we applying it to the specifically characterized Paramana that’s been pointed out or to something else?
That’s my question. My idea is if it were being applied to the specific characterized phenomena which were present at that particular time, then later on, even if you saw something similar in type to it, you can never say, This is a table, because this is the table, this isn’t the table. It’s a very specifically characterized thing you’re calling a table, not a generally characterized phenomenon. And there’s only one of those. I see what you’re saying, because one of the first things we must learn about language is that it’s completely composed of generalities.
So that if we had to give a specific character a name to listen. If we thought that the label with the name that we’ve been given for the specific character or phenomena, then, you know, the universe wouldn’t be big enough. I mean, there would just be so many names we’d have to have. Every object would have a name. Yeah.
It would have a unique name. And it would have a name for every different moment because it’s kind of impermanent. Right. So maybe the child understands or has some sort of and they over characterize once hugely until they learn So what are they when they’re learning this, what they applying the name to? Are they still applying the name to a specifically characterized phenomenon?
Once I’ve learned that, I find it And I wonder Let’s see. You It has to be pointed out to them again with another object. I think so. I think until they have that pointed out, they only name in a specific cat. So there’s no way they could see something similar in type and and be able to name it properly?
Like if they saw me, if I introduce you, introduce me to them, say this is Next time, no. How about if I wore different clothes, you know, and they saw me again? I said, oh, here comes Jampa. And that’s that’s not the Jampa that you point that you introduced me to. Is it?
He has different clothes on. But there’s a possibility. Well, according you have a good point. It’s said to be a sign that because a child can have something pointed out and named one time and he can see another similar type of object at another time and be able to name it. This is a sign that the name is not being applied to a specifically characterized phenomenon.
It’s being applied to the meaning generality of an object. He’s applying it not to the specifically characterized table, but to the meaning generality table, his mental image of a table. Therefore, when he sees he sees an object which possibly is similar, then he can refer to that as his index, his reference file, and say, Oh, that matches up pretty well. That’s a table. So they’re saying that this is a sign that he’s not applying the name to this, but to his mental image of a table.
But you have a good point. But eventually he has to develop a mental image of a table, doesn’t he? Meaning generality? What’s the last thing I did quite quite quickly? But you don’t think from the first time.
See, the first time, Charles sees a cat, there’s not many there might not be somewhere around to find out. Yeah. Well, yeah, he has to have someone teach him the name. Yeah. I think that the children get a lot more information than talking about a specific object and if they see it too, not the cat and say, Minsi the cat, for instance, Minsi being a name and the cat being Oh, then he could probably see if Minsi the cat was green, gray, and then we saw a calico cat, he would probably call that Minsi the cat.
What would that be? That would be a sign he was making. He was applying the name to a generic image, a mental image, but his generic image, meaning generality, I would say, was inaccurate. That could happen, wouldn’t it? Oh, it happens.
So, perhaps from that example, he was applying the term to meaning generality, but the meaning generality was to Minsi the cat, and then he sees another cat, and he said, This is He was applying the wrong term. As you said, his mental image was too broad. You know? It was too broad because it included all cats. And it’s all things.
Maybe all furry things. So he’s not applying to this specifically characterized phenomena. He is applying it to a mental image because his mental image is taking in more than what is just being present at that moment. It’s taking in all kinds of furious four legged things, perhaps. That’s possible.
Maybe that’s the only incorrect naming, I don’t know. But he probably is taking in more. So this would be a sign he’s taking in more. Mental image taking this term cat and applying it to mental image which is much broader. It’s a generally characterized phenomenon, which is incorrect, but it’s much broader than this specifically characterized phenomenon out of the cat, the gray cat or whatever.
Because then later on he might call a dog a cat. This is a sign. First animal I learned is all animals. It’s all animals. So this is a sign he’s applying to a meaning generality rather than specifically characterized phenomena.
Otherwise he wouldn’t make that mistake. He would only apply that name to this specific cat rather than to dogs. Even other cats he wouldn’t apply it to. Anyway Yeah. Then they have to be correct, then they start adjusting their mental image, cutting down a little more.
So, what they’re naming is said to be not the specific characterized cat, but the opposite from non cat. So when a gray cat is present and someone says, This is a cat, they’re associating this term cat with the opposite of non cat. The opposite of non cat is suitable to be applied to this gray cat, but it’s also suitable to apply to cats of different types, colors, and shapes, because they’re all opposite of non cats. So this is what he’s actually applying the term to, the opposite of non cat. That’s what they the opposite of non cat.
Oh, you know, big cat, small cat, yellow, gray, Persian, Burmese, they’re all opposite of non cat. This is the generality that he’s applying to. So when he learns the name, he’s applying the name, for example, cat, to a mental image, which is an appearance to thought of the opposite of non cat. So he applies the name cat to an appearance, to thought. Its appearance is the opposite of non cat.
You know, when we talk about mental image it’s usually something you think of pictures. I guess you can picture. You think of picture, don’t you? When you think of mental I mean, when you think of a pictorial image. We think very much in pictures, don’t But can imagine very visually the meaning generality of cat?
It couldn’t have any particular color, could it? It couldn’t have any particular color because that wouldn’t couldn’t apply that to every cat. It couldn’t have any particular size, could it? Because then you couldn’t apply it to a small cat, could you? So this was the idea about why meaning generalities, why thought consciousness are mistaken, because meaning generalities mistaken with what, too?
Three things. We talked about those three things time, place, and nature. You know, it doesn’t make any it’s not specific as to size, for example. Time the time, place, or nature. So the color your mental image of a cat wouldn’t be any particular size, wouldn’t be any particular color.
Probably shape mostly, you know, as as really said. Do you happen when you when it says cat, you do think of a A specific cat? You know, if you’ve got a cat, you think of that cat. But is that the is that when when I’m talking here, we we we’ve been using the word cat. We know what we mean when we say cat.
As we talk, do you think that this particular cat that you have at home or whatever is the one that you’re referring to all the time? Well, you know, symbol we’re using symbols when we talk, this mental image of a cat. Isn’t that where the word acts are coming from? There’s association, yeah. That’s how it says.
It’s sort of the distillation of all the little bits of information. Yeah, that’s right. The composite. That’s why it says blurred as to place, time, and nature. You know, when you take a tree we all know what a tree is when we say it, but we don’t have any oak tree or a gum tree in mind when we say it.
It’s just it doesn’t even exist. I mean, it can be applied to a specific, but it’s just a generality which you’ll never, you know, you never you couldn’t cut down because it’s it’s it’s only exist within the mind. If I say tree to you, doesn’t there appear an image of a tree? No, I don’t oh, an image of a tree maybe, but not of any specific tree. But an image of one kind of tree rather than a gum tree or a honey tree?
Like boat, you know boat, you don’t it’s just a boat, this boat. Then when you think about it, maybe you think of a little boat or a big boat or whatever. Water. Maybe when you see a boat. I mean, like, say, let’s say, there’s a fuzzy area.
If you see a boat or a scene or a tree, somehow that tree might somehow come closer to the core of that of all our associations with tree. Like, some one tree might seem to have more kind of seem more of a tree or more of an archetypal kind of one particular cat might seem more have to have more catness than some other cat. They just it’s the politics. That’s that’s that’s like Isn’t it familiarity, though? Yeah.
Yeah. Probably. No. I’m just saying that. Say, like, the thing that brought into mind was a boat, know, you might look at a boat, something that might seem really, you know The essence of boat.
Good example of what a boat’s all about. That’s what Plato, he had this, the universals, and he thought like beauty, we all have this we all have a sense of beauty. And he thought there was some essence of beauty, and all the objects were getting closer and closer to this beauty. And I call it a universal. This is kind of what you’re talking about.
But there, generality, this essence universal, was not associated with any instant. It was divorced. But here, the generality has instances. When we say tree, there are instances of tree, even though none of those is this meaning generality of tree. Nothing is the meaning generality of tree because it’s a generally characterized phenomenon, but there are instances of specifically characterized phenomena which are examples of this.
Like this table is an instance of a generally characterized phenomenon of meaning generality of table. But we like beauty. We talk about beauty. Oh, that’s beautiful. When you say beauty, nothing that’s just another image, isn’t it, meaning generality?
Nothing’s particular, nothing specific. Does anything specific come up in your mind? We have a mental image, don’t we? Well, I mean, no, we do have I mean, your mental image of beauty might be a bit different than mine. But when I, you know, Oh, that’s really beautiful.
You know, whatever it is, somehow we can apply it, you know, to a picture or a nice day or a person or something like that. So when the name cat is first applied, connected with an object, we eliminate everything that is not cat. And in a sense, we apply it to everything that is left over after we have eliminated not cat. In a sense, we apply it to everything that’s left over after we’ve eliminated, not cat. Seems like a rather roundabout way to do it.
So in order for naming process to lead to a correct usage of the convention learned, it must be applied to a mental image that correctly represents what is being limited as not the thing so named. So when we apply the name cat in order for it to if we’re going to be able to use the word cat correctly, the name cat correctly, then what we’re being eliminated? What we’re eliminating? We must know what is being eliminated in order to understand to be able to use the name cat as to what is left over, or what is not the thing, so named. So we have to know what the thing not named is to be able to eliminate it and understand that that which is left over is the object that we’re naming.
That correctly represents what is to be eliminated as not the thing so named. It’s applied to a mental image that correctly represents it’s being applied to a mental image, like we’re applying the name cat to this grey cat, for example. The mental image that we’re applying this name cat must be able to represent what is to be eliminated as not the things named. Must be what is to be eliminated as not the things so named. So we know if we make an identification respect to in one single instant of associating the name with the object, it allows us to recognize instances of the same type.
There’d be two reasons why, you know, we just one time we associate, we apply a name with that particular object. And then from that, we’re able to apply that name correctly to an object of a similar type, another cat, for example. Because the identification was made in connection with the opposite of non cat. Identification is made in connection with the opposite of non cat, and because the opposite of non cat is itself a generality that applies to instances of cat. So we made this association and we applied this name of cat, this identification of a cat, for example, is made in connection with the opposite of non cat.
It’s made in connection with the opposite of non cat. Because opposite of non cat is a generality which we can apply to any instance of cat, whether it’s a big cat, small cat, yellow cat, black cat. It’s a generality we can apply to any type of cat. So we associate the name to the opposite of non cat and this non cat. This opposite of non cat can be applied to any cat.
Therefore, after only one instance of having the name associated being applied to a specific object, we can apply it again to anything of a similar type, any object of a similar type. We’re going to discuss how we come to an understanding of what is a similar type. This is difficult. So the meaning generality is what appears to thought as the opposite of non cat. This mental image appears to thought as the opposite of non cat.
This is the means by which we are able to recognize other objects, identify the same similar types of objects. Then this is in the case of quick review of the term. If, let’s say, I called you, somebody said, Somebody said, You’re across a crowded room, somebody said, Oh, there’s Rudy. There’s Rudy. You know?
Strange name for a girl. The next time I saw you, called you. I said, Hi, Rudy. Yeah, well, what would I be doing? I just Well, anyway, the name hasn’t been properly connected with the object.
Yeah. I was just thinking if, you know, if there’s a child or perhaps anyone, if there’s a big field, there’s a whole there’s a whole field of objects or things which could be singled out. And at that moment, something singled out, then everything else immediately becomes not that object. And and then, so that’s that’s what I was getting at, trying to understand what you were saying. You know, it’s like something stands out in relief from everything else.
Yeah, isn’t it? But what is it that stands out in relief? Yeah, that’s Yeah, what is it that stands out? If we have an attic full of all kinds of junk, boxes and all kinds of junk in our attic, and we’re going to point out one object by eliminating, throwing out everything else. Then we say, Well, what’s left over is what I want to keep.
Is just what appears to her. No specifically characterized phenomena doesn’t appear to us, does it? It doesn’t have a particular shape or color, does it? It’s just that which has been left over. That’s what we’re to call leftover, or we’re going call cat or whatever.
That which has been left over. There’s some shape there, but it’s not any particular there’s something which is the I used to maybe archetype the what they’re calling it, they’re calling it the generality of cat. It’s not any you know what I mean? There’s not any specific cat. The only thing that’s left over is the generality of cat.
And if this in fact was a cat. And then we’re going to throw out everything. And we’re not going to come into this cat with maybe it’s black or maybe it’s crippled or something like that. This is not going to enter into our mental image of what’s left over at all. It’s just that it’s going to probably be a shape, some kind of shape.
Is going to be our mental image of cat, our meaning generality of cat. This is what we’re going to apply this name cat to this thing, that which is left over, the opposite of non cat. All these are non cats, and the opposite of that is the thing we’re going to apply the name to. It’s kind of hard to see, isn’t it? It is,, because it doesn’t have any particular color. Doesn’t any particular shape, because it’s not a specifically characterized phenomenon.
But that’s what we find in the name cat, too. But it’s not specific. I don’t for example, because all cats, regardless of their shape, size, are all opposite of non cat, a person who has properly learned the name cat can apply it correctly to all of them, regardless of whether it’s a crippled cat or a gray cat or a black cat. He’s talking they’re all opposite of non cats. And once he’s associated the word, the name cat with the opposite of non cat, then he can apply it to all of them.
It doesn’t make any difference without specific characteristics that they may have. They just have to be of a similar type. Roughly speaking, in order to apply the term cat correctly, it’s not only necessary to apply the name properly, but it’s also necessary First we have to apply the name to the meaning generality correctly. But we have to recognize other phenomena which are of the same type. You know, if we’re going to begin with the same name refers to.
So we to correctly apply the name to the meaning generality, and then we have to be able to recognize other objects which are similar in type if we’re going to be able to apply this name correctly to them also. For example, you know, we’re talking about trees. You know a gum tree, oak tree, maple tree, pine tree. Are they similar in type? No, I won’t use the word.
Oak, gum, pine, maple, trees. Are these all similar in type? Similar in type? No, not similar in type. Why do you think they’re similar?
They got the stem and the roots. Yeah. Like growing apples, but So how do you determine similarity of type? If you say they are similar type, an oak tree and a peach tree and a maple tree. If you say they are a similar type, how do you go about determining?
Oh, I mean, instead of in a bush. That would take you the rest of your life, wouldn’t What do you think, Denise? I can’t say it’s general on them. Oh, the shape. The shape?
Yeah. Maybe not. Why? Some trees are stumpy or chunks, but, you know, it’s a tree as opposed to a bush. How about you wouldn’t say that a you wouldn’t say a pot and a wouldn’t say that a pot and a cat were similar.
Would you say they’re similar in type? A pot and a cat? You mean sharpie? No. Would you say that all those are the same type?
A cat and a cat. Why wouldn’t you say that? Would you say that a gray cat and a black cat are similar type? Why would you say one is similar type and one is not similar type? What would be your standard in making that decision?
Between the two. Yeah, you say that With a, yeah? Do you mean cat I mean cat food or wild cat, so weird. What’s that? We’ll say, okay, we’ll say an oak tree and a fruit tree.
Would you say they’re similar in type? How a pot and a tree? Are they similar in type? Okay, why is one similar in type and the other not? Do you?
That’s similar characteristic. For example? How about, for example, a pot and a pillar, aren’t they both products? Aren’t they both impermanent? A pot and a pillar, are they similar in type?
They’re both impermanent, aren’t why didn’t you say that? Since they’re both impermanent, they’re both products, they’re both objects of knowledge, why don’t you say they’re similar in type? Does the meaning generality have a function? Is it meaning generality able to perform a function? Is it a thing?
Is it an impermanent thing? Is it a thing? It is impermanent because it’s a thing. Then it’s not permanent. Yes, it is.
So, Certainly, no, it’s not permanent. It’s not impermanent. It is impermanent because it’s a thing. It’s a thing because it’s able to perform function. Yeah.
How do you know you can? How do you know that you can do it correctly? Because you can learn more to take along. Well, you can’t learn that way. I mean, you meet a person for the first time.
How can you decide this is a person? Oh, there’s a person, there’s a man. No one has to point out every time to you. You can make this inference. Is that you know this is similar in type to what the name I’ve applied to people in the past.
This fits my my meaning generality. How do we know if two things are similar in type? Is a pot and a pillar are they similar in type? Aren’t they both impermanent products? Or why aren’t they similar in time?
The explanation isn’t very convincing in a way. They say two phenomena are posited as one type, or they say same type or similar type. Two phenomena are posited as one type. If someone who is trained in terminology, that is, someone who knows names, someone who is trained in terminology, naturally develops a mental conception of them as similar due to merely perceiving them. So I’ll repeat that.
Two phenomena are posited as same type or one type. If someone who is trained in terminology naturally develops a mental conception of them as similar just by merely seeing them, by merely perceiving them.