Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 42-minute session, Ven Jampa Gendun examines why every act of conceptual thinking is, at some level, mistaken — not because concepts are useless, but because they mix bare perception with mental images we mistake for the object itself. He walks through Buddhist epistemology’s six consciousnesses: the first moment of eye consciousness perceives only color and shape, but mental images laden with memory and emotion quickly overlay that bare perception — making a friend, an enemy, or a beautiful dress in a shop window seem to glow with qualities projected entirely from within. Drawing on Piaget and physicist David Bohm, he shows how language and linear thought carve the world into isolated chunks that appear independently real. He closes by tracing how this ignorance-driven perceptual process generates attachment, aversion, and karma. Suited to practitioners already familiar with emptiness teachings.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 18 HMA 1997 09 10.mp3
UUID: dc4a76ef-ba57-45ae-b783-f8340b30e298
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: The Heart and Mind of Awakening 1996-1997 (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1997-09-10
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 42.3 minutes
Words: ~5,494
Than burning, for example, or hard and solid, and in terms of form, for example. That when that when that characteristic, that property, that attribute appears to my mind, then I my mind is stimulated to think with in regard to that fire or a solid or house or or glass, whatever. And then in in in designating and labeling that object, in dependence upon that that basis, that defining characteristic, the the object comes into existence. But here we’re trying to move away from that. We’re saying there’s nothing about whatsoever coming from the side of the object.
Nothing whatsoever is determining from the side of the object how I am to conceive of it. So, you know, the the phenomena do not intrinsically exist. They do not inherently exist. If we state it another way, phenomena are merely imputed, merely designated by terms and conceptuality. So we’re gonna have to look into the nature of conceptual consciousness.
What do we mean by By by conceptual consciousness, I mean the thinking, thoughts. With our thoughts we make the world. And what is the nature of thought? It’s a very difficult area even. According to the child psychologist Jean Piaget, Pardon?
Piaget. Piaget. Piaget. A child first constructs a concept relate related to the world, then projects it out into the world. The concept is externalized so that it appears to be independent of the subject’s own mental activity.
As we can see from our own experience, the phenomena that we perceive in external world appear to exist independent of our perceptions and conceptions. Here is perhaps the most fundamental reason for believing in an objective universe independent of all consciousness. That is simply how the world appears. But it appears in that way due to the process of reification. Reification is is is the the is the concretizing of an abstraction or, you know, to making to overestimate, in this case, we would say its existential status.
Status. We’re we’re giving it we’re imbuing it with an existence which in fact an extent of existence, that a degree of existence that in fact doesn’t possess. It’s overestimating in terms of its its self defining nature. It was it is yeah. The way it exists.
Now we all of our all of our you know, we have to begin to to to gain some appreciation of how our our thinking is very much involved in what it is that we see, what how the world appears to ourselves. You know, it it appears that it’s not that, you know, this world about man is not in any way involved in my thinking about it. It it seems as if the object exists and that then perhaps I think about it. But very basic to to Buddhism is that that the very process of knowing brings objects into existence. To to The very process of knowing brings into existence the known, that we can’t divide the two, that that our our conceptual thinking, our thoughts are are are involved in world world creating even though it’s not apparent to ourselves.
So, you know, we have to begin to understand how our all conceptual consciousness are mistaken whatsoever. They’re mistaken at various levels, but they’re all mistaken. You know, I talked about the fact we use this this metaphor like the map is not the territory. Concepts thinking makes use of maps, use of mental images, ideas. We mistake the map for the territory, that’s the way it appears.
Our idea about a thing appears to be the thing itself to us in our thinking consciousness. This is why it’s always mistaken. And our thoughts, the images, the ideas are continually being overlaid onto bare perception, the way the the way the object appears in itself before we begin to elaborate, before we begin to project our various images upon it. You know, first there is you know, we have five material sense consciousnesses or sense perceptions, eye, ear, nose, tongue, body. With eye consciousness we see colors and shape, With ear consciousness we hear sounds.
With the eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, very sense consciousnesses. And they they arise and they see moment by moment. And the end we we we cannot to be aware of the raw images that our sense consciousnesses are registering in this process. Mental consciousness also is registers. The object of mental consciousness is our concepts or images, these these maps.
These are the objects of mental consciousness. So as in the in the perceptual process, consciousness can induce a mental consciousness. That is to say i.e.. That is to say we begin to to think. Now I’m gonna say by think it may it may not be this kind of dialogue that goes on in our heads.
It may not be at that level. But we begin to use symbols, we begin to use images, our aroused, in which we begin to understand the object in terms of our images and ideas about that, not necessarily we’re thinking about it. When we begin to think about an object and looking at the table, we begin to the the we begin to mental consciousness begins to overlay its images about the table. It has all the various emotional elements, various beliefs about tables, about the object about the world in general. A mental image is is a complex of emotions and ideas, a complex of images.
And we we we bear perception like the eye consciousness understands an object by the power of the object itself. The eye consciousness understands colors and shapes by the very power of color and shape itself, whereas mental consciousness understands a table by means of the medium of symbols, images. It doesn’t understand the object through the power of the object itself, but its ideas about the object. You know, it’s useful. You know, when I say conceptual consciousness are mistaken, it’s not to say that they aren’t useful.
We need them, at present at least, to get by in the world. We can we can make great use of thinking, and we have to make it hone it and make it skillful and effective. But there’s always an element of error involved in it. We understand you know, I can we understand things conceptually through ideas about them. We don’t understand the object by through its own power.
We work through a medium. And many of and many of these images are mistaken. Most of them are mistaken. The mother of all mistakes is that these objects exist inherently. But this is kind of it’s not to say that when I think of this table, I’m mistaken with regard to the table.
That that with regard to table it’s correct. So whenever I think about the table I’m also at a very subtle level, as part of this image, thinking that table exists independent of my mind, that truly exists, that inherently exists. That’s the way and that’s the way it appears to me. So there’s it’s being filtered through my own image about it which can be less to a lesser or greater extent incorrect. Always incorrect most basically at this deepest level, but it could be incorrect, you know.
When conceive of a snake when it in fact is a rope that’s a very gross mistake. That’s a wrong conception. I’ll read a little bit. So we’re we’re we’re reading we’re trying to appreciate how mental consciousness or more than mental consciousness, thought process, the thinking is entering into the perceptual process itself. How how our thinking, our mental images, our ideas, our maps are affecting the way things appear to us, that they don’t appear simply through the force of themselves, casting themselves upon myself as a passive observer and simply registering them.
But somehow they’re being interpreted through my ideals about them. And what part this is playing and and what is a where is the error and what is simply a necessary part of the perceptual process itself? You know, if we said that okay. When the oh, that ‘s worse. No one’s allowed to leave.
When there is contact between say a form and an eye and a visual consciousness. So in general, in analysis of a way a particular consciousness arises, for example, an eye consciousness which perceives a glass requires three conditions. An objective condition, that is say a glass, a dominant condition which is the sensory power, the eye sense power, the dominant condition, the eye faculty, eye sense power, and the immediate condition which is the preceding moment of eye consciousness. So it’s kind of a neat thing in Buddhism, like in this sense that, you know, like everything’s like things are happenings. When you get to we bring together a bunch of conditions all at once something happens.
And likewise, you know, you bring together three conditions, you bring together a glass, an eye faculty, and previous moment of eye consciousness, and strangely enough an eye consciousness perceiving a glass arises. So that kind of notion that things arise dependent upon various conditions and the aggregation of conditions, something comes into existence. So when there is contact between, say, a form, like a glass, an eye, and a visual an eye, it should be eye faculty and in a visual consciousness, a visual perception occurs. It lasts for just one moment, although it can reoccur as a series of subsequent moments. So the first fresh moment of bare visual consciousness would be a cognition of mere form of a certain color.
So you know the eye consciousness, what does it perceive essentially? Color and shape. That’s all that it appears to it, color and shape. The first fresh moment of bare visual consciousness would be a cognition of mere form of a certain color. However, that first fresh moment of visual consciousness can serve as a condition for the arising of a moment of mental consciousness.
So there is there are six primary consciousnesses, eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mental consciousnesses. In which case one would in that second moment have a mental perception of a visual consciousness. One would one would begin to understand that one was seeing a glass. But due to the power of subjective secondary mental factors derived from past memories, emotions, concepts, a memory or a mental image will arise at that same moment, arising as the mental consciousness. So the object of mental consciousness is the object of conceptual consciousness is our mental images.
What do we get? We can talk about that a little bit more. We’ll rise at the same moment arising as the mental consciousness and will for subsequent moments of the arising of visual consciousness be associated with that object, be mixed with that visual consciousness. These together will serve as the condition for the arising of all subsequent moments of mental consciousness. Becoming aware of the glass, I begin from the second moment onward I begin to conceptualize about the glass using my ideas, my mental image.
I begin to understand the glass through my idea about it. You know, maybe this doesn’t make any huge difference, but it does at a very subtle level. But, you know, we talked about this when we talked about friend, enemy, and stranger, that, we lay upon all the emotional associations that these mental images are a part of. These complex All our past memories, our difficulties, all our dysfunctions are all incorporated in this complex of a mental image, and we begin to associate with this when this person appears to us. And not understanding the subjective factor that is the role that that’s playing in the way this person’s appearing to ourselves.
It appears that that person is a bastard from their own side just by their very nature. I mean if you took it, you know, like if you took to a world court, they say, yes, he is a bastard. No question. Objectively. So that’s the way they appear, you know.
It does. That’s, you know, you know, and if we if we take this down to a little more relevant level, know, that’s the way beauty appears, doesn’t it? You know? There’s something, you know, like you’re walking down the street and you you come to a window and there’s this beautiful dress or a beautiful suit or some kind of and and it’s kind of come, you know, it’s kind of drawing you towards, magnetized, like glowing, you know, you go into a trance, you know. You know, take me, I can bring you bliss, you know.
It’s something from this the beauty is is something you know, if you if you look, the pleasure, the bliss, you know, it’s something it looks like it’s radiating from the side of the object. That’s the way it appears to us. It’s not our own mind, our own values. We’re not seeing that object through our own mental image, all the associations that we’ve built up, emotions that we have about, the feelings that we’ve developed around that particular that which are being stimulated by that particular catalyst, that object. But it doesn’t appear that way to ourselves.
Everything the glow, a radiance about the nature of the object. Know? It’s you know, the you know, this is very obvious when you’re in romantic love, isn’t it? This you just can’t get enough of looking at, you know, the beloved. Just just to, you know, this brings bliss to your eyes.
There’s something coming just to be around her or him. Is people become addicted to that. That’s except for that’s except for the initial moment of the arising of the visual consciousness of a certain object, all the subsequent moments of the visual consciousness which serve as an object for the mental consciousness will be mixed with the mental image, with memories, emotional responses, etc. And these will serve as conditions for the arising of mental consciousness. During their subsequent moments the mental consciousness will not be able to perceive the visual consciousness free of the mental images and subjective dispositions mixed with it.
When I can’t I can’t you know, there’s there’s I when I’m thinking about the glass, you know, as I’m as I’m perceiving the glass, you know, and again it’s not a matter of dialoguing it’s a nice glass, it’s a, you know, it’s a cheap glass or whatever. It’s just a very when we it’s very it’s very seamless when we begin to think of it in some kind of conceptual fashion, which do, which may not be obvious to our awareness. I can’t help but think about it. I can’t help but see it in terms of the visual image, of the image, not the visual image, the image which I’m projecting onto it, which my mental consciousness is seeing it through. I’m throwing I’m seeing it through a particular set of glasses.
That’s the mistaken aspect of all conceptual consciousnesses. It is a miss it’s mistaken. It’s not necessarily doesn’t necessarily have to be a difficulty. Thus, the ordinary mental consciousness cannot directly perceive the the material sense consciousness or their objects appearing. My consciousness, the type of consciousness which thinks about that object, the beloved, the enemy, the glass, cannot perceive the cannot directly perceive the object itself.
It is seeing the object through its idea, its mental image about the object. And these mental images, as we all know, can be terribly distorted. But moreover, it’s not just that we’re seeing, you know, it’s like this example that I’ve used about the, you know, looking at the snow mountains wearing sunglasses and it appears green. The point is it appears green. It’s not as if I mean that’s the way it appears, as if snow were green.
And you could spend your life thinking snow were green. Maybe that’s you know, that might not make any difference to your life. Probably would. I don’t know. It might or might not.
But the point is that’s the way it appears. We don’t think, oh I’m wearing sunglasses, therefore it is appearing. And and there and we would we would begin to take make allowances for the for the mistake in our in the appearance, which is what we’re trying to do. We’re beginning to do it. But that’s the way it appears.
We we see to that appearance, that it appears that way and therefore that’s the way it exists. It truly exists as a green snow mountain for example. And we don’t we aren’t aware of, in all conceptual thinking, these appearances. It’s not that what we’re thinking about it, it’s the way the object is appearing. All objects are appearing in a particular way to ourselves due to a particular fault in the projection of, for example, true existence or inherent existence.
So the the the point is I’ll go ahead and read this. The the point is most important For the initial moment of cognition of a certain object, the five material sense consciousness do directly perceive their object unerroneously because these perceptual consciousnesses are not mixed with mental image, however, during the subsequent moments of the arising of these sense consciousnesses which are cognizing a certain object, they are mixed with mental image, and this whole complex serves as the objective condition. Such a mental consciousness, which is what we commonly refer to as thought or our thinking mind, is therefore unable to separate the mental image from the actual bare perceptions and is thus always erroneous and distorted in that it confuses the mixture of a mental image and a perceptual consciousness for the object itself. Whenever we think about an object, we’re in some way distorting it, we’re in some way mistaken about it in some way. So I have to get a sense of what a mental image is.
That’s not a picture that might come to your mind. Most of us are probably very visually oriented, so when we talk about mental image it’s not quite it doesn’t capture all of what we mean by mental image. It’s a complex of images, of ideas, assumptions, beliefs, emotions which are interconnected into a single image like pattern. And all that we associate, that we’ve learned, ideas that we have about this particular object are incorporated in that mental image and we’re seeing that object through this image that we have about it. It appears, whatever that image it is filtered through, it is known through that image.
It is qualified by that image. All conceptual cognitions are mistaken with respect to the objects which appear to them. So conceptual consciousness apprehend their objects through the medium of mental images, models. This is the way we try. We understand our world.
We build representations of the world and we understand our world through representations, those models. We are model builders. We don’t understand the world through the power of the object itself, which would be the case through, for example, direct eye consciousness, understands the nature, understands the object through the actual color and shape of the object itself. What is appearing to the conceptual consciousness, that is to say this thinking consciousness, is not not only the object, but the object mixed with our mind’s own subjective mental image associated with that object. Something triggers a you know, object something in in our environment stimulates our thought.
It it’s sort of we we go to our archives and retrieve we’re trying to make sense of our world. It’s just this data of colors and shapes and sounds, and we’re trying and it’s triggering off various it’s stimulating stimulating our our mental consciousness. And we’re trying to make sense. We’re trying to to to to in some way secure ourselves within this chaos. So we try to see for patterns.
We try we we create constructs. We try to in order to gain some kind of security, in order to gain some kind of power, manipulate what felt to be at some level a chaos, a chaotic world about us. So we begin to impose patterns. We begin to think of things in terms of models and representations. We think about an object, it appears as though we are apprehending the object itself.
You know, when I think about the glass, it appears I that I’m thinking about the glass itself. But in fact, we are apprehending our object through our by means of our own concepts, own ideas, our beliefs about the object projected upon it. That’s all we know about the object. You know, that’s all I understand about the object is what I’m projecting on the object. I don’t know the object in and of itself, for itself, by its own power, but my ideas about it.
Because mental consciousness is this okay? It’s not nobody’s floating off into the it gets a bit can get a bit abstract too. Because mental consciousness of the conceptual cognition cannot separate the conception from the perception. Conception has to do with ideas, models, language, whereas perception has an idea at least of direct bare perception of seeing the thing in and of itself without being filtered through ideas and beliefs. It is said to be deceived about the mode of appearance of the object as well as the mode of existence of the object.
So we’re talking about the mode of appearance and the mode of existence, the way the object appears to us and the way that it exists. The mode of appearance of the object refers to how the object appears to consciousness. That is, the mode of appearance is the mixture of the mental image with the bare perception. The mode of existence of the object refers to how the object actually exists in and of itself. For example, if one cognizes a red rose growing on a vine before one, one’s cognition of the rose is said to be deceived because one is incapable of separating one’s conceptions about the rose from the mere appearance of the red shape, which is all that is actually cognized by visual consciousness.
Moreover, as one neither thinks this rose is impermanent nor perceives the impermanence of the rose, but rather just sees the rose as if it were permanently there, so one is deceived about the mode of existence. Here the mode of existence is in terms of it being permanent or impermanent. When one recognizes a red rose one would, if a red rose one were to think this rose is impermanent then one would not be deceived about the mode of existence of the rose. But one would still be deceived about the mode of appearance of the rose for one would still be mixing the red shape with conception of rose. You know, you have emotional associations built up instincts which are are are part of these mental images.
It’s just not a rose. A rose has some meaning for you. It might be the flower that you that you were given that was placed upon a dead body, that was placed upon a coffin. There very distinct emotional associations for you. Experience becomes part of that mental image of what a rose means for you particularly.
It might mean somebody might have a different image for someone else, different associations and feelings and beliefs and whole history surrounding what we mean by a rose. It’s just not a rose. For one would still be mixing the red shape with the conception rose. But when we see a friend or when we see an enemy, we bring this entire history in the form of these mental images and project it upon that. So we construct concepts and images related to the world, and then we project them onto the world.
So the conception the concept is just like in this case of the child, is externalized. It’s cut off. It no longer appears to be something derived from our own mind, our own creation, but it appears to be out there in the world independent of our own minds. So it it appears, what it what it appears to us, appears to us to exist independent of our mental activity. That’s when I think about my friend or my enemy, when I think about a rose of that glass, that what appears to me, that glass, you know, when I think about it, when my friend is there with me, that as I’m conceiving my friend, as I’m conceiving the glass, it appears that that is what the glass is.
That is the nature of the glass, what is appearing to me. It’s not a part of my mental activity. As physicist David Bohm says, since our thoughts since our thought is perceived with since our thought is pervaded with differences and distinctions, it follows that such a habit leads leads us to look upon these as real divisions so that the world is then seen and experienced as actually broken up into fragments. And the way that we think in our linear thinking, you know as I probably mentioned this last week, you know the boy and the girl they walk down street and then they went to the store. And it’s like a little story, the way we shape our language, the way that we think using language.
And each word, the boy, is separate from the girl and the store and the going. There’s all these distinct, as if independent of one another, forms that we’re making use of. And somehow these correlate to the actual world out there. We see boys and girls, see going, we see stores as all isolated independent entities out there in the world. And due to the very nature of this ignorance influence thinking process, the world appears to be broken up into isolated concrete chunks of things out there.
There are all these things. There’s me over here with this big black line around me, and then there’s the world out there full of lots of isolated entities, chunks unrelated to one another. That’s simply a reflection of our thinking process because that’s the way we think about the world, not necessarily the way the world is. It appears that way, but we begin to question that those appearance do not necessarily affect reality. We can be mistaken.
So, you know, the the the all of these things out there, these chunks of entities, appear to have some kind of intrinsic identity of their own. These appearances are we accept these appearances as being true. It’s not only that they appear to us, but we think, oh, that’s in fact the way these things exist, as isolated chunks of things out there, each with their own particular inherent identity, intrinsic identity. So from this, you know, from accepting from this appearance and then acceding to that appearance, accepting that appearance to be true, all of the various dysfunctional patterns of mind arise. All the various elaborations of mind, you know, the patterns of attachment, the patterns of aversion begin to arise.
There’s me over here, there’s the world out there with these various independent things each with their own inherent characteristics. So if I then identify them as having the inherent characteristic of repulsiveness then I want to make them a permanent not part of myself. I I try to remove them with my whatever I can see that is my territory or my my sense of identity of which I whatever it is I identify myself with, this thing over here. You know, you you know, we talked about last if if we begin to what would be the opposite of that way of thinking? Thinking?
To begin to see that this is merely appearance with it’s moreover this appearance is very much bound up with your own mental activity. That there is that you that this that the separation between self and other and the things out there amongst them, these things out there, are only a manner of convention, not absolute. That things do not have intrinsic identity. That there is they would gain a sense of interdependency and a sense of participatory that one is participating in bringing forth one’s lived reality, that there is a unity amongst things? How could you run away from something which was you know, how how could you run away from something which was simply only in a manner of speaking, not a part of yourself?
How could you how could you seek to hold on to something which was only in a manner of speaking, only separate from yourself? You know, it’s not that something that there would be that the very foundation for the arising of these dysfunctional patterns of aversion and attachment would be gone, that the premise would no longer be there. There would be nothing to hold on to and no nothing to run away from except thinking makes it so. Out of this out of this process of attachment, out of this process of aversion, you know, based upon this misconception, we set into motion actions. We create karma.
And moreover all of our actions are, even if on a gross level are skillful, at a very subtle level are always inappropriate because they’re inappropriate with respect to the final nature of the object to which they’re trying to relate with, the object to which they’re interacting. And this leaves traces upon the consciousness, the karmic formations, the latencies within our mind. And moreover these conditioning factors predispose us as their results to select and organize our world along certain lines in certain ways. You know this is it is because of this process, this ignorance driven process that we continually experience our world in one degree or another as dissatisfactory rather than peace, rather than experiencing ourselves. We always experience ourselves in some way or another, to some limited degree or another, as being limited, with a limited identity, how we conceive of ourselves rather than, you know, some kind of open ended potential of ourselves as Buddhas.
Now the world why is it that why is it Our minds are not blank slates. Things aren’t simply casting themselves upon us and we experience their intrinsic characteristic of whether they’re they’re good or bad, pleasurable or displeasurable, and somehow it simply registers upon our our feeling consciousness. That’s not the case. That we have conditioning factors within our own mind. And these and what when we talk about, you know, we talk about karma, or skillful karma and unskillful karma, all we’re saying by that is, essentially is that skillful karma, that is say these predisposing tendencies that we’re implanting upon our mind, are going to at some point assist us in organizing our reality in such ways that it’s interpreted as positive, as pleasurable, as enhancing.
What we mean by unskillful karma simply is that the types of dispositions that we are implanting upon our consciousness, these conditioning factors are such that when they are catalyzed by certain objective conditions they will cause us to conceive of that object in an undesirable fashion, in a fashion through which we experience suffering or dissatisfaction in some way, that is seen as threatening in some way. So these predisposing factors in our mind are are very much determining our experience, determining how we how we are constructing our world and experiencing it. This is, you know, at at basis arises from this ignorance driven perceptual process in which we are most basically grasping at true existence, grasping at inherent existence. You know? Okay.
Well, we’ll go we’ll Anyway, we’ll talk more about this. I hope it’s It’s okay? Okay. That’s your karma whichever way you go. It’s not my fault.
So we’ll dedicate the dedicate the Dedicate the positive energy that we we have accumulated, this this kind of positive karma which will predispose us to to interpret and organize our reality along very positive positive lines in the future? How how we what kind of positive lines do would we like it to organize along? We can give it some kind of some kind of direct some kind of a what would you say? Some kind of parameters. Yes.
Some kind of defining ways in which to interpret our worlds. The lama, circle of victorious snow mountains, you are the source of all happiness and well-being. Please remain until the end of cyclic existence. May I quickly become an awakened spiritual master and lead each and every living being to their awakened realm through these skillful actions. May the supreme jewel, the awakened heart that has not arisen, arise and grow.
And may that which has arisen never diminish but increase more and more.