Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 45-minute talk, Ven Jampa Gendun opens discussion of Prāsaṇgika Madhyamaka — the Consequence school — framing it as the Buddha’s subtlest account of reality: things exist, but not intrinsically. A coiled rope mistaken for a snake anchors the central argument: the mind’s process of imputing an object is identical whether the cognition is correct or mistaken, demonstrating that phenomena have no self-defining quality and exist only through conceptual designation. He then explains how perception becomes mixed: the first bare moment of sense consciousness is pure, but subsequent moments fuse with mental images built from memory and emotion, so that conceptual mind can no longer separate symbol from object. The Lhasa example and Jean Piaget’s account of children projecting concepts onto the world reinforce why all conceptual cognitions are technically mistaken about their appearing object. Suited to students already working through the Buddhist philosophical schools in sequence.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 10 3 PA 1990 11 02 inaudible.mp3
UUID: 5ca8b116-0934-47dc-bfd3-6cde6475b76d
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: Three Principal Aspects of the Path 1988-1990 (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1990-11-02
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.5 minutes
Words: ~5,296
I go for refuge to the Dharma, the Sangha, and the Three Jewels, and I rejoice in the merits of the path to reality. We’ve discussed the Vaibhāṣika stage, the mind only stage, and last week we completed the discussion of the autonomy stage, the Madhyamaka stage. Today Today, we begin the discussion of the final stage, the Consequence Madhyamaka, which is Consequence Madhyamaka represents the final thought of the Buddha as to the nature of reality. It’s very subtle. No more subtle presentation than that which is presented within it.
You know, throughout this this process of moving through these stages, there’s there’s a there’s a from an unquestioned acceptance of appearances, the appearance of self and other, that is to say that which is not-self. We begin we begin to question what is out there, what is the nature of the self, and it becomes a a greater and greater acknowledgment of a subjective element in these appearances and the reality which underlies these appearances. So a gradual shift from complete objective objectivity to a position where there is a type of subjectivity. And this is a gradual movement throughout the stage. Do we come to the right exact pitch?
Like tuning in the guitar. Not too loose, not too tight. You know, we have to seek to avoid the two extremes. The two extremes of of annihilationism or nihilism and the extreme of permanence or eternalism. And this is what constitutes the middle way.
It’s it’s not a matter of being compromised between these two. It’s just a a that things exist but they simply do not truly exist. I’m coming to what an understanding of what that means. Realism assumes that objects and events in nature define themselves in ways that can be grasped by the human mind. One way for instance would be through the language of mathematics.
Einstein expressed his view in his comment that the most incomprehensible thing about nature is that it’s comprehensible. A centrist view that is a middle way view on the other hand denies that physical reality defines itself in terms of mathematics or any other human language or concept. In short, nature does not define itself at all. human beings define the objects against the world that we experience. Moving away from complete objectivity in which the objects out there have a self defining quality about them, and they seem to impose themselves upon upon ourselves.
But now in a sense that that we are participating in nature in our in the reality which we experience, that we define the objects. human beings define the objects and events of the world that we experience. Those things do not exist intrinsically or absolutely as we define them or conceive of them. They do not exist intrinsically at all. Intrinsically.
Try to come to an understanding what that intrinsically, inherently, naturally, from their own side objectively all mean the same thing. They do not exist intrinsically at all but this does not say they did exist. The entities that we identify exist in relationship to us and they perform the functions that we attribute to them but their very existence as we define them is dependent upon our verbal and conceptual designation. Thus the world that we experience is related to human language and the fact that it is humanly comprehensible presents no mystery at all. On this subject Benjamin Lee Whorf writes, The idea entirely unfamiliar to the modern Western world that nature and language are inwardly akin was for ages known to various high cultures whose historical continuity on earth has been enormously longer than that of the Western European culture.
That there is a relationship between the our concepts, the mental images, terms that we use, language that we that make that the concepts make use of and what we experience, our perception, the reality that we experience. So the import of what is being said, you know, we can we can understand this from a simple illustration. You know, it’s a it’s just becoming evening. The light the light’s becoming dim. You’re walking outside.
And along the road, there’s a coiled coiled rope coiled striped rope in the grass. And because of these conditions, was light as them, and the and the rope being there. You mistakenly conceive of that rope to be a snake, and there appears to be a snake at that place. And out of this acceding to that appearance, grasping that that appearance as being true, one reacts with all the natural associations with fear and anger. Whatever.
All these various reactions would arise out of what is purely a misconception. In fact, in reality no snake there. It’s simply a rope. So we’re gonna the the point of this illustration, the the illustration has a number of significance, but the one that the import of what is being made here is that there is no difference in the way that the snake is being designated and that the rope is being designated. Not that a snake and a rope both exist.
That’s not the point. Only in terms of the way the mind’s the perceptual process is operating, the way the mind is designating, the way the mind is labeling, the way the mind is imputing. There’s no difference between the way in which the appearance of a snake arises and the appearance of a correct cognition arise. One is mistaken but not questioning whether the cognitions are correct or not but simply the way it’s being brought into existence. They’re both simply imputing whether it’s a snake or whether it’s a rope.
The process of imputation is exactly the same. There is nothing coming whatsoever from the side of that object which is snake. It’s purely being refuted merely by mind, by concept, by mental image. There is nothing whatsoever from that side which is snake and the same holds exactly true in the case of the rope. There is nothing whatsoever coming from the side of the rope.
It is merely only being imputed, being designated by mind. There’s no difference in the way in the way it’s being designated. That’s the that’s the important point of this particular illustration, not that one is correct or incorrect. The nature of the appearing object which is constructed in the process are determined by the characteristics concepts employed in perceiving. The characteristics of the concepts that we employ in recognizing and discerning what is there.
Constructing, bringing into, giving rise to an appearance Exactly the same process is occurring. Both in scientific research and in everyday experience, we ascertain objects that are endowed with certain attributes and by means of the defining characteristics of an object that we identify. So this is taking the realist point of view. Scientific research or our normal everyday experience. It seems to us that we identify, recognize, discriminate, discern objects by means of their attributes.
That’s how we identify things. From a middle way point of view, from a centrist perspective, we assert that entities do not determine their own defining characteristics. That things are not defining themselves. They do not determine what they are from their own side. That is to say they are not self defining.
Having recognized a certain object we say that it has the quality by which we identify it. Let’s take a simple example of trying to determine what is the defining characteristic of say a hand. We all know what a hand is. What would be the defining characteristic Anybody? Stop finger.
So if someone has liquid too, and they have no finger, then they don’t have a hand. Are you able to is a paralyzed hand again, and it doesn’t function. We’re unable to grab. It doesn’t. We have a common sense notion of what a hand is.
And when we’re when we’re we’re hard put to define these characteristics that we know, we all know what a hand is when we see it. But if we all are able to recognize a hand. But we would be very it’d be very difficult to come up with an absolute definition which determines the side of the object better than the hand. We almost come up with an agreement and this applies to everything. We are able to recognize things, people’s tables, houses, whatever And we then go on to attribute certain characteristics to what we have already recognized.
We are not recognizing things in terms of their defining property. First comes the recognition and then we qualify that. We give it attributes. So, you know, we couldn’t we couldn’t come up with a a defining what is necessary to have a hand. It would be quite difficult.
It must have these attributes. It almost but we know what a hand is when we see it. It’s a popular convention. It’s renowned in the world. I know what a hand is.
A hand without fingers, a hand that’s paralyzed, a mechanical hand. The final position that we’re trying to understand is that phenomena are not self defining entities. They do not intrinsically, inherently, objectively exist. If we state that in another way, sense. All phenomena are merely imputed by concepts and term.
All phenomena are merely imputed imputed, designated, labeled. Constructed, organized into existence by means of concept, terms, names, language. This is this is the final focus that we’re seeking to understand and what the importance of it, what the implications of it. It’s it’s quite easy to say. All phenomena are merely imputed by concepts and terms.
But to understand what that means and the implications of that are quite profound. According to a child psychologist Jean Piaget, a child first constructs a concept related to the world then projects it onto the world. The concept is externalized so that it appears to be independent of the subject’s own mental activity. So this the the the child through a learning process begins to develop images, mental images and concept. It’s a very complicated process, the development of mental images.
And then it projects them on external objects and then it as if the object then appears to exist independent of any mental activity of having projected it as if that mental image is in fact the object itself, that concept is the object itself. As we can see from our own experience, the phenomena that we perceive in external world appear to exist independently of our perceptions, conceptions. All that we see in this in the Prāsaṇgika Madhyamaka school, even the eye consciousness, even the sense consciousness are affected to the degree that objects appear even to the eye consciousness to exist independently, that is, not externally related to mental activities, without being imputed. This when I when I look at this book, it appears to be cut off at a distance from my mind. It does not seem to be exist in any way related to my mind.
That’s the way it appears. It’s hard to to discern that appearance, what that means. Here is perhaps the most fundamental reason for believe in objective universe independent of consciousness. That is simply how the world appears but it appears in that way due to the process of reification. The world appears objectively at a distance cut off from our own mental activity out there.
That’s the way it appears but that is not in fact the way it exists. It only appears that way through what is called the process of reification. Reification, you know, reification is the is the mental distortion of of ontological absolutism. That is to say ontology is the mode of being, the mode of existence, the way things exist and we make things to exist and this mental distortion makes things exist absolutely. That is, ultimately.
That is, say, not relative. That is, say, not dependently, independent, Not in relationship, but unrelated, ultimately. Absolutely. Absolutely means not in relationship. It’s it’s not it’s it’s not contingent on anything.
It exists in itself. Absolutely. This is what reification does. We we impute we impute objects with the way of existence which in fact they don’t do not possess. We overestimate their nature.
We give them a status which they do not possess. Out of this reification process they appear to exist in and of themselves. So this is a overreaction, overestimation of the the existent existential status, the way things exist of objects. In Buddhist mental training, great emphasis is placed from the outset on distinguishing between fantasy and valid cognition. Cognition.
Indeed, the tendency of the human mind is to assume the existence of things that are in fact nonentities is considered to be to lie at the root of a broad range of unnecessary conflicts and miseries. So I’ve already mentioned that that the that the the psychology of misery is rooted in these various objects. The foundation for all conflicts and miseries. The most basic expression of this mental distortion is the reification of oneself as an intrinsically existent personal identity. Having reified oneself, it is inevitable that one reifies others in the same way and this sets up an absolute demarcation between self and other.
One naturally also reifies one’s natural environment as intrinsically existent and therefore as absolutely other. So we see the world and all the things about us and the people therein as as existing independent of our own minds. Very existing, not in relationship to us. There’s this thick black line that we draw around ourselves. There is me and that which is not me.
Since the whole point of Buddhism of Buddhist teachings was to show how beings are bound to suffering existence through ignorant grasping. Since ignorance is defined as erroneous understanding of the nature of phenomena, so the analysis of how conceptual cognition fundamentally erroneous becomes the essential issue in determining how to develop non erroneous, that is valid cognitions. So how do we how do we how do erroneous mistaken conceptual cognitions come about? All conceptual cognitions are mistaken. This is not to say that they’re not correct.
They’re they’re valid. They are valid. I can infer. I can think this table is impermanent because it’s a product. I have this table is impermanent because it was it was made from causes derives and becomes what causes condition carpenter wood, etcetera.
I can come to that valid understanding, and, therefore, I have a a correct cognition that the table is impermanent. But I’m mistaken with respect to the object which is appearing to my mind, and this will become clear. What if all my conceptual process has a factor of error? Not to say that we can’t understand things. We can’t understand through this concept, perception, but there’s always factor of error, which is inherent in the thinking process.
Generally speaking, mental the five material, that is the physical sense perceptions. The mental perceptions work together. The five sense perceptions. eye, ear, nose, tongue, and body. These are the sense perceivers.
And then there’s They work together arising and ceasing moment by moment and so creating our image of the world. However, we tend not to be aware of the raw image created in perceptual consciousness because mental consciousness also registers concepts, memories, emotions from the side of the observer and these enter into the representation of the total perceptual field which constitutes our cognition. To understand how this process works, it’s necessary to look in greater detail at the three conditions upon which mental consciousness depends. So this is a yeah. I think it’s it’s useful coming to an understanding of the way in which concepts of conceptual thinking is mistaken and why it’s misplaced.
So that when there is contact between say a form and an eye, a visual consciousness, a visual perception arises. So just a simple thing. In general, it it requires for a particular consciousness to rise. There has to be three conditions necessary, objective condition, a main condition, and an immediate condition. For for example, in terms of the in terms of an eye consciousness arising.
Let’s say eye consciousness eye consciousness perceiving the table. We need an we need an objective condition. We need a table. We need a dominant condition. That is to say an eye sense power.
There’s a subtle matter within the eyeball which acts as a medium. Then we need immediate immediate condition. That is a proceeding moment of eye contact. So when these two come together, a preceding moment of consciousness, the eye sense power and the eye sense faculty, and the objective condition arises in the eye consciousness perceiving table. This lasts for one moment, although it can reoccur as series of subsequent moments.
The first fresh moment of bare visual consciousness would be a cognition of your form of a certain color. So if this is eye consciousness perceiving table the very first moment is simply I see an orange rectangular shape. It’s my first moment of eye consciousness. However, that first fresh moment of a bare visual consciousness can serve as a condition for the rising of a moment of mental consciousness so that I can this can stimulate a mental consciousness to arise. In which case one word in the second moment have a mental perception of the visual consciousness.
But due to the power of the subjective secondary mental factors so there’s a there’s a a list of one one way of dividing up mind is in terms of mind and mental factors. There are a list of six primary consciousness. The fifty-one secondary mental factors. Six primary consciousness. That’s the eye, your nose, tongue, body, and mental consciousness.
They take on the rough aspect of this object. They do not relate with it or react to it in any way. They do not determine how one is going to relate with it. They do not discern its various details.
This is a function of these remaining fifty one secondary mental factors which are different ways in which the mind is relating with the object, relating it through mindfulness, through intelligence, through contact, through viewing. There’s a list of fifty-one possible ways in which they interrelate with one another. But due to the power of subjective secondary mental factors derived from past memories and emotions concepts a memory or mental image will arise at the same moment as the rising of the mental consciousness and will for subsequent moments of the arising individual’s visual consciousness associated with a specific object be mixed with the visual consciousness and these will serve as a condition for the arising of all subsequent moments of that consciousness. So what does this mean?
So so we have a first moment of an eye consciousness perceiving table. This gives rise to a mental consciousness. And this mental consciousness, there will be we begin to relate with the object in in terms of these fifty one secondary consciousness. And the way we’re going to relate with this object is in terms of of mental image. And mental images are a a interwoven complex of emotions, beliefs, ideas, visual images associated with that that particular visual stimuli.
Then then we begin to we there’s a process where we overlay this mental image onto what is visually appearing to us. So there is a there is a shape and color which has initially appeared to me in my first moment of eye consciousness. But in the second moment, I begin to project a mental image onto that visual image, and they’re mixed to the degree where I cannot tell the difference. I’m now conceiving a table which is purely my own projection, which is a mental image. I’ve lost the ability to discern the raw data by shape and color.
I’m now that that that objective condition is now mixed inextricably, inseparably with my conception of the table, my mental image of the table, and all that that entails, all my memories, associations, emotions, these ideas about table. I may have very few. I may have very many. But now I am cognizing the table in terms of my mental image about the table. Thus, except for the initial moment of the rise of visual consciousness of a certain object, all the subsequent moments of the visual consciousness which serve as an object for mental consciousness will be mixed with mental images and these will serve as conditions for the rising of mental consciousness.
During those 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. Thus, ordinary mental consciousness cannot directly perceive the material sense consciousness or the appearing objects. My ordinary mental consciousness is unable to perceive the appearance the appearing table. What it does appear is what it does perceive is my mental image of the table, this complex network which I use as a symbol for my table. That is what I’m operating.
That’s what my mental consciousness operates with. It does not it does not cognize the table directly. It does not arise through the power of the object. It does not understand the table through its through the power of the object, but it understands the table through the power of mental image, my symbol about the table. I understand table through my idea about the table as it were, my mental image, my concept of the table.
That’s a valid I can understand things validly about table. I can understand their impermanence, but I’m not understanding their impermanence by the power of the object itself but in terms of my ideas about the object. So but I but it appears to me that I’m actually working with a a not my idea about the table, not a mental image of the table, because the two are inextricably mixed from the point of view of my mental consciousness. I’m working with my idea of the table. When I look at that table, the very first moment of my perception, I see a raw table, the raw data of color and shape. From that moment on, I’m I’m seeing that table in terms of my idea about the table, my mental image about the table operating simultaneously.
Sometimes table well, whatever. The fact that it’s a table is I have to there’s there’s a computing process of operating. This point is most important for an initial moment of cognition of a certain object the five material sense consciousness do directly perceive their objects non erroneously because these perceptual consciousnesses are not mixed with mental images. However during the subsequent moments of the arising of the sense consciousness which are cognizing a certain object, they are mixed with mental images and the whole complex serves as an object condition, dominant condition and an immediately preceding condition for the arising of mental consciousness. Such mental consciousness is therefore unable to separate the mental image from the actual bare perception and thus is always erroneous and distorted in that it confuses this mixture of mental image and perceptual consciousness for the object itself.
This mental consciousness which takes such a mixture of mental image and perceptual consciousness as an object called a conceptual type of cognition, while a bare perceptual consciousness is unmixed with any mental image is called a perceptual type of cognition. You know, mental image is usually the complex of images, ideas, assumptions, beliefs, and emotions which are interconnected in a single image like pattern. These are built up from childhood onward, and they’re projected onto objects. And we we miss and this conceptual consciousness is unable to discern that we are working with a our image of an object as an object itself. But we can understand things using our symbols, our language, our concepts about things.
But we’re mistaken from the point of view that the appearing object is a mental image and not the object itself. What appears to me is my mental image of the table and not the table of itself. And it’s a very complex image. There’s many beliefs. It’s belief laden.
It’s many associative qualities, emotional qualities involved in. And so it’s just not a a one to one correspondence, you know, like a visual picture. My mind is operating, but it has it’s a very complex network I’m I’m working with. For example, talking about a mental mental image. A person may have been to Lhasa.
So Lhasa is the capital of Tibet. But a person may not have been may never have been to Lhasa, but has read about the city and may have a variety of vague images of what it might be like. He or she might even know something about the history of the city and the events which have taken place there. And these two are connected to the mental image of. Moreover, the person may have read about Lhasa and have a strong desire to go there.
This whole complex of information about Lhasa, a place that this person has never visited, forms his or her mental image of Lhasa. Whenever he or she hears the word Lhasa, this image of Lhasa is, after the first moment of auditory consciousness, immediately mixed with all subsequent moments of auditory consciousness as well as all subsequent of mental conceptual consciousness which depend upon the initial conceptual moment of auditory consciousness. This type of mental image is called a nominal mental image. It is based upon word. So I haven’t been to Lhasa.
I’ve just heard about it. People told I’ve read books about it. People told me about it. And I filled up an you know, I filled up a mental image of what is it like. Whenever whenever I hear whenever someone mentions Lhasa, that image appears to my mind, my mental consciousness, and I can make use of that.
I said, oh, that’s not fair. I can talk about it. I can say as is the capital of Tibet. That’s valid. That’s true.
But the Lhasa is not the actual Lhasa that I’m working with. It is my representation of Lhasa. It’s my mental image of Lhasa. It’s not actual buildings and large squares. That’s that is to say The actual Lhasa is something I can understand things about through that mental image, but it’s not actually there.
But it appears to me to be the actual. It appears to my mental consciousness to be the actual. So this is when there is no actual this is when when the mental image arises simply through language, through Then it’s termed a nominal. Nominal simply means name. Nominal mental image.
It is based upon words. If however a person were to visit Lhasa and then after leaving the city someone were to ask about Lhasa, that person would have a mental image of Lhasa based upon their experience of it. This would be an experiential mental image. Of course these two can be mixed as when a person reads about Lhasa and In a general sense, we refer to such mental images as conceptions because especially in the case of nominal mental images the conception is not an exact replica of the object which is its referent but strictly speaking conceptions are based upon mental images. So based upon based upon this, we can understand that all conceptual cognitions are mistaken.
All conceptual mistaken cognitions are mistaken with respect to the object which appears to them. When I think about my mom, what is appearing is not my mother, in fact, in flesh and blood, but my my conception, a mental image of my mother. And I can make certain statements using that. And can make correct statements. I can understand things about my mother correctly, that she is impermanent.
It’s true. It’s clear. So I can come to correct conceptual understanding about my mother. But I must I don’t and I hold my mind grasped at that that image of my mother to be in fact my mother when in fact, it isn’t. What is appearing is my image of my mother and not my real mother, especially in love.
But that’s the way it appears to me. To my mind, my mental consciousness, it is the actual object itself. Therefore, with respect to that appearing object, it’s mistaken. Even in the case when I perceive the table, What is appearing to me is my mental image of the table. My mental image of the table and the visual image of the table become inextricably mixed, and this visual, my mental image, obscures the actual table itself.
Conceptual consciousness apprehend their objects through the medium of mental images and not by the power of the object itself. So there is apprehension of an object, but not by the power of the object itself, but through our symbol. The conceptual mind is is is juggling symbols, operating with language, images. Perceptual consciousness apprehends objects through the force of the object itself. The table casts its image upon my upon my consciousness.
I’m able to apprehend the table through the force of that object casting the image upon it, and it appears within my mental consciousness, within my perceptual consciousness, my sense of eye consciousness in this case. In the case of understanding the table mentally, using my mental consciousness, my conceptual consciousness, I understand it not through the object casting its image upon my consciousness, but through my own mental image which I generated over time concerning it. So what is appearing is, in fact, mental images and not the the object in itself? The object mixed with my my idea about it, my mental image. We think about an object, it appears as though we are apprehending the object itself.
But in fact, we are apprehending our concept, our beliefs, our ideas about the object and we which we project onto it. This is the way the way this becomes important. We believe that we’re we’re apprehending the object in itself, but in fact, we are projecting our image upon it. Are having the object mixed with our mental image. Because the mental consciousness of the conceptual cognition cannot be separated the conception from the perception it is said to be deceived about the mode of appearance of the object as well as the mode of existence of the object.
The mode of appearance of an object refers to how the object appears in consciousness. That is, the mode of appearance is the mixture of 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 on a vine, before one’s cognition of the rose is said to be deceived because one is incapable of separating one’s conception about the rose from the mere appearance of the red shape, which is all that is actually cognized by the visual consciousness. The visual consciousness merely cognize a red shape.
Moreover, as one neither thinks this rose is impermanent nor perceives the impermanence of the rose, but rather just sees a rose as if it were permanently there, so one is deceived about the mode of existence of the rose, which is after all impermanent. If, however, when one recognizes a red rose one were to think the rose is impermanent, then one would not be deceived about the mode of existence of the rose, but would still be deceived about the mode of appearance of the rose. One would still be mixing red shape with conception rose, thus cognizing the rose which was