Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 29-minute teaching on Mind and Cognition, Ven Jampa Ignyen works through a series of classical Buddhist logical debates examining perception and conception. He starts by establishing a crucial distinction: perception is direct, sensory, and nonconceptual (the eye grasping a bell), while conception operates through mental images. He then develops selflessness as a case study, explaining why it cannot be directly perceived. Selflessness is a non-affirming negation — it negates a truly existent self without affirming anything in its place — and therefore must be grasped through valid reasoning rather than sensation. The debates parallel material that young monks memorize and practice in monasteries from their early teens onward. Pitched at those studying Buddhist epistemology and ready for rigorous philosophical argument.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 02 M and C 2001 05 01.mp3
UUID: 8b172ce6-f130-44ac-b07c-6789a02977fa
Teacher: Ven Jampa Ignyen
Collection: y Mind and Cognition 2001 Month 04-06 (Ven Jampa Ignyen)
Date: 2001-05-01
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 29.2 minutes
Words: ~2,773
Breakthrough. Okay. We won’t spend too much time on this debate. Now he says, take valid awareness. It follows objects are cognized because objects are cognized by valid awareness.
We say no pervasion. That’s okay, isn’t it? Even though objects are cognized by valid awareness, it doesn’t mean to say that objects are awareness. Okay. And we say in in response to that, if that is not established, take that subject, valid awareness.
It follows that objects it it says here that follows, which means objects are cognized by valid awareness because objects are cognized by valid awareness. And that person says reason not established. And then that follows because objects are assessed. Meaning objects are just assessed by awareness. They’re objects which are assessed.
The awareness comes from outside as opposed to the fact that it will be coming from the object. Yep. That’s only an object. It’s not awareness. Some of these debates look, you know, so either incredibly simple or incredibly difficult.
Over a course of time, the hard ones become easy and the easy ones become hard, but that’s okay as well. Anyway, well, we’ll push on and read another one? Yep. Okay. Not important that we understand every element of these debates, but there’s just some of the points we’ll find that tend to remain with us, which is good, and we can contemplate those points.
Now, again, one says that perceptually comprehended by discernment is the definition of an object. Now the previous definition that was given was that cognized by discernment. Now another person is making a variation of that. Right? This is halfway down to page four.
And they’re saying that perceptually comprehended by discernment. So here, perceptually comprehended means nonconceptually comprehended. Through sense perception. Or either through sense perception or through non conceptual mental awareness. Is that okay?
Is the definition understood here? Perceptual comprehension of anything is like our eye awareness comprehending this small bell. Our eye eyes looking at that perceptually comprehends it. Perceptual comprehension here means that it’s not conceptually comprehended. There’s only two ways we can comprehend anything, either perceptually or conceptually.
Okay? Our conceptual awareness is achieved through generic images. Excuse me. But our perceptual comprehension of objects is done without generic images. Okay.
So here, perceptually comprehended means just, for instance, the way that our senses comprehend anything. We did go into a little bit. But this the difference between perception and conception is very, very important. Anyway, we’ll come to that. Well, good.
If it’s if that’s simple, we’ll just leave it at that. We won’t go we won’t try and disturb we won’t try and improve on that just for the present. Now okay. Now that definition is given there for an object. That perceptually comprehended by discernment is the definition of an object.
For instance, this here is an object because it’s perceptually comprehended by eye awareness. Okay? So we take selflessness of the person. So we note here that Purbu Chok is going right into the essential issues from the beginning. So take selflessness of the person.
We should understand also that if it exists or it doesn’t exist, it is selfless. Being selfless is the most comprehensive category because it includes everything that exists and doesn’t exist both, if we can put it in that way. If it exists, it’s selfless. If it doesn’t exist, it’s also selfless. So here, the author is saying, take selflessness of the person.
Now he’s bringing that up as an example here, an instance to examine this definition given by someone else. So he says, it follows it is that perceptually comprehended by discernment because it is an object. If so, it takes selflessness person again. It follows it is not that perceptually comprehended by discernment because it is not clearly comprehended by discernment. Reason not established, says that other person.
And we say, take that subject, that is the selflessness of the person. It follows it is not clearly comprehended by discernment because it is not perceptually comprehended by any discernment. And that follows because it is not perceptually comprehended by perception, nor is it perceptually comprehended by inference. And they say the first part of the reason is not established. We say take that subject.
That follows because it is not comprehended by perception by clear manifest means. Reason not established, they say. So take that subject, we say to them. That follows, meaning, it is not comprehended by perception by clear manifest means because it is not perceptible. And it’s not perceptible because it is a non affirming negation.
A non affirming negation is okay. We’ll just stop there for a minute. Selflessness is a non affirming negation. Emptiness is a non affirming negation. All of these really important things are non affirming negations.
A negation is the opposite of an affirmation or an affirmer. Objects like this are what what are called affirmers because we comprehend them without the the need to negate anything. When we understand a table, it’s just through our eye awareness focusing on the table, and that table appearing to our eye awareness and therefore being comprehended. A negator in the other on the other hand is something which negates something, not like an affirmer, like a table. An example would be, the nonexistence of a chair in the room there.
Okay? So the nonexistence of a chair there does exist, doesn’t it? Well, it’s either the nonexistence exists or the existence of the chair exists there. Right. The nonexistence of the chair is a negation.
What’s it negating? It’s true existence. No? It’s negating. Chair.
The nonexistence of the chair is what’s it negating? The chair itself. The chair itself. But the nonexistence of a chair does exist there, and we can actually comprehend that. Okay.
So we comprehend a negation. Now of negations, there are two types. There’s an affirming negation and a non affirming negation. The nonexistence of a chair is a non affirming negation because it negates chair but doesn’t affirm anything in its place. Does it?
Not implying anything. Whereas if we said fat Devadatta doesn’t eat during the daytime. Now that’s a negation, isn’t it? It’s negating eating during the daytime. But what does it imply?
He eats at night. So that’s an affirming negation. Okay. So selflessness here is, like a non affirming negation. It is a non affirming negation.
So therefore, it’s said to be not perceptible. Another word for perceptible here is obvious. It’s not obvious. In fact, when we talk about negations, they’re not things that are obvious to us, are they? Like a table is obvious.
But the nonexistence of something on the table is not obvious, not perceptible. We can’t look at it and we see it. It’s something that is obscured. Or not obscured, it’s hidden. There is.
There is. There is, yes. It’s hidden. Between obscure and hidden. Or it’s better to call it hidden for reasons that perhaps later we’ll be coming.
Okay. Then turning the page. So selflessness is a non affirming negation, isn’t it? What’s it a non affirming negation of? Self.
But what type of self? Don’t we exist? The nonexistent self. The nonexistent self. Yeah.
Can we negate something that’s nonexistent? Can we negate something that’s nonexistent? Yeah. Oh, yes. You can.
Yeah. Yeah. Good. Okay. Okay. So take selflessness of the person.
It follows it is not perceptually comprehended by inference because there is nothing perceptually comprehended by inference because inference is conception. Okay. So here he’s given two reasons to establish that selflessness is not perceptually comprehended by perception nor perceptually comprehended by inference. Therefore, that it’s not perceptually comprehended. Okay.
Now a number of doubts are gonna rise about what this particular debate is about. What this debate is about is really be from the point of view of the sūtra school itself. And the sūtra school assert that this will come up a little bit later, but we can state it here, that anything which is impermanent is the appearing object of perception. Anything which is permanent is the appearing object of conception. Page eight, right? On page eight. Is that okay? No. Anything which appears to conception doesn’t have to be a permanent. But permanent has to appear by conception?
No. If it is permanent, it is the appearing object of conception. If it’s impermanent, it’s the appearing object of perception. So therefore, something like selflessness, which is permanent, is not the appearing object of perception. Okay?
So therefore, it’s not perceptually comprehended. This is a particular view of this of the Sautrāntika or the Sūtra school. Anyway, that’s not so important just at present. What we’re investigating here are these definitions that are put forward by various people. And here the author is rejecting that definition of object.
That perceptually comprehended by discernment is the definition of object. And he’s saying that that can’t be the definition because here for the sūtra school, if we take something which is permanent like selflessness, it’s not perceptually comprehended because it can’t be the appearing object of perception. But it exists. It is an object. I think everyone’s going to earn a cup of tea tonight.
Is this tough going? Well, this is what the the young monks debate in the monasteries from about the age of twelve or thirteen. But no. It’s not easy. It does take a lot of thinking through, a lot of energy.
In fact, they’ve memorized this entire text. Never did I understand it? Oh, that’s another question. Ask Tenzin when he gets back. In fact, these texts are not easy at all.
A lot of debate occurs on these texts even by the Geshe’s themselves. Because there’s often points, underlying points that are implied, that are very, very interesting, quite profound. Well, he taught in a slightly well, he taught this this subject matter, but from various different perspectives. Do you see a perspective? Yeah.
Yeah. Could you Depending on I don’t know. It’s well, technically speaking, understanding selflessness is more difficult than this. Of course, that’s what we’re aiming at. We wanna understand selflessness.
Selflessness? Well, because we can well, it’s said to be permanent in various texts for a start, which is helpful, and the Buddha himself has commented on the fact that it’s uncompounded and so on. But also being a negation, we know that it’s permanent. Space is permanent. Space is permanent.
It doesn’t change. The nonexistence of a chair there, is that impermanent? Is it momentary? It is if I put a chair there. No.
But there is no chair there. Existence of a chair there. But then the chair exists there. At present, we have a non existence. The non existence of a chair there.
Well, it’s really only through our conception that we can understand it, you know, to exist there, can’t we? The non existence of the chair. It’s only through our conception, isn’t it? Yeah. No.
The object itself would still be permanent. Would still be still not be there. Object negation of the object. Is that what you’re saying? Well, here we’re talking about a particular object.
Right. The negation of chair there is an object, isn’t it? True? Yeah. It exists, doesn’t it?
Is it momentary? Why not? It’s not space. Oh, this we can reflect on. Selflessness is just like that.
All selflessness is is the non affirming negation of a truly existent self. That’s permanent. It doesn’t change moment to moment. The the non affirming negation of a truly existent self is permanent. That’s selflessness.
That we need to understand. Inference just means correct conception, valid conception. Or we should put valid conception there, actually. That’s better. Inference is valid conception.
You can have a mistake in inference. No. Inference is always valid. Is there. That’s right.
Here we’re using the term inference in that narrow sense. But yeah, we can or we can think about anything and draw, you know. We can have but here we’re using inference only in the sense of valid conception as being inference. Isn’t that confusing to use the term? Well, we’ve got to try and use Western terms, English terms as well, find equivalents to Tibetan terms.
So with Thais, we’re gonna have to, know, like, define them perhaps in a narrower sense than we’re used to using them in English. But there’s almost no way out of this. The Tibetans were confronted with the same problem. Right. Well, that’s good.
We’ve got on to page five. Haven’t had a general mutiny yet, so that’s a good sign. Right. So is that okay? That last debate is just dealing with selflessness, and that for this school, selflessness is not perceptually comprehended.
It’s not perceptually comprehended by perception nor perceptually comprehended by inference. In fact, inference cannot perceptually comprehend anything because it only comprehends through a generic image. Right. Do we want to push on and do another small debate? A unanimous vote to go ahead, I guess.
It’s almost time for the break, so we’ll go through one more. Now regarding that, one says, it follows selflessness of the person is perceptually comprehended by inference. Now inference here is valid conception, but we know that valid conception cannot perceptually comprehend anything because valid conception always uses a generic image to comprehend its objects. Okay? It follows selflessness of a person is perceptually comprehended by inference because it is directly comprehended comprehended by inference.
We say no pervasion. So here, Purbu Chok is saying, even though selflessness of the person is directly comprehended by inference, it doesn’t mean to say that it’s perceptually comprehended by inference. And is that because we can’t rely on our perceptions, not only with our senses? Is that what it’s saying? No.
We can rely on our senses. Here, in fact, it’s talk Yeah. Here, it’s not talking about sense awareness. This is all in the level of mental awareness because selflessness cannot be comprehended through the senses. You know, we could we can look at objects until our eyes, you know, can no longer see anymore, but we could never see selflessness with our eye awareness.
We can never hear selflessness with our ear awareness or touch selflessness. Impossible. Here, the author is saying, even though selflessness of the person is directly can be directly comprehended by inference, it can’t be perceptually comprehended by inference. And then we say back to that person, if that reason is not established, take that subject. So here we’re taking selflessness of the person.
It is directly comprehended by inference because it is the directly assessed object of inference, and that follows because it is an established base. Or established base here just means that it exists. In other words, if it exists, it’s the direct assessed object of inference. In other words, if it exists, we can comprehend it through conception. Now here, there’s these terms direct and perceptually here might be a little bit confusing, but we can deal with that a little bit later.
What we can take note of in that is that if it exists in the universe, it must appear to conception. Here, meaning of direct is that it appears to conception. And therefore, we can conceive conceive it or conceive of it. Okay. We we might not go any further, I think, with the text tonight.
How’s it going? Yeah. That’s yep. They probably meant their I’m not sure, actually. Reasoning.
Inference. It might have been using that for reasoning itself. I’m not sure. Was examples. Often, if you have those, then that might be clearer what term.
It’s important actually to discern what what the term is that’s being used. But you never see the reverse side of the wound, but you can infer that it’s there by. Right? No. It depends on what they’re what Tibetan term they’re using.
In English, yeah. In general we say that, but here we’re using inference in a narrow sense, that all inference is valid conception. Nothing less than that. So it’s quite a very narrow sense for inference. Anyway, we should stop there and have a break.
Sorry, Yeah. But it’s So for it to be to go outside and then go put my. Yeah. It’s Yeah. We’re agreeing, but it’s he’s using it in a very narrow sense, much narrower than the normal way we use it in language in English.
Alright. Or maybe we should do the, dedication.