Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 46-minute class, Ven Jampa Ignyen walks through philosophical debates in the Lorig (Mind and Cognition) system by grounding abstract arguments in concrete experience—running into a door in the middle of the night, seeing vibrant colors, hearing loud sounds, handling a wooden rosary—to show how awareness holds objects and objects depend on awareness. From the Sūtra school perspective, he examines whether selflessness is perceived directly by Buddhas or grasped through inference by ordinary practitioners; how a person both depends on and remains distinct from the five aggregates; what dharma (any existent phenomenon) fundamentally is. He stresses that rigorous debate exists for one purpose: developing genuine understanding of selflessness rather than intellectual exercise. For students with prior philosophical training.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 07 M and C 2001 05 22.mp3
UUID: a5e3fe19-fb69-49b2-b105-1a370f07639e
Teacher: Ven Jampa Ignyen
Collection: y Mind and Cognition 2001 Month 04-06 (Ven Jampa Ignyen)
Date: 2001-05-22
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.8 minutes
Words: ~4,485
So continuing with Lorig. So, basically, what we’re dealing here with LORIG is we’re examining the divisions of objects and object possessor. So in fact, this comes out in the title of the text, the explanation of objects, object possessors, and from among object possessors, really, cognition. So this is really in the title itself. So therefore, the text is divided up into first objects and then object possessors.
And objects exist in dependence on object possessors. Object possessors exist in dependence on objects. They’re completely dependent on one another. They’re dependent arisings. An object an object possesses include everything in the universe.
Anything which exists is an object, and it’s an object because it exists in relation to awareness, which is the main object possessor. An awareness exists in relations in relation to the objects that it holds or comprehends, and so on. So firstly, we’re dealing with objects. And so up to where we are in the text, the author has raised a number of debates about the nature of what objects are. And in fact, by studying objects, we’re also, of course, investigating the awareness which is holding those objects.
In general, conception can hold any object at all that exists. Sense awareness, on the other hand, only has access to material objects. But either conception or both conception and sense awareness are instances of object possessors. Now initially in what we’ve done so far, the author has has posited or at least brought up some debates in which the definitions of objects and object possessors have been set down. And for the most part, we’ve been looking at the definition of objects.
And here we’ve been examining this definition initially, that cognized by discernment as being the definition of object. That in fact is asserted by the author himself to be the definition. But initially in the text, he is just examining what some other people also say about the definition of object. Are there any points in the first part of the text that anyone wants to just bring up at present? Anyway, it should be reasonably straightforward.
Very simple. We’re just looking at objects and object possessors, and at present, we’re examining objects. Now within the field of objects, selflessness is an object that has a very wide pervasion. If it exists or doesn’t exist within the universe, it is selfless. It’s an instance of selflessness, or it is selfless.
Let’s put it that way. If it exists, it either has to be permanent or impermanent. There’s no third possibility. And if it’s impermanent, it has to be the one of three things, either matter or form, say matter, awareness, and that which is neither matter nor awareness. So we should be there shouldn’t be any problems with those categories.
Where do we fit? Where are we? Are we permanent or impermanent? We’re impermanent. Are we matter awareness or that which is neither?
Is it possible for something to be both, matter and awareness? But the aggregates are of form and consciousness, but it doesn’t consciousness include awareness. Consciousness is a subset of awareness. It wouldn’t include it. Awareness includes consciousness.
Five aggregates, that includes form and Then we have to be one. No. Our basis of imputation is either awareness or matter, but we’re neither. We’re impermanent, but something which is neither matter nor awareness. That okay?
The person is neither matter nor awareness according to the highest school and according also to many of the other schools. But, the instance they posit of person may differ from school to school. But here in the definition we’re given we could just skip ahead to that a little. I think it’s on page page number eleven. And here we should keep in mind that the particular point of view from which Lorig is written is the Sūtra school, the Sautrāntika.
It’s a lesser vehicle school. And here on page eleven, about a third of the way down, we have the definition of person. Being imputed in dependence on any of its five aggregates or any of the five aggregates. So a person is dependent on the five aggregates, but actually isn’t the five aggregates. The person is the mere I.
So that’s the definition of person. Self, I, person, being are equivalent. Okay. So that’s just a reference to the definition of person there. Right.
So everything that exists in the universe is selfless, including the person, including ourselves. Now here in the text also, Purchog is bringing up a few debates about the selflessness of the person. And, of course, one of the reasons he’s doing this is to show right from the very beginning the purpose of all of this debate is to gain an understanding of selflessness. It’s not just debate for the sake of debate. It’s not just splitting hairs, in order to make us frustrated or in order to, I don’t know, weary ourselves for no purpose.
Here, the main purpose is that we eventually we gradually come to an understanding of selflessness. And so for this reason, the author is, using selflessness in the debates even from the very beginning of the text. Because selflessness is an object. It does exist. Where does it exist?
Where does selflessness exist? It exists in matter, does it? It would have to because matter is selfless, isn’t it? True? Is matter selfless?
When you chop it off, it’s If you chop How much is it? Leg. But even even when the leg is joined up with the rest of the body, it’s still selfless, though, isn’t it? It is. Absolutely.
Do we have a doubt about that? Is everything that exists selfless or not? Sorry? There is a type self. There is a type of self, a mere I, really, that does exist.
And because of that, we tend to say the self exists. But that’s okay. We understand that. But in general, the person is selfless. Every object in the universe is selfless.
The house is selfless. The walls are selfless. The floor is selfless. Adelaide is selfless. Adelaide Hills are selfless.
True? Australia is selfless. And the world itself is selfless, and the rest of the universe is selfless. So in fact, there’s no self to be found anywhere in the universe. This should bring up a few doubts, actually.
Because unless we know what self type of self doesn’t exist, we can’t comprehend selflessness. So therefore, it said that we need to understand the object to be negated, the self to be negated. What and what you are differentiating between a mere I and the self? Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. The self that exists is the mere I, which is the eye which is merely imputed upon the five aggregates. That’s all. But then that’s a mere a mere label. It’s it’s merely labeled, but it’s not we have to be careful a little bit because it’s not just a name.
Because if it’s a name, really, by definition, it’s sound. Eye is not just a sound. Just like bars is not a sound, the water is not just a sound, and so forth. Although the word itself is just a sound. But the I is merely labeled on the five aggregates, and that’s what the definition actually states.
Could it be just a concept then? It depends what you mean by concept. If you mean conception, then conception is awareness. And, actually, from the Svatāntrika point of view, the middle way autonomous point of view, the instance of the self for them is mental awareness. For instance, if you had to find the instance of the self, they would point to the mental awareness itself.
But the prasangika, they assert that even a mental awareness is not the self. It’s the mere I imputed on the five aggregates. Anyway, we’ll just go back to page number five. Right. We’ll just read through a few more of these debates and see how we go.
Now if there’s any any unclarity in these debates, please, you know, bring up that point or bring up those points as we’re going through them. So here, the about a third of the way down page number five. Now, again, we’re talking about objects. Now we’ve just been talking about selflessness of the person being concept being comprehended by inference or not. Now here for inference, what we mean by inference is conceptual awareness that is generated by a valid reason.
In general, there’s two types of awareness that are possible, either perceptual awareness or conceptual awareness. Inference is a type of valid conception, and it only arises through the use of valid reasoning, through valid reasons. So here we’re talking about whether, in a previous debate, whether selflessness of the person is perceptually comprehended by inference or not. And the author comes to the conclusion Purchok comes to the conclusion that, if it exists in the universe, it’s the direct assessed object of inference. That’s a sufficient conclusion for us to come to in these debates.
And in fact, with a lot of these debates, we can almost just underline the bits that are important for us and leave the rest. And in fact, for the previous debate, what’s important is that last reason given. If it is an established base, meaning if it exists, it is the direct assessed object of inference. It is the direct assessed object of inference. That’s all we need to really understand in the previous debate.
Is that okay? We can even mark that if if that’s useful. Okay. Right. This one here, just in in reference, we’re about, third of the way down page number five.
Fourth box across, it’s got because it is an established base. Okay? Right. So the point that the author is making in that debate there is that if it is an established base, it is the reason which occurs directly above that. It is the direct assessed object of inference.
So there’s a pervasion there that the author is just trying to point out. In a sense, that’s a summary of that debate for us. That’s the conclusion that the author is trying to try to establish there. In other words, if it exists, it’s comprehended, or it’s the direct assessed object of inference. No.
It’s just no. It’s not denying that, but it’s just making a statement that it if it exists, it is comprehended by inference, comprehended by valid conception. Not necessarily our valid conception, but it’s comprehended by valid conception. Yes. Also by perception because the Buddhas comprehend everything, and they only have perception.
They don’t have any conception. Right. So that was the, we could say, summarized point of the previous debate. Well, if there’s any doubts about this material, please say so because this material is difficult and we don’t have much of an opportunity to come together and go over the material. And so therefore, you know, if anything comes up, anyway, we’re going with the next debate.
Regarding that, then one says, take the selflessness of the person. Now selflessness of the person is the, of course, the main object that we’re seeking to comprehend. It follows there is no perceptual comprehension of it. Why? Says the author.
Because there is no comprehension of it by clear manifest means. What this means here is that, really, we have two types of awareness. See, the conception or perception. Our perception, for instance, our sense perception comprehends things by clear manifest means, doesn’t it? If we run into the door in the middle of the night, we have clear manifest perception of that door by our nose awareness, by touch awareness of the you know, it’s in our nose.
That’s clear manifest means. If we look around the room, we see the colors, they’re vibrant. This is comprehending by clear manifest means, isn’t it? If we hear sounds, we comprehend that sound by clear manifest means because it’s done perceptually, by sense perception. Right.
So all of our senses are always comprehending or objects that are appearing to our senses by clear manifest means. They’re impinging on our senses. If there’s a jackhammer outside at a hundred and thirty decibels, we’re really aware of that with clear manifest means. If someone standing on our toe, we’re standing in a queue and a woman in front of us is wearing stiletto heels and she’s stumbles and steps on our big toe, we perceive the our toes experience with clear manifest means. Now here the author is here someone is saying to the author, take selflessness of the person.
Now here’s this subject, this thing that we really want to comprehend, and it’s saying, it follows there is no perceptual comprehension of it. Is it possible that it’s perceptually comprehended selflessness? It is. The Buddhas comprehended. They have perception.
They only have perception. So question. But not only the Buddhas comprehend it, but ārya beings comprehend it. Everyone know what an ārya being is? An ārya being is a person that enters has already entered the path leading to Buddhahood.
And of the five paths, they’ve entered the path of seeing, already entered the path of seeing, which means they’re an exalted being. They’re an ārya being. They’re a noble being. They’re not an ordinary being anymore. So they also perceptually comprehend selflessness in meditative equipoise, when they sit in equipoise in their cave or wherever, they perceptually comprehend emptiness as if water is being poured into water and so on.
They perceptually comprehend selflessness. So therefore, here, the someone is saying to, take selflessness of the person. It follows there is no perceptual comprehension of it. Why? Says Purchok.
Because there is no comprehension of it by clear manifest means. And then they give a further reason because it is a non affirming negation, and you accept that reason. We say no pervasion. What is meant there is and we can even write this out, and this may be useful. We can even write it on the other page, on the back of the opposite page.
When it says no pervasion there, all that it’s saying is even though this selflessness of the person is a non affirming negation, it is not pervasive. That it is not comprehended by clear manifest means. In other words, he’s saying that selflessness, in fact, is comprehended. So the author here is saying that even though selflessness of the person is a non affirming negation, it is not pervasive that it is comprehended by clear manifest means. Is that okay?
No. Good. That’s fine. That’s okay. This is Sūtra School point of view.
We don’t have to bother too much with this. In other words, the author is saying that it is comprehended. The selflessness of the person is comprehended by clear manifest mean. And then under that, he goes on to say, that is not pervasive. What was previously stated is not pervasive.
Why? Because omniscience percept perceptually comprehend selflessness of the person. Why? Because because it perceptually comprehends all dharmas. Does everyone got that bit there?
Yeah. So omniscience omniscience, which is the awareness of a Buddha, perceptually comprehends all dharmas. All dharmas means all existent entities. The meaning of Dharma is just anything which exists. The simple meaning of Dharma.
The definition of Dharma is if anyone wants to copy this one down too, it might be useful. The definition of dharma is that which holds its nature. That is what a dharma is. That which holds its nature. Anything which exists holds its nature, has a nature.
Right. Nature means the essence of something, the identity. There is essence, but things are not established by their essence. There is nature, but they’re not established by that nature. They do have a nature because they have an identity.
They exist. In order for something to exist, it needs to have an identity. It needs to have characteristics, identifiable marks. Otherwise, we can’t even pin it down and say what it is. Like, this table has a nature, doesn’t it?
Has an identity at least, doesn’t it? What’s the identity of the table? Oh, yeah. This one sort of hasn’t got legs or I guess we could stretch legs to include whatever this is here. It is a table, though, isn’t it?
Because it has the characteristics of a table. It has tableness. That’s not actually saying very much, of course. Which part of it has tableness, you might ask? Right.
But anything which exists has characteristics, has a nature. In essence, meaning that it that there is I guess, it has identifiable characteristics. Essence. Essence. On the grosser level, we can say substance.
Impermanent things have substance. Permanent things have essence as well as impermanent things. In Tibetan, this term essence is rangzhin. But it it’s really the object itself. This the object like, this is this rosary can be said to have an essence.
It has a sort of a you know, there’s something something there in the and we have to be careful what we say here. It does have an identity. It has this has a function, but even permanent things have essence. Yep. Sorry?
What’s the? Means self. Means rangshin. Means that can have a meaning of like or similar to when it’s, you know, it’s separated from rang. But here, it’s talking about the object itself, you know, what makes up the object, What the existent what?
We have to be careful here because we don’t wanna imply that it’s truly existent. But there is when something exists, there is an it does have a type of substance if it’s impermanent. If right? If we just take impermanent things to begin with, like this mala has a type of substance, doesn’t it? Would anyone say there’s substance there?
It’s where we see something. Yeah. Is there a substance of the mala or of the rosary? There is a substance, isn’t it? What is that substance?
It’s really wood, isn’t it? Wood and a bit of string. Yeah. It exists because we impute it there. True.
But here with without going to the Prāsaṇgika school, here we’re dealing more with the Sūtra school, which does in fact assert this to be truly existent. But both schools assert their substance, that it is substance. But even being substance and even being a type of essence, both would assert that it is a type of essence. It’s not established by that essence for the prasangika. It’s not established by that substance for the prasangika.
In the in the definition of it, all you’re really doing is since this is not a negation to begin with, is it? This is not it’s what’s called an affirmer because there’s no need to negate anything in order to comprehend it or directly negate anything in order to comprehend it. In fact, in order to comprehend the rosary, we just need to comprehend its definition, what it means. And it what’s the definition of a rosary? It’s really beads on a string, isn’t it?
What is a rosary? It’s beads threaded on a string. If we put enough of them together, have a rosary. Don’t know if there’s a minimum number even. Maybe even one would now one’s probably not sufficient for a rosary.
Two or more. You you say you don’t have to negate anything. You don’t have to negate anything to see the Oh, yeah. But the rosary itself is an affirmer. It’s yeah.
It’s we can see it. It’s it has, in a sense, like, positive characteristics, like woods and, you know, other types of substance which are, you know, common commonly understood. And its definition, like, if we gave the definition as, you know, three or more beads strung on a string, then that’s easy to comprehend, and we would be able to identify a mala wherever we saw it by that definition. We don’t have to, in a sense, negate what it isn’t in order to define it. In fact, if we try to do it that way, it might be a very long process of getting down to what the mala is.
But Well, even in the learning stage, often what happens is that our mother would just give it that’s a that’s a mala. And so we’d, you know, pick it up and say mala or whatever. And then we begin to work out, oh, okay. You know, it’s you know, we got things on it we can push up and down. We might have trouble in the beginning thinking it was an abacus or or something else, but necklace or but the mala has characteristics.
It has an identity. It has an essence. It has a substance. Right. Even selflessness has a type of essence, it is said, this rangshin.
Anything which exists has essence, which in a way is its identity. A lot of time is also spent on working out the identity of things, what their nature is, what their essence is, in order to be able to identify them. Because if we can’t understand relative objects, it’s gonna be difficult for us to understand ultimate objects. Selflessness, how do you mean conceptually? It’s understood conceptually.
Initially, it’s understood conceptually. Yep. Yep. Oh, it’s it’s well, what is its identity? It’s a non affirming negation of a self.
So its essence, really, there is a non affirming negation. It’s the negation of something, which doesn’t affirm anything in its place. That’s its essence. That essence exists. Yeah.
That we can say has a type of essence. Vanilla has an essence as well. That’s a good example, actually. Right. So here, the author is what the author is doing here is just presenting some just essential points or major points that the Sautrāntika school actually assert.
And so he’s he’s bringing up, you know, a number of debates. Now another one under that, the next one is, it follows selflessness of the person is comprehended by clear manifest means by omniscience. Why? Because selflessness of the person is perceptually comprehended by omniscience. Because omniscience perceptually comprehend selflessness of the person.
We say no pervasion. Okay. So this is a particular convention that the Sautrāntika hold or accept by default, we could say, because of their very particular view they have regarding objects and object possessors. In other words, it’s saying that even if omniscience perceptually comprehends selflessness of the person, it doesn’t mean to say that the selflessness of the person is perceptually comprehended by omniscience. Is that okay?
Okay. Even though okay. This next debate, the essential point that we should write down, if we have a pen, paper, is that even though omniscience perceptually comprehends selflessness of the person, it is not pervasive that selflessness of the person is perceptually comprehended by omniscience. Sorry, I’ll say it again. It isn’t even though omniscience perceptually comprehend selflessness of the person, it is not pervasive that selflessness of the person is perceptually comprehended by omniscience.
No, it’s not saying the other way around. Omniscience perceptually comprehend selflessness, but selflessness is not perceptually comprehended by omniscience. Very good point. What is the difference? Absolutely.
It would seem absurd that there’s any difference between those two. Good point. This comes about because of the specific assertions of the Sūtra school, that’s all. It’s not something anyway that we need to be too concerned about. It might not.
It probably won’t be in the test anyway. Yeah. We’re getting ready for a test, aren’t we? Coming. Right.
This particular statement comes about because of the debates that occurred earlier. Anyway, we we can just take note of that and put it to one side for the present. We will come up with that point again later, okay? Right, now we’ll move on to another topic. Now, again, the author is examining the difference between objects and object possessors, and how we differentiate objects and object possessors.
How do we differentiate them? Right? That’s why this is brought up. They’re not objects and object possessors are not exclusive, are they? There’s something that can be both, isn’t there?
What’s an example of something which is an object and an object possessor? Sorry? We are. We are. Yeah.
We can say we’re an object possessor and an object. Okay. A word is an object and an object possessor. Very well, an expressive sound. Yes.
A word. Yes. That’ll No. Here, there’s I’m just looking at mine here. Yeah.
Yeah. This possessing object has a this possessing has a certain meaning that Well, just as like, our eye awareness can be said to possess the objects that it’s observing. Right? In a sense, it possesses those objects. But this is a type of possession that the object possessor has, that other things like form don’t have, even though things exist in a cup or whatever.
And we may say that they possess that water that’s in a cup or whatever. This is not the term the sense of possess that we mean here. There is, and that’s coming up. Okay. We can go to that.
Concept. Conception. Yeah. Yeah. Conception is an object and an object possessor.
Absolutely. Okay. On page number eleven again, at the very top of the page, a phenomenon not right at the very top, but like the third line down. A phenomenon possessing any type an object of any type is the definition of an object possessor. Here here, it’s meaning engaging an object.
Almost holding an object also we can say. Like our awareness holds an object. Our words hold objects. Sorry? If I say elephant, right, that word actually carries the meaning of elephant.
Instantly that we hear the word, we have a sorry? Yes. But even if there’s one person in the universe that under understands that, then it becomes an object possessor. It only takes one instance because it engages an object. The word elephant actually engages elephant.
If we say snake, there’s a snake on the floor. The word snake actually engages snake, doesn’t it? In a sense, when you say it holds snake, it possesses snake. So it’s an object possessor. The thought of the snake engages the snake, holds the snake.
We can say it’s an object possessor of snake. Right. Okay. So there’s objects and object possessors. And in general, there’s three types of object possessors.
There’s awareness, expressive sound, and persons. We ourselves are an object possessor because we engage objects, we hold objects. Don’t we? If our eye awareness sees something, we see it. True?
We don’t see it separately from our eye awareness, do we? But is it correct to say that we see it even though we’re not eye awareness? Is that okay? Sorry?