Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 45-minute teaching, Ven Jampa Ignyen unpacks the Sūtra School’s definition of valid awareness—new, non-deceptive, and cognizing—from Purchok Rinpoche’s system. He explains why each component matters: newness excludes subsequent awareness; non-deceptiveness distinguishes valid awareness from correct belief (which hasn’t yet penetrated its object); cognition excludes physical sense powers. The session then methodically classifies perception into four types—sense, mental, self, and yogic—focusing on sense perception’s five subtypes (form, sound, aroma, flavor, touch), each either valid, subsequent, or inattentive. For each, he identifies the two essential conditions: focal (the object itself) and empowering (the relevant sense power). Student questions throughout probe the boundary between perception and correct belief. Pitched at serious practitioners engaged in formal Buddhist epistemological study.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 13 M and C 2001 06 05.mp3
UUID: 33bace47-1478-4332-8d2f-867425b01ffd
Teacher: Ven Jampa Ignyen
Collection: Mind and Cognition 2001 Month 04-06 (Ven Jampa Ignyen)
Date: 2001-06-05
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 44.7 minutes
Words: ~4,599
So here, we’re dealing with Lorig, this text, on the nature of awareness itself. And the text is divided as it’s called, an explanation of objects, object possessors, cognition. So we’ve covered this first section on objects pretty much. And then the second part is object possessors. And there for object possessors, there are three types, and these are given on page number eleven.
And there’s a definition of an object possessor is a phenomenon possessing an object of any type. So that’s quite a broad definition. Anything which has an object is an object possessor. And if classified, there are three, person, discernment or awareness, and expressive sound. So this we’ve discussed before.
But the central object possessor that we’re going to be talking about is discernment itself or awareness. But prior to that, a definition is given of those firstly of person who is an object possessor. We as sentient beings, meaning person, are in fact object possessors. We engage objects. Now the definition of a a person is a being imputed in dependence on any of the five aggregates.
So that definition holds universally. Here, a person in Tibetan, the term is gangzag, and here refers to really any being in the universe. Ordinary beings, sentient beings, plus Buddhas are persons. Persons include humans, animals, insects, hungry ghosts, hell beings, gods, demigods, and so forth, demi-gods, and so on. Buddhas, all of these are persons.
So we’re using person here in a very broad sense, including both Buddhas and non Buddhas. So self and then after that, says self, I, person, being are equivalent. So those four terms are completely interchangeable. If one’s mentioned, the other three can be substituted. So self, I, person, being do exist.
But that I mentioned there, of course, is the mere I from a higher school point of view. But those four are equivalent. And then after that, it says, its instances are beings based in each of the three realms or in any of the three realms. So the three realms are the desire realm, our current abode is the desire realm, then the form realm, and the formless realm. So any beings of those three realms, are an instance of a person.
And since a person is an object possessor, they conform with that definition of object possessor. So persons are phenomena possessing an object of any type. So how do we possess an object? We possess objects because we engage objects. Our awareness engages objects.
We comprehend things. Right. Now the second type of object possessor there, is there any is that okay? Is there any yep. Even though form is not present, because the definition of a person is a being imputed in dependence on any of its five aggregates, it’s imputed as a being in dependence on four aggregates in that case.
Yep. Because a formless realm being doesn’t have the aggregate of form. In fact, there can be formless realm beings in the space right where we are. Because it said that when a formless realm when a being dies and enters the formless realm, they have no intermediate existence. They enter the formless realm wherever they die.
So we wouldn’t notice such a being even if we came near one. Both. All the beings in the form and the formless realm are gods. In the desire realm, the six types of being exist. And in the desire realm, have hell beings, hungry ghosts, animals, humans, demigods, and gods.
And the six levels of god realm or god existence in the desire realm, and it’s within those six that we have Tuśita exists in the desire realm. True? There’s actually two Gandens. There’s the ordinary Ganden and the Ganden Yanchodzin, where Maitreya lives. Yanchodzin, which is the joy possessing, pleasant, joyous realm.
This is like something similar to that. Not quite the same, but potentially the same. Sorry? Next step. Yes.
Absolutely. So so there anyway, a being, wherever they exist in the universe, will conform to this definition. Any being is a being imputed in dependence on any of its five aggregates, and that’s the measure of being a person, I, being, and so forth, self. Right. Now we move on to discernment.
Now here we are in page number eleven of the text. I think it would be useful for us anyway to move on without completing all the debates in the previous section, but we can go back and cover those maybe a bit later. So I think everyone has persevered very well with those debates and thought them through. They will become easier. We’ll go through them a little bit again later, and I think they’ll be more accessible, more readily understandable.
Now the major part of this text is the next section, the section on discernment. Discernment is an object possessor because it’s really from discernment or awareness that object possesses are established. So for discernment, there is a definition and classification. So cognition or cognizing or even knowing is the definition of discernment, to cognize. Cognition is the definition of discernment.
Clear and cognition is the definition of awareness. So really discernment and awareness are really equivalent terms. And as it says, discernment, cognition and awareness are equivalent. Now there is a glossary at the back of this text so that we can check on the Tibetan terms for those. But in Tibetan, discernment here is being used for lo, as in the word Losang.
Everyone’s heard of the Tibetan name lo san? Lo. It’s that Lo. Losang means like a pure mind, pure awareness. So here, for Lo, we’re using discernment.
Cognition refers to rigpa. Awareness refers to shepa. So wherever these terms occur, they’re interchangeable. They’re completely equivalent. Sal.
G S A L. Sal. As in clear light, Ösel. Like Lama Ösel, Ösel means clear light. So the definition of awareness or is So anyway, clear in cognition.
So awareness does have this component of clarity. Every instance of awareness has this component of clarity. It’s the nature of awareness. It’s also the nature of awareness to know the object or to know something. So clear and cognizing, clear and cognition is the definition of awareness.
Right. Now there are many divisions of awareness. And in fact, if we look internally, we can see that awareness has many different aspects. So what we are attempting to do here is just to examine some of the major types of mind or awareness that exist. And so initially, discernment is classified into two, valid discernment and non valid discernment.
So if it is awareness, then it has to be one of those two types, nonvalid or valid. Right. So that’s quite straightforward. Now I think we just skip those debates as well and just move to page thirteen. So in this section here, Purchok Rinpoche is on the top of page thirteen.
He’s positing our system. So in fact, the text is generally made up of three parts. Refuting the systems of others, positing our system, and then eliminating any further dispute. So he has these three divisions when he is discussing a particular topic. First, he will bring up the ideas of others and then set about refuting what other people say on the topic.
And then he will posit his own system. And then, at the end, if there is any further dispute that arises, then he will eliminate that as well. Well, that’s of course is in theory. So here we’re just going to go straight to positing our system. So here, this is where Purchok sets down his own ideas about these topics.
Now, at the beginning of page thirteen he says, new non deceptive cognition is the definition of valid awareness. So, this we also should remember is the Sūtra School’s point of view. So something which is new and non deceptive and cognition, it has those three components, necessarily must be valid awareness. Must be new, must be non deceptive, must be cognition. Now, for these three components, there is a purpose.
So initially, there is need to state new and non deceptive and cognition because by stating new, then subsequent awareness is eliminated as being valid awareness. Subsequent awareness is what happens after new awareness. New awareness is awareness of the first moment. The first moment of any awareness is really new awareness. Do we ever have new awareness, or is it always old awareness?
When you see something for the first time, you’re new awareness. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. If the object is new, then the awareness viewing it is new.
Actually, from one point of view, everything everything that’s impermanent is always new. If it functions, it’s never existed before, newly generated, isn’t it? Every moment never existed before and is newly generated. It’s true, isn’t it? This moment never existed before, couldn’t have, because it could only have been the result of the moment previous to it, and so on.
So everything, every moment is completely new, never existed before. However, even though that is the case, some things we say are new and some things we say are not new. So the first moment of awareness we call new. The second moment of awareness we call subsequent. So therefore, by stating new here, subsequent awareness is eliminated as being valid awareness.
So in a sense, what valid here means is new. That initial that arises. By stating nondeceptive, correct belief is eliminated as being valid awareness. By stating cognition, the physical sense powers are eliminated as being valid awareness. So this definition has three components for three purposes.
Why state non deceptive? Why is correct belief in it? Because correct belief is deceptive. Even though it’s correct, it’s not. It’s correct, yes.
It’s said to be deceptive. It’s said to be deceptive because it hasn’t actually comprehended its object yet. It hasn’t detected its object. Although it’s right. Well, it’s a little bit like you know, we have a correct belief that in subtle impermanence.
Right? We We accept that this is subtly impermanent. It’s changing moment to moment. Completely new moment to moment. Right?
Do we actually comprehend it yet? We probably are still at the level of correct belief. We also have a correct belief that this is empty of true existence, don’t we? But we haven’t comprehended it yet, have we? So one is theory and one is direct knowledge.
Do you know what’s going on? Well, in a way we can say that one is a correct belief in relation to the object, still hasn’t detected the object, hasn’t broken through, the penny hasn’t dropped in other words. We believe it, but, you know, it still hasn’t, the penny hasn’t dropped yet. Hasn’t clicked. We still think, even though we accept that this is subtly impermanent, we still have an idea that this is fixed and sort of unchanging.
It hasn’t really changed from yesterday. It’s still pretty much what it was yesterday. We still have an idea that it’s fixed in in its nature. Even though we have a correct belief that it is impermanent, and they’re meaning subtly impermanent. Right.
So to that extent it’s said that correct belief is deceptive because it still hasn’t really detected the object itself, which is impermanence. Although it’s also said that correct belief is always new. Anyway, won’t go into that. So there’s three components to this definition, and this we should know because we need to know when we’ve got valid awareness or not. So this is the definition here of valid awareness.
New non deceptive cognition. Whenever we have that, we have valid awareness. Now especially here in the Sūtra school, they place a special importance on the first moment of awareness. Because it’s the first moment of correct understanding about something for them, which carries a special force that for the first time is breaking through to an understanding of the object, as in when the penny drops. And even though we’ve thought about that issue for a long time, suddenly we understand it.
And for this school, the sūtra school, that understanding carries a special force. Right? It breaks through, boldly goes when no other mind has gone before in our continuum. So therefore, it’s called valid awareness. Giving it the term valid awareness really just represents that, that it is a special type of awareness that’s broken through to the object.
And in relation to that, other types of awareness that follow and not even called valid awareness, they’re called non valid. Even though they’re comprehending the object, but because they just continue in the wake of that initial breakthrough, they’re not given the same significance as the first moment. So here we have valid awareness. New means first moment. First moment.
Each time. So for instance, when we wake up in the morning and we open our eyes, we have a first moment of eye awareness for the day, don’t we? Lights coming through. Or when we hear the alarm, we have a first moment of ear awareness. Yeah, but that comes through your fifty percent.
Exactly. That is valid. Because okay. What are the physical sense powers? I?
Right. Is this the physical sense power? No. What’s the physical sense power? No?
No. The sense power. Sorry? The hearing. No.
No, it’s not consciousness. Ear It’s getting close to that. It’s not ear perception, no. The ear sense power is the subtle form that’s really at the interface between the sound and the awareness, that enables the awareness to access the sound. That ear sense power is subtle form, not something we can see.
Also in the eye, it’s said that we have an eye sense power, which is this clear subtle form, matter, that enables us to see. The sense powers are all physical. Eye sense power, ear sense power, nose sense power, tongue sense power, body sense power. They’re physical. They’re matter.
They’re established by particles, physical particles. There’s also a mental sense power. That’s awareness. But So could it be acquaintance, the nervous system? It could be.
Yes. Even probably those areas of the brain that are active in processing sound could also be it’s possible that they’re, you know, like a part of the apparatus of the eye sense power, the ear sense power. Some there’s some justification for that. In the eyes and so forth. Yeah.
Here I think it’s Yeah. It’s really certainly connected with the nervous system, the physical nervous system. And this subtle capacity to process those images. But the eye sense power is a physical entity. Why this is stated here is that some Vaibhāṣika or great exposition schools assert that even the eye sense power is valid awareness.
So therefore, cognition is included in the definition to eliminate the eye sense powers, ear sense powers and so forth, all the sense powers. So, therefore, the definition for the Sūtra School of Valid Awareness is new, non deceptive cognition. And when we have that, then we have valid awareness. A correct belief is not valid awareness. That’s right.
So you’re obviously not having correct belief at When you have valid awareness. Or it’s possible to have valid sense awareness and a correct belief existing at the same time. Well, the eye sense awareness, the eye eye awareness can be valid. But the mental awareness may be a correct belief at that time and that’s not valid awareness. Non valid awareness at the same time.
Well, that’s obviously the case at present. You know, we have eye awareness that’s valid, don’t we? First moment. We also have ignorance which is not valid. That ignorance exists within our mental continuum at the same time, doesn’t it?
It’s not as if, you know, we open our eyes and when we’re comprehending things, there’s no ignorance in our continuum. But then as soon as we close our eyes, oh, there’s the ignorance suddenly arose. You have many types of awareness that even coexist. Right. So there’s That’s the definition of valid awareness.
New non deceptive cognition. And if classified, there are two, valid perception and valid inference. So there’s only two types of valid awareness. Valid perception. So, valid perception is any is really talking about non conceptual, non mistaken awareness.
And then also we have valid inference. So inference here is talking about valid conception. So really, all we have is valid perception, valid conception. That’s quite easy. Each definition and instance is explained below.
So non mistaken cognition free of conception, new. No. It’s just non mistaken cognition free of conception is the definition of perceptual discernment or we could say perception there. So perception itself, what the author here means by perception is non mistaken cognition free of conception. What non mistaken refers to is some is the type of awareness that’s not mistaken to its appearing object.
Anyway, this will become a little bit clearer later on. What’s an example of an appearing object? Right. For the Sūtra School, what do they say about appearing objects? Sorry?
They’re impermanent. Well, if it exists, it’s an appearing object, isn’t it? If it exists, whether it’s permanent or impermanent, it’s an appearing object. True? Appearing objects of perception and what are equivalent?
Impermanent. Impermanent. Right. Impermanent and the appearing object of perception are equivalent. Anything which is impermanent is the appearing object of perception.
What’s an example of perception? Sorry? Non mistaken eye awareness actually we have to give here. Non mistaken eye awareness. We do have mistaken types of eye awareness, don’t we?
Mirage. Right. If we look at a mirage and we think that, well, we’re holding we think we’re holding the color of water there, then that’s said to be a mistake in eye awareness. Okay. So non mistaken cognition free of conception.
So also that has three parts. Non mistaken, cognition. So non mistaken is okay. Non mistaken means not mistaken to its appearing object. Cognition, okay.
So it’s awareness. Free of conception means that it’s not using a generic image. It’s not accessing a generic image. So that’s obvious. If it’s perception, it’s not accessing a generic image in order to comprehend its object or to hold its object.
Now, if perceptual discernment or perception is classified, there are four types, only four types. Here we should note that we’re not talking about valid perception just yet. The author has gone back to a more general discussion on just perception first. Okay. So perception is classified, there are four types.
Sense perception, mental perception, self perception and yogic perception. Only four types. So sense perception is quite straightforward. Mental perception, not so easy. Self perception, a little bit subtler as well.
Yogic perception, the subtlest of the four. What we’re most familiar with there is sense perception. So sense perception has two, definition and classification. So firstly, the definition of sense perception. Non mistaken cognition free of conception, so that’s the definition of perception itself, which is generated in dependence on a physical sense power as its specific empowering condition is the definition of sense perception.
So the first part of the definition is okay, isn’t it? Non mistaken cognition, free of conception. Now it has generated in dependence on a physical sense power as its specific empowering condition. So here we are talking about an empowering condition. In general, are four types of condition that are set out.
There’s causal condition, empowering condition, immediate condition, and focal condition. But we’ll go into these a bit later. At present, the empowering condition here, the specific empowering condition, is referring to the eye sense power itself. So it’s just any type of perception that’s generated really in dependence on the eye sense power or any of the other sense powers, the other five physical sense powers is sense perception. That’s sufficient as a complete description of sense perception.
Those elements are all that are needed to fully describe what sense perception is. Any problem with that definition? It’s quite straightforward, isn’t it? So our current eye awareness is an example of sense perception. And if classified, there are three.
Valid sense perception, subsequent sense perception, and inattentive sense perception. All of these three has everyone got that section? Right. So valid sense perception, for example, the first moment of sense perception holding form. So the first moment of sense perception holding form is like the first moment of eye awareness holding form.
The first moment of eye awareness, holding form. First moment of nose awareness, holding form. These are all valid sense perceptions, aren’t they? No problem with that? But here, for it to be valid, it must be the first moment for the sūtra school.
Then we have subsequent sense perception. This is straightforward. For example, the second moment of sense perception holding form. So the first moment is valid, the second moment is not. The third moment is not, the fourth moment is not, etcetera.
So at present, you know, we have eye awareness that maybe the twentieth moment or the fiftieth moment of eye awareness, the one billionth moment of eye awareness. It’s a bit like how long is a piece of string if It can be small or it can be quite large. There there’s two major types of moment that are defined. One’s called the called the Chatsog chikma and the other one is called the Duta chikma. The first one is Chatsog, you could call it a complete action moment.
The time taken to complete an action is called a complete action moment. That could be quite long, but it’s the time required for a particular process to be completed. The other type of moment is the duta chikma, which is the time limit moment or the moment at the limit of time itself, which is an extremely short period. In fact, there’s no limit to how short it could be. So here, from the lower school’s point of view, they talk about a moment as also being like the sixty fifth one sixty fifth of a finger snap.
Like, is the time taken for valid awareness to be generated? It’s a short period. It doesn’t take long for us to comprehend something in which It’s a good question. A good question. I’m not sure.
In the Theravāda, they talk about, I think about one twentieth of a second or anyway, just how these periods came up is in a sense, it doesn’t really matter because from the higher school point of view, there is no limit. Because everything has parts. So time always has parts. So no matter how short we get, that short moment also has parts and they have parts. Right.
Now, inattentive sense perception. The third type of sense perception that There’s only these three types of sense perception. Valid sense perception, subsequent sense perception, and then inattentive sense perception. For example, sense perception holding form in the continuum of a being attracted to pleasing sound. So we’re sitting there reading a book, and something comes on the radio, something that’s a pleasant sound, I don’t know, whatever that may be.
We’re sitting there, we’re looking at the book but we’re not actually doing very much with our eye awareness. We’re distracted to the sound. So that is inattentive sense perception, inattentive eye perception. Isn’t it? In Tibetan, the term is The object appears, but it’s not ascertained, not determined by awareness.
So even though we’re sitting there, we’re looking at the book, and the words are appearing to eye awareness, eye awareness is not actually registering what’s there. So that’s inattentive eye awareness. And that’s regarded as a type of perception. Inattentive perception. We’ve probably experienced this from time to time.
Now again, if sense perception is classified, there are five types. Sense perception holding form, sense perception holding sound, sense perception holding aroma, sense perception holding flavor, sense perception holding tactility or texture, touch object. So there’s those five types of sense perception, just those five types. So here we’re talking about the first of the four division of perception, which is sense perception. There’s only five types, which correspond to the five physical sense bases.
So for each, for the eye, the ear, the nose, the tongue and the body, have five types of perception. And each of those five can either be valid, subsequent, or inattentive. So we have fifteen types. Right. Now then, the author goes into some further definitions at the bottom of the page.
Non mistaken cognition free of conception, which is the general description of perception, which is generated in dependence on form as its focal condition, as form as its focal condition. Right? And the eye’s sense power as its specific empowering condition is the definition of sense perception holding form. Here we are talking about invisible form, color and shape. So that’s the definition of sense perception holding form.
And there are two types of condition I mentioned, the focal condition and empowering condition. The focal condition is talking about the object itself. So when it Firstly, we talk about perception itself and the specific type of perception, which arises in dependence on its focal object or the object it’s focusing upon the form and the eye sense power as its empowering condition. So when those two conditions come together with perception, then we have perception, sense perception holding form. And then the second definition, non mistaken cognition free of conception, which is generated in dependence on sound as its focal condition and the ear sense power as its specific empowering condition is the definition of sense perception holding sound.
So when we have ear awareness holding sound, ear perception holding sound, then we have the two conditions: the focal condition, which is the sound itself, and we have the empowering condition, which is the ear sense power, this subtle form within the ear. That along with perception itself, when they come together, we have ear perception or sense perception holding sound. And the other definitions are similar to this. Right. So that completes a brief description of sense perception, the first of the four types.
Are there any questions with that? Holding sound lower than when? There’s three types. Yes. So it could be either of those three types.
Is that okay? If it’s an ear perception holding sound, it could be either valid, subsequent, or inattentive. No other possibility exists. True? This is according to Purchok here.
Right now, on page fourteen, mental perception has two, definition and classification. So mental perception also is a type of perception that we have. So non mistaken, non conceptual, other-cognizing awareness, which is generated in dependence on the mental sense power as its specific empowering condition is the definition of mental perception. Right. So here it’s non mistaken.
Perception must be non mistaken for Purchok. Right? This is a point that will come up. If we have eye awareness focused holding the color of water in a mirage to be water, that’s not perception because it’s mistaken. If it’s mistaken, it can’t be perception.
Okay? No? We’re gonna have mistaken sense awareness, can’t we? True? That’s mistaken eye awareness.
Yep. This will become clearer later. But, yeah, this point is perhaps useful to go over a few times because it’s the specific presentation of Purchok. Right. So in the definition, we have non mistaken, non conceptual because it is perception, other cognizing