Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 28-minute teaching, Ven Jampa Ignyen systematically unpacks four types of perception that form the foundation of Buddhist epistemology—building from mental perception (how awareness engages external objects) through self-perception to the supremacy of yogic perception. His distinctive move is anchoring abstract definition to lived experience: he grounds the necessity of self-perception in the principle of memory (we can only remember what we comprehend), and shows why yogic perception matters by establishing it as the path to liberation itself. Throughout, he engages student questions, clarifying how these categories apply beyond the meditation cushion. Pitched at serious practitioners engaging with classical Buddhist philosophy.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 14 M and C 2001 06 05.mp3
UUID: f13687fe-996c-41ae-b9b5-88d839aea3f4
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: 28.2 minutes
Words: ~2,941
Cognizing, meaning, cognizing externally. It’s not cognizing awareness, in other words. It’s cognizing objects distinct from itself. In other words, external objects. And it’s generated in dependence on the mental power, sense power, as its specific empowering condition.
So also the mental perception has an empowering condition. Mental perception is not generated in dependence on the senses, on the physical sense powers. Can you give an example of the mental perception? An example of the mental perception is, for instance, the awareness of the minds of other beings. We do.
Yes. But not that probably not that type. So what kind of talk that we have? We have an inattentive type mental perception. It said that it occurs sorry?
Focus on what? It said that at the end of each sense perception that arises, we have one moment of mental perception focused on that physical form. And then it does. Yeah. It only lasts for a moment.
And because it lasts for a moment and we haven’t comprehended impermanence, we’re inattentive to it. It’s subliminal, in other words. Right. Now if classified, there are three types, valid mental perception, subsequent mental perception, and inattentive mental perception. So those three that were formally given again.
So valid mental perception is, for example, the first moment of higher perception aware of others’ minds. So if one has the ability to read the minds of others, this is a type of mental perception. It’s non conceptual. And the first moment of that is valid mental perception. Subsequent mental perception is, for example, the second moment of higher perception aware of others’ minds.
How is it possible? Oh, a method for generating it? Well, that’s well done. Or what’s going on there? Oh, well, it’s Yes.
Reading the thoughts of others. Oh, thoughts are just awareness, aren’t they? Well, you could say something like that, but it’s nonphysical, isn’t it? Yeah. It’s completely nonphysical.
But it’s generated in various ways, various methods. For instance, if one is born as a divine being, one often is as a what? As one of the perks of being born in in a divine realm, you have the ability to read the minds of others and so forth. It’s part of the karma of being born in that state. Otherwise, it’s also said that it’s possible through ingesting certain types of medicine.
Maybe in the west, we have their own particular types and or through reciting mantras and so on. Or the the central method is through developing Samādhi, single pointed concentration. All of the higher perceptions in the five eyes, the six types of higher perception and the five eyes are really centrally developed through developing calm abiding. And then using that, then that becomes the empowering condition for generating higher perception. Oh, you’d have both.
The the higher perception that’s reading those thoughts is perception, but you may think about it, the meaning of those thoughts and so on. And that would be conceptual. Well, like an open book or Don’t think so. No. That’s that’s actually an oracle.
That’s a different process. That’s where a deity actually inhabits the body of the the Kutten. Yeah. And then Are you, yeah, be that mutual on that that whole Oh, It’s probably more a connection with the deity. Yep.
I know the monk who’s the current oracle. And he was just a boy when I first met him. And when the previous oracle died, he took over due to certain signs that appeared. That’s not a really uncommon oracle. You don’t see No.
No. It’s a monk, actually, from that monastery, Necheng Monastery. Yeah. But that’s a different process. Yeah.
Right. So we have subsequent mental perception. And then we have inattentive mental perception. Okay? So inattentive mental perception is, for instance, mental perception holding sound in a continuum of a being attracted to pleasing form.
Here it’s given that example, but even mental perception holding form in a continuum of a being who has not comprehended impermanence would also be suitable there as an example. Okay. So there are three types of mental perception that can exist. Now the third type here is self perception, and it has two types, definition and classification. So now the definition of self perception.
Awareness taking a subject as its aspect is the definition of self cognition. In brief, the definition in Tibetan is just zin rnam, which means subject aspect. So here’s a type of awareness which is taking awareness itself as its object. So subject then means awareness. So something which is taking awareness as its aspect is self perception.
Is that okay? So in general, we have awareness. Like our sense awareness is viewing external objects. Mental perception also is viewing external objects. But from the sūtra school’s point of view, we have another type of awareness which is just taking awareness itself as its object.
And therefore, the definition is given as subject aspect or awareness taking a subject as its aspect. Is this meant to be occurring continuously? Yes. Yep. So then we have a longer definition, which may help a little bit in understanding this.
Non mistaken awareness, free of conception, taking a subject as its aspect is the definition of self perception as distinct from self cognition. Okay. So this is termed self perception. Not that it’s actually looking at itself, but it’s actually looking inwardly instead of outwardly. And as believing yourself.
No. Leading the notion of self? No. Not it doesn’t mean self in that way. It really means looking internally.
We could even say internal perception because it’s perception is focused inward on awareness itself. And so self, that doesn’t mean the person. Is that okay? And, again, there’s three types. Valid self perception, for example, the first moment of self perception experiencing eye awareness.
So the first moment of self perception for instance, if we have eye awareness, we’re looking at something. Self perception is looking at the eye awareness, and the eye awareness is looking at an object, an external object. Okay? So that’s an example. The first moment of self perception, experiencing eye awareness.
Subsequent self perception, for example, the second moment of self perception, experiencing eye awareness. So that’s okay, isn’t it? Inattentive self perception. For example, self perception experiencing bliss awareness in the continuum of an enumerator. Self perception experiencing bliss awareness in the continuum of a specifier, or self perception experiencing valid inference in the continuum of a materialist.
That should be self explanatory. Sorry? Okay. We’ll explain one of these, the last one. Self perception experiencing valid inference in the continuum of a materialist.
Here, materialist means in Tibetan or a. Means someone that’s gone a long way from how things actually are, which is what a materialist is, actually. In ancient India, there were a group that were called Cārvākas, or Dura, those whose views are really quite distant, who held very materialistic views. And their views were that all that we could ever come to know about the world is what we receive through our senses. It’s an extreme materialistic position.
And we can’t really ask questions about why things are like they are or how they are. For instance, we can’t question why, you know, atoms are, you know, compounded together to form molecules and then they build up. They accumulate together and establish gross form and so on. Matter is just how it is and it cannot be explained. So for them, inference or valid conception is not possible.
For them, conception cannot be a valid form of comprehending or acquiring knowledge. However, even for them, states of valid inference can occur. But because they don’t accept the existence of valid inference, they are by view inattentive to states of valid inference that may occur within their mental continuum. Therefore, their self perception focused on instances of valid inference is inattentive. Does that make sense?
God conception. That’s right. Anyway, we won’t no need to go into this example. We can come back to it later anyway. No.
No. Cārvākas did exist in India. It means Charvaka, not Śrāvaka. Shravakas are Buddhist followers of the lower schools. Yeah.
Right. So we have these three types of self perception. Does everyone accept we have self perception? That’s probably one or two schools that actually from the higher school’s point of view, we don’t have self perception. But self perception, one of the main reasons reasons for asserting it is to establish memory, how we remember anything, especially about how we remember past experience, which is awareness.
Because it’s established that unless we comprehend something in a to begin with, we cannot remember it later. So the assumption here is that unless we comprehend like feeling initially, we can’t remember a feeling later. Right? We can remember how we felt yesterday, can’t we? We can remember how we felt a year ago, maybe.
We can, can’t we? It’s true, isn’t it? So their assumption here is that unless we first comprehend that feeling, we can’t later remember it. So there must be a state of awareness within our mental continuum that’s actually comprehending awareness when it arises for us to be able to remember it later. Potentially, even a baby we can remember things even at the time of a baby because comprehension, valid awareness does arise through that time.
No. That’s right. Yeah. So that that’s a different sort of memory. That has nothing to do with comprehension of the world.
No. Not the same. Same thing. Same process. Things we remember are the things that we made sense of.
Oh, we comprehended. The only thing that we can remember later is what we comprehended before. What we don’t comprehend, we can’t remember. What we do remember is what we’ve comprehended. I know.
I’m happy. Can comprehend that we didn’t comprehend something that we comprehended. Like, right, we might remember a conversation, and we wonder what’s the meaning of that. And we can even remember the conversation later and play it back thinking. But there, we’ve comprehended the words that made up the conversation.
Don’t really comprehend it happening, but or or we might not even believe your eyes that you remember it. Well, you remember what you actually to the extent that you comprehend it. Like, if it was something physical, you might remember the color and shape of it or or, you know, what was the physical actions that occurred and so forth. You might not remember the meaning of something, you remember, you know, the words or the the symbols that existed there. That’s possible.
That’s exactly it. That’s right. Because brighter kids tend to comprehend more. Therefore, they remember more. But it’s also an element of the amount of attention that children are able to give, their concentration, whether they have a broader span of concentration or not.
Yeah. And being able to concentrate on something make means that we’re going to have much better chance of comprehending it. The longer we’re able to concentrate on something, the more chance we can of breaking through the meaning of it. The shorter our concentration span, the the less possibility there is of comprehending. So here, anyway, the reason for asserting self perception is to explain memory.
How are we doing for time? I don’t know if my clock is right. Eight twenty Eight twenty five. Okay. We’ll do a little bit more.
We’ll see if we can finish. Right. Now the next one, the fourth one here is yogic perception. Yogic perception has two definition and classification. Now the definition of yogic perception, non mistaken as before, other cognizing, meaning not cognizing awareness itself, pristine awareness, or that is awareness within the continuum of the being with that yogic perception.
So Non-mistaken, other cognizing pristine awareness. Pristine awareness, therefore, refers to the path. Pristine awareness here refers to path itself, meaning the path leading to liberation. Free of conception. Okay.
So those four aspects are important. In the continuum of an aria, so here, not an ordinary being, but an ārya being, one who’s either on the aria path of the lesser vehicle or the greater vehicle, which is generated in dependence on concentration, which is the union of calm abiding and special insight, as its specific empowering condition is the definition of yogic perception. So it’s perception which has which is pristine awareness, meaning it is the path, in a continuum of an ārya. So it only exists in a continuum of an ārya and is generated in dependence on its specific empowering condition, which is concentration, which is the union of calm abiding and insight. So that’s yogic perception.
So for it to be yogic perception, then it must be qualified by the all those parts of the definition. We can check to see if we’ve got yogic perception. Probably not. We at least need to be an Ārya. Does that mean if somebody can’t be a yogi, it means they have no yogic perception?
No. No. No. But this particular type of awareness is called yogic perception. Yoga here means to unite.
So really here, perception united with the ultimate mode of abidance, self lessness. So it’s called the yogic perception. Yoga, yoga means to join together, doesn’t it? Like the English word yoke. Yoke is comes from the we could say or is related to the Sanskrit word yoga.
And a yoke unites the ox with the plow. Here, this yoga here unites the ultimate mode of abiding selflessness with perception. So yogic perception. And, again, there are it’s divided up. But here, it’s only divided in two because there’s no inattentive yogic perception.
So it has valid yogic perception and subsequent. There is no inattentive discernment, which is yogic perception because yogic perception necessarily determines its assessed object. Here, the assessed object means the referent object, the engaged object. Right? And, basically, we just have two types of object, either the appearing object or the engaged object.
So yogic perception necessarily determines its referent object or the object that it’s trying to comprehend. In other words, it necessarily ascertains or comprehends its object. In a way, it wouldn’t be much good to us if it didn’t do that. And as Pramanavartika Pramanavartika is the text composed by Dharmakīrti, the great master Dharmakīrti in maybe the eighth century AD, seventh or eighth century, who stated those with great great intelligence determine all aspects just by seeing them. So here, it’s this is the quality of yogic perception.
Great intelligence here referring to yogic perception determines everything about the nature of its object just by viewing that object. So it means that that yogi perception is always comprehending its object. It’s a great type of awareness. As one monk in Sera used to say, Ace. Ace.
Whenever something was really good, one. So this awareness here is the supreme type of perception. Going down, we had sense perception, mental perception, self perception, then yogic perception. So of all the types of perception we really should aspire for, this last one, yogic perception, is the most important. It’s all they will aspire, but you have to create causes as well, don’t you?
Absolutely. So it doesn’t matter whether I sat on my cushion for, you know, ten hours a day, basically, until I wore myself out. It it would not necessarily happen in this lifetime. No. But in this lifetime, we can set forth the conditions for establishing it in future.
That’s right. We need to understand how it’s generated. We need to understand what yogic perception is. And then how we’re going to establish each of the parts of the each characteristic of yogic perception. Like, we can see here from this definition, it’s non mistaken, other cognizing pristine awareness.
Pristine here meaning it’s the path itself. It’s it is the path as in the truth of path, the fourth noble truth. It is the fourth noble truth. Free of conception. So therefore, it’s the best type of awareness.
And it has this specific empowering condition of calm abiding in insight. So these conditions we need to assemble. Other cognizing, meaning it’s not cognizing a state of awareness internally. It’s cognizing, say, external objects in general. It’s not self perception, in other words.
That’s put in there in order to eliminate this type of awareness being self perception. Right. We’ll just do this last bit at the bottom of page fourteen. Though subsequent yogic perception exists, the second moment of omniscient primordial awareness. Omniscient primordial awareness just means omniscience, the mind of a Buddha.
In general, omniscience is valid yogic perception. Okay? So the second moment of omniscience is not subsequent awareness because omniscient primordial awareness is necessarily valid awareness. So here the author is so the yogic perception in the continuum of a Buddha is a special case of yogic perception, where it doesn’t matter if it’s the first moment or the one millionth moment, it’s all valid awareness. For those bodhisattvas who are still on the paths, they can have subsequent yogic perception, but a Buddha doesn’t have that.
A Buddha’s yogic perception is all valid perception. And that’s because there’s a text called Namgyal Drakpa Selchi, which states, however one thinks about this, it does not follow that omniscient primordial awareness is necessarily new comprehension. Anyway, that’s a textual source for that. Is that okay? Is that okay.
We should have a break then and have a cup of tea. So we just do a a quick dedication.